CONOLLY, John (1794-1867), physician, studied medicine at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1821, He settled in practice at Chichester, whence he removed to Stratford-on-Avon. In 1827 he was appointed, when only thirty-three years of age, professor of practice of physic in University College, London. This chair he resigned after holding it four years. Subsequently he practised medicine in Warwick until 1839, in which year he was elected resident physician to the Middlesex County Asylum at Hanwell. It was in this capacity that Conolly made his name famous, by carrying out in its entirety and on a large scale the principle of non-restraint in the treatment of the insane.. This principle had been acted on in two small asylums—the Retreat near York, and the Lincoln Asylum; but it was due to the philanthropic energy of Conolly in sweeping away all mechanical restraint in the great metropolitan lunatic hospital, in tho face of strong opposition, that the principle became diffused over the whole kingdom, and accepted as fundamental. Dr Conolly was granted the degree of D.C.L. by the University of Oxford in 1851, in acknowledgment of these services. He died in 1867. See a memoir by Sir James Clark, Bart., published in 1869.