Sir William Burnett (1779–1861) had an active career as a Royal Navy surgeon in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, including service at the battles of St Vincent, the Nile and Trafalgar. From 1822 to 1855 he was professional head of the Royal Naval Medical Department, when he provided effective leadership in a time of great change. Although his official work earned him the reputation of a “hardworking, unimaginative, somewhat harsh man”, his correspondence shows a very humane centre under the official carapace. His official performance and reputation were both eroded towards the end of his career by his determined promotion of zinc chloride, for which he held lucrative patents.
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References
1.
The original and most detailed biography of Burnett is anonymous: Biographical sketch of Sir William Burnett. Lancet1850;ii:558–63. This has been used throughout. The following secondary sources have been consulted but are largely derived directly or indirectly from this source and are cited individually only where they provide additional information. Anonymous. The late Sir William Burnett. Lancet 1861;i:200–1. Bettany G. Sir William Burnett. In: StephenLLeeS, eds. Dictionary of National Biography. London; Smith, Elder & Co., 1886: vol. VIII, pp. 414–15. Jenkinson S. Sir William Burnett. Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service 1940;26:3–15. Munk W. Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London. London: Longmans, 1878: vol. III, pp. 307–8. Rolleston H. Sir William Burnett. Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service 1922;8:1–10.
2.
ClowesWLThe Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to 1900. London: Sampson Low, 1899, reprint Chatham, 1997: vol. IV, pp. 307–18. In this action, fought off Cape St Vincent on 14 February 1797, Sir John Jervis with 15 ships of the line engaged a Spanish fleet of 27 sail of the line under Don Jose de Cordoba, and captured four and severely damaged 10 without loss. Burnett's ship, the Goliath, sustained eight wounded.
3.
ClowesWL (The Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to 1900): vol. IV, pp. 355–73. In this action, fought on 1 August 1798, Sir Horatio Nelson with 14 sail of the line engaged a French fleet of 13 ships of the line and four heavy frigates under François, Comte de Brueys, at anchor in Aboukir Bay. All but four of the French ships were captured or destroyed without loss of any British ship. The Goliath sustained 21 killed and 41 wounded.
4.
ClowesWL (The Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to 1900): vol. V, pp. 110–18. In this action, fought to the west of Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805, Sir Robert Calder with 15 sail of the line intercepted a Franco-Spanish fleet of 20 sail of the line under Jean Villeneuve, and captured two without loss. In this largely inconclusive action, Burnett's ship, the Defiance, sustained one killed and seven wounded. At Trafalgar, three months later, she was much less fortunate and suffered 17 killed and 53 wounded.
5.
SeccombeT. Charles Philip Yorke. In: LeeS, ed. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1900: vol. LXIII, pp. 341–2. Charles Yorke (1764–1834) was First Lord of the Admiralty from 1810 to 1811 in the Perceval administration. He was elected FRS in 1801.
6.
LaughtonJKSir Charles Cotton. In: StephenL, ed. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1887: vol. XII, pp. 301–2. Charles Cotton (1753–1812) joined the navy in 1772 and rose to admiral in 1808. He succeeded Lord Collingwood as Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean fleet in 1810.
7.
Biographical sketch of Sir William Burnett (op. cit. ref. 1): p. 561.
8.
SaundersLCCharles Gordon-Lennox. In: LeeS, ed. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1893: vol. XXXIII, pp. 48–50. Charles Gordon-Lennox (1791–1860), fifth Duke of Richmond (1819–1860), was Postmaster General from 1830 to 1834 but otherwise an active cross-bench member of the House of Lords. He served on the Commission for Enquiring into Naval and Military Promotion and Retirement of 1838–41.
9.
McCannT. Personal communication.
10.
“A Subscriber”. Lancet1830–1;ii:703.
11.
PayneJF Sir Gilbert Blane. In: StephenL, ed. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1886: vol. V, pp. 202–4. Sir Gilbert Blane (1749–1834) was personal physician to Admiral Rodney in the West Indies from 1774 to 1783, where he greatly reduced the fleet's losses from disease. In 1780 he published On the Most Effective Means of Preserving the Health of Seamen and in 1795 joined the Sick and Hurt Board. A baronet and FRS he was physician in ordinary to George IV and William IV.
12.
National Maritime Museum, Log N/S 24: the Blane papers.
13.
RollestonH (op. cit. ref. 1): p. 5.
14.
LaughtonJKWilliam IV. In: LeeS, ed. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1900: vol. LXI, pp. 325–31. William Henry (1765–1837), Duke of Clarence (1789–1830), King William IV (1830–1837), joined the navy in 1778 and rose to admiral in 1811. From 1827 to 1828 he held the office of Lord High Admiral under Canning's unsuccessful reorganisation of the Admiralty.
15.
The late Sir William Burnett (op. cit. ref. 1): p. 201.
16.
Public Record Office, Kew, UK (hereafter PRO), ADM 1/3530: Burnett to Admiralty, 22 September 1832.
17.
LloydCCoulterJ. Medicine and the Navy. Edinburgh: Livingstone, 1963: vol. IV, p. 4.
18.
PRO, ADM 132/1: Physician General's Department, Register of In-letters, 1832.
19.
LaughtonJKMaurice Frederick Fitzhardinge Berkeley. In: StephenL, ed. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885: vol. IV, pp. 365–6. Maurice Berkeley (1788–1867) joined the navy in 1802 and became admiral in 1862. He was a Naval Lord of the Admiralty from 1833 to 1839 and from 1846 to 1847. As Senior Naval Lord he had to confront the manning difficulties at the start of the Russian war.
20.
PRO, ADM 105/70: Burnett to Berkeley, 15 March 1834.
21.
LloydCCoulterJ (op. cit. ref. 17).
22.
BurnettW. A Practical Account of the Mediterranean Fever … 1810–1813.London: Callow, 1816.
23.
BurnettW. Official Report on the Fever Which Appeared on Board H.M.S.Bann. London: Burgess and Hill, 1824.
24.
BurnettW. Account of a Contagious Fever. London, 1831. Cited by Jenkinson S (op. cit. ref. 1).
25.
BurnettW. Report on the Cholera in the Black Sea Fleet. London, 1855. Cited by LloydCCoulterJ (op. cit. ref. 17).
26.
BurnettW. Some account of the fever that appeared at Gibraltar in the month of October 1810. Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal1812;8:393–400.
27.
PRO, ADM 1/3530: Burnett to Auckland, 18 August 1834, enclosing “A report on the effects of mercurial vapours on the crew of H.M.S. Triumph” (paper submitted to the Royal Society).
28.
Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, UK (hereafter RNM), ADM Mss 242/1, ff. 154 and 197; 242/4, ff. 81–6, 103–4 and 105–6; 242/5, ff. 177–86: reports on the fevers on H.M.S. Éclair, Growler, Pantaloon, Pyramus and Rosamund.
29.
PRO, ADM 1/3532, f. 140: Burnett to Admiralty, 17 August 1838.
30.
RNM, ADM Mss 242/4, ff. 109–17: report on the fever on H.M.S. Éclair, 21 November 1845.
31.
PymW. Observations upon Bulam Vomito Negro or Yellow Fever …, Proving its Highly Contagious Powers. London: Churchill, 1848: pp. 170–228, 261–72.
32.
BurnettW (op. cit. ref. 26): p. 398.
33.
BrysonA. Report on the Climate and Principal Diseases of the African Station. London: Clowes, 1847: pp. 235–9.
34.
BurnettW. A notice addressed to the surgeons of the fleet by the Director General of the Naval Medical Department. Lancet1854;i:481.
35.
Whitaker's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage. London: Whitaker, 1909: p. 69. The Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order was founded in 1815 by the Prince Regent to commemorate the establishment of Hanover as a kingdom and was initially far more British than Hanoverian. It had its complete array of decorations, with the motto nec aspera terrant (“nor do difficulties dismay us”). The Order ceased to be conferred in Great Britain on the death of King William IV.
36.
KeevilJ. A McCormick RN, the stormy petrel of naval medicine. Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service1943;29:36.
37.
KeevilJ. Benjamin Bynoe (1804–1865). Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service1949;35:431.
38.
PRO, ADM 105/70, f. 229: Return to the House of Commons Select Committee on Medical Education, 6 March 1834.
39.
PRO, ADM 105/69: Burnett to Admiralty, 7 June 1832.
40.
PRO, ADM 1/3531, f. 107: Burnett to Admiralty, 22 May 1835.
41.
PRO, ADM 105/71, f. 430: Burnett to Collier, 4 July 1838.
42.
His Majesty's Order in Council of 28 January 1805, as copied in: Turnbull A. A history of the Royal Naval Medical Service (unpublished typescript at the Institute of Naval Medicine, Alverstoke, UK). This Order sought to impose higher entry standards and improve the pay and status of the Royal Navy's surgeons and assistant surgeons. It was in force, although not fully implemented, to the end of Burnett's career.
43.
LaughtonJKSir Thomas Masterman Hardy. In: StephenLLeeS, eds. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1890: vol. XXIV, pp. 359–61. Thomas Hardy (1769–1839) entered the navy in 1781 and became vice admiral in 1837. He served as Nelson's flag captain at Trafalgar and was First Sea Lord from 1830 to 1834.
44.
West Sussex Record Office, Chichester, UK (hereafter WSRO), Goodwood 1584, ff. 599–602: Burnett to Duke of Richmond, 18 July 1838.
45.
West Sussex Record Office, Chichester, UK (hereafter WSRO), Goodwood 1584, ff. 599–602: f. 615: Burnett to Duke of Richmond, 8 August 1838.
46.
Report of the Commissioners for Enquiring into Naval and Military Promotion and Retirement. London: Clowes for HMSO, 1840: p. 187.
47.
Figures derived from Murray's authorized Navy list, 1836–9.
48.
Report of the Commissioners for Enquiring into Naval and Military Promotion and Retirement (op. cit. ref. 46): p. 187.
49.
The Times, 2 December 1841.
50.
United Services Gazette, cited by The Times, 8 December 1841.
51.
ScottJ. Letter. Lancet1830–1;ii:732–3.
52.
”A Subscriber” (op. cit. ref. 10).
53.
WSRO, Goodwood 1718, f. 293: Burnett to Pierce, 23 October 1849.
54.
WSRO, Goodwood 1670, f. 389: Burnett to Pierce, 8 October 1845.
55.
WeldonWFRThomas Henry Huxley. In: LeeS, ed. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1901: suppl. III, pp. 22–31. Thomas Huxley (1825–1895) joined the navy as an assistant surgeon in 1846. His only sea-going appointment, to the Rattlesnake for a surveying cruise in Australian waters from 1846 to 1850, fuelled an important series of publications. He left the service in 1854 to pursue a long and very distinguished scientific career. He was elected FRS in 1857.
56.
HuxleyL. Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. New York: Appleton, 1901: vol. I, p. 25.
57.
HuxleyJ. T. H. Huxley's Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake.London: Chatto and Windus, 1935: p. 103.
58.
BurnettW. Regulations and Instructions for the Medical Officers of H.M. Fleet.1825. Cited by LloydCCoulterJ (op. cit. ref. 17): p. 46.
59.
Advertisement. Lancet1854;ii: after p. 74.
60.
WSRO, Goodwood 1599, f. 215: Burnett to Duke of Richmond, 15 July 1835.
61.
WSRO, Goodwood 1510, f. 140: anonymous to Burnett, 7 June 1833.
62.
WSRO, Goodwood 690, f. 3; 1583, f. 425; 1635, f. 142; 1651, ff. 204 and 221: Burnett to Duke of Richmond, 31 August 1833, 17 July 1837, 23 March 1842, 4 January 1843 and 15 March 1843.
63.
The late Sir William Burnett (op. cit. ref. 1): p. 201.
64.
News item. The Times, 12 April 1841.
65.
MullR. Wood preserving in ship building. Mariner's Mirror1926;12:357. Pringle was Physician-General of the army and had an interest in hygiene, contagion and fever.
66.
BurnettW. A notice addressed to the surgeons of the Fleet by the Director General of the Naval Medical Department. Lancet1854;i:481.
67.
RNM, ADM Mss 242/5, f. 10: Burnett to Admiralty, 16 June 1847.
68.
PRO, ADM 105/70, f. 121: Burnett to Admiralty, 29 June 1833.
69.
WSRO, Goodwood 1704, f. 178: Burnett to Pierce, 4 July 1848.
70.
WSRO, Goodwood 1704: f. 74: Burnett to Duke of Richmond, 25 January 1848.
71.
BrysonA. Letter. Lancet1848;i:81.
72.
PRO, ADM 1/3530: Burnett to Auckland, 18 August 1834.
73.
PRO, ADM 105/68, ff. 57 and 110: Burnett to Admiralty, 14 March 1851 and 22 July 1851.
74.
WSRO, Goodwood 1609, ff. 109–112 and 1670, f. 426: Burnett to Duke of Richmond, 28 August 1840 and 3 December 1845.
75.
BurnettW. Letter. The Times, 8 January 1852.
76.
RNM, ADM Mss 242/5, f. 348: Burnett to Admiralty, 20 May 1848.
77.
CreightonM. Sir James Robert George Graham. In: StephenLLeeS, eds. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1890: vol. XXH, pp. 328–32. Sir James Graham (1792–1861) served as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1830 to 1835, and introduced far-reaching administrative reforms in 1832. He served as Home Secretary from 1841 to 1846 and returned to the Admiralty from 1852 to 1855.
78.
British Parliamentary Papers1854–5;34:167. Treasury minute of 3 April 1855 awarding retired allowance to Sir William Burnett.
