William Austin Gillow M.R.C.S. (7 May 1826 – 16 March 1899) was a British orthodox surgeon who converted to homeopathy. Gillow was a Member of The Hahnemann Publishing Society, Medical Officer at the Bristol and Clifton Homeopathic Dispensary, and Surgeon at the Torquay Homeopathic Dispensary. He was also a member of the Devonshire Association.

William Austin Gillow was born in Yealand Conyers, Lancashire, in May 1826. He was the youngest of fourteen children born to Richard Gillow (1772 – 1849) and Elizabeth Stapleton (1780 – 1848), and was the great grandson of Lancashire furniture maker Robert Gillow.

In 1842 Gillow matriculated into the University of London. He studied medicine at St. George’s Hospital, London, where in 1843-4 and 1844-5 he distinguished himself in the annual examinations. Gillow was admitted as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1848.

In July 1848, William Austin Gillow married Agnes Markland (1818 – 1890). Gillow later remarried Elizabeth Cuddon in 1894.

By 1850 Gillow was practicing in Bristol and resided at Pemberton Villa, in Clifton Park. While in Bristol, Gillow served as a physician at the Bristol and Clifton Homeopathic Dispensary that had been established in 1832. There he worked alongside fellow homeopaths Francis Black, William Henry Trotman, and Henry Wilkins.

Towards the end of the 1850s Gillow had relocated to The Mount, Torquay, and in 1865 was also listed at Stapleton, Shedden Road, Torquay. He was appointed as a Surgeon at the Torquay Homeopathic Dispensary, working alongside Physicians Charles Hills Mackintosh and James Smith Ayerst.

Gillow was an active participant in homeopathic professional circles. He was an early shareholding member of the Hahnemann Publishing Society. Gillow was present at the fourth Congress of Homeopathic Practitioners, held at the Albion Hotel in Manchester, in August 1853, and at the Annual Congress in Leamington on 9th and 10th August, 1854.

William Gillow submitted cases and articles to various homeopathic publications. He was also active in proving remedies, including Naja Tripudia, first introduced into the homeopathic repertory by John Rutherford Russell.

Outside of his medical work, Gillow energetically involved himself in a number of other concerns. In October, 1860, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the newly created 4th Torquay Corps of the Devonshire Artillery Volunteers. The following year, 1861, he invested as a stockholder in the South Eastern Railway Company, and in 1875 he founded, and served as senior director, of the Torquay Terracotta Company, located at Hele Cross.

In 1876, Gillow became a member of the Devonshire Association. He was also a member of the Cannes Branch of the Working Ladies Guild. In 1881, Gillow became a shareholder in a new joint stock venture to continue the publication of two newspapers, The Torquay Times and The Western Evening News.

Like many homeopaths of the time, Gillow also publicly opposed animal vivisection. In March, 1889, he presided over the Torquay branch meeting of the Victoria Street and International United Societies for the Abolition of Vivisection (later renamed the National Anti-Vivisection Society), of which he was an honorary member, held at Iredale’s Lecture Hall.

William Austin Gillow later moved to Westbourne Lodge, Christchurch Road, in Worthing, Sussex. He died there in March, 1899.