John Berkenhout (8 July 1726 – 3 April 1791) was an English physician, naturalist and miscellaneous writer. He was educated as a physician at Edinburgh and Leyden. While at Edinburgh he published a botanical lexicon Clavis Anglicae Linguae Botanicae. He published several works on natural history, including Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland (1769) and Synopsis of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland (1789). He served as a British agent in the colonies during the American Revolution.
Life
Berkenhout was born about 1730 at Leeds, the son of John Berkenhout Snr, a Dutch merchant who had settled in Yorkshire, and Anne Kitchingman. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School. His father intended him for a commercial career, and sent him to Germany to study languages. After spending some years in Germany he accompanied some English noblemen on a tour through Europe. On returning to Berlin he stayed with his father's relative Baron von Bielfeld.
Berkenhout became a cadet in a Prussian infantry regiment, where he was promoted to the rank of ensign and then captain. In 1756, at the start of the Seven Years' War, he left the Prussian service, and received a commission in an English regiment.
In 1760 he entered Edinburgh University as a medical student. From Edinburgh he went to the University of Leyden, where he took his degree of doctor of physic (medicine) on 13 May 1765. On his return to England he settled at Isleworth in Middlesex, It is stated in David Elisha Davy's 'Suffolk Collections' (xc. 403) that he practised for some time as a physician at Bury St Edmunds. In the end Berkenhout was paroled, and rejoined the commissioners at New York on 19 September; but the negotiations of the Carlisle Commission were dead. He came back to England, and was rewarded with a pension for his services.
In 1780 Berkenhout published Lucubrations on Ways and Means, a proposal on the imposition of taxes. Some of the suggestions in it were adopted by Lord North, others subsequently by William Pitt the Younger. His Essay on the Bite of a Mad Dog appeared in 1783; Symptomatology in 1784. Berkenhout's last work was Letters on Education to his Son at the University, 1790. In it he commented on the system of fagging in public schools.
Publications
- Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland (1769)
- Synopsis of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland (1789)
- First lines of the theory and practice of philosophical chemistry. London: Cadell, 1788
- A volume of letters from Dr. Berkenhout to his son at the university. London: Cadell 1790
Notes
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