Dictionary of National Biography
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Burn 378 Burn ' complete treatise on ecclesiastical law. 4. A with signal success. In 1816 he was second History of the Poor Laws/ London, 1764, to Mr. Playfair in a competitive design for 8vo. 5. ' on Practical additions to the of Uni- Sermons Subjects ; buildings Edinburgh extracted from the works of divines versity, originally designed by the celebrated chiefly j in of the last century/ 4 vols., London, 1774, Robert Adam [q. v.], and the same year 8vo. 6. ' Observations on the Bill intended erected the custom house at Greenock, and the to be offered to Parliament for the better church of St. John, at the west end of Princes Relief and Employment of the Poor/ Lon- Street, Edinburgh. From this time his ca- ' don, 1776, 8vo. 7. The History and An- reer was one of uninterrupted professional the best tiquities of the Counties of Westmoreland success. He divided with Playfair in and Cumberland/ 2 vols., London, 1777, 4to. architectural works of the time Scotland, did more Written in conj unction with Joseph Nicolson, and while the latter probably public nephew of Dr. William Nicolson, bishop of and monumental work, Burn undoubtedly Carlisle, who had left large manuscript col- erected more and larger private and domes- lections for the history of the two counties. tic buildings than any individual architect ' 8. A New Law Dictionary/ 2 vols., London, of his time. Most of the Scottish and a 1792. A posthumous work of little value, large number of the English aristocracy were edited, with a continuation, by the author's his clients, and in 1844 he found it necessary to 1 his son, John Burn [q. v.] The author's portrait to remove London, leaving Edinburgh in of is prefixed. business charge David Bryce [q. v.], who Burn also brought out the ninth, tenth, had become his partner a short time before. and eleventh editions of Sir William Black- The subsisted for about six years, | partnership stone's ' Commentaries on the Laws of Eng- after which Burn ceased practice as an Edin- land.' burgh architect. In London his success con- tinued unbroken. His strength undoubtedly [Addit. MSS. 28104, f. 43, 28167, f. 56; At- in domestic kinson's Worthies of Westmoreland, ii. 119-32; lay architecture, particularly 42 in the internal of houses, and Bridgman's Legal Bibliography, ; Bromley's arrangement Cat. of 358 Cat. of Printed mansions of his are to be found in Engraved Portraits, ; design in Clarke's Bibl. An- almost in the United Books Brit. Mus. ; Legum every county King- 69, 117, 274; Evans's Cat. of Engraved dom. Among the chief of these are : In Scot- flise, Gent. Iv. for Sir ortraits, 1611; Mag. (ii.) 922; land Riccarton, W. Gibson-Craig ; British i. ii. 312 Gough's Topography, 279, ; Niddrie, for Colonel Wauchope; Tynniug- Jefferson's Hist, of 417-21 Le Neve's Carlisle, ; hame, for the Earl of Haddington; Ard- Fasti iii. 251 Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Hardy), ; for Sir Michael Stewart gowan, Shaw ; (Bonn), 317, 318; Marvin's Legal Bibliography, ! for the Duke of Montrose Buchanan House, ; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. iii. 310, iv. 568, j 163; Dalkeith Palace and Bowhill, for the Duke v. 267 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. I 586-8, 666, 266, of Falkland for Buccleuch ; and House, viii. ii. 113, vi. 441, 236, 237, 696, 705, 734, 740 ; j Mr. Tyndall Bruce. In England Revesby Nicolson and Burn's Westmoreland and Cumber- , and Stoke Rockford in Lincolnshire, land, i. 484; Cat. of Oxford Graduates (1851), Abbey Hall in Norfolk, Fonthill for the 101.] T. C. Lynford Marquis of Westminster, Sandown Hall for BURN, WILLIAM (1789-1870), archi- j the Earl of Harrowby, Knowsley for the j tect, the son of Robert Burn, a successful Earl of Derby, and Montagu House, White- ] builder in Edinburgh, and designer of the hall, for the Duke of Buccleuch. In Ireland Nelson monument on the Calton Hill there, i Dartrey in county Monaghan for the Earl of was born in Edinburgh, 20 Dec. 1789. After I Dartrey, and Castlewellan in county Down ' an elementary training from his father, he for the Earl of Annesley. His best-known ! entered in 1808 the office of Mr. (after- public works are St. John's Church, the New wards Sir Robert) Smirke, then at the height Club, the Melville Monument, John Wat- of his fame, and sharing with Sir John son's Hospital, the Music Hall, and altera- Soane the best architectural position and tions in St. Giles', all in Edinburgh. For practice in London. Smirke's practice was the last he has been much and severely cri- chiefly in the classical style, and young Burn ticised. But while the somewhat common- was educated in the severe traditions of the place building which he substituted for the period, along with (among others who after- old picturesque exterior of the church is cer- as it wards became known) Lewis Vulliamy and tainly to be regretted, his work, such is, C. R. Cockerell, afterwards professor of archi- was not behind the ideas of Gothic architec- tecture in the Royal Academy. On his re- ture then prevailing. He was also consult- turn to Edinburgh after a few years' experi- ing government architect for Scotland, and ence in Mr. Smirke's office, he began business in 1856 was one of the three judges appointed for himself, and almost at the outset met by the government to decide a competition Burnell 389 Burnes manors of which no less than cess of the British islands. of eighty-two ; unifying The of twenty-one were in Shropshire, eight in So- monk Worcester was fully justified in say- mersetshire, eight in Worcestershire, and ing that his peer would not be found in those in and where a series A. M. iv. 510 cf. An. thirteen Kent Surrey, days (An. Wig. ; Dunst. of his estates extended from Woolwich and A. M. iv. 373; RYMER, i. 559; Canonicus Bexley to Sheen and Wickham, almost en- Wellensis in Anglia Sacra, i. 566). compassing South London (Cal. Inquis. post [The chief authorities for the various aspects Mortem, i. 115). When we add to these of Burnell's career have been already enume- vast estates the ecclesiastical preferments rated in the course of this article. Of his lavished on his kinsmen, the vast portions family, early history, and relations with Shrop- known has been assigned to his daughters, whom he married shire, everything judiciously collected by His career can to great nobles, all that he himself held de- Eyton. political be traced in the calendars of the Close and spite the laws against pluralities, and the ' Patent in and in the * mirabilis munificentia (WYKES, A. M. iv. Eolls, Kymer's Foedera, chance allusions of the chroniclers, that marked all his we can particularly 262) expenditure, those included in Luard's Annales Monastic! wonder that the a zealous hardly archbishop, in the Rolls Series. The Canon of Wells is the of the mendicant orders, objected to upholder best authority for what he did in his own dio- . his further promotion. cese. The Register of Peckham gives, with his Burnell was not successful in his very relations to the archbishop, his general ecclesiasti- of his brothers efforts to found a family. Two cal policy. Short modern lives are to be found in were slain on the Menai Straits by the Welsh Godwin's Catalogue of Bishops of Bath and Wells, in 1282 305 Cassan's of Bath and and a skele- (TRIVET, p. ; RISHANGER,P. 102). Bishops Wells, His third brother, Sir Hugh, died in 1286, ton of facts and dates in Le Neve's Fasti Eccle- sise of the lives, that of Lord leaving a son, Philip, who wasted the uncle's Anglicanse ; longer of the vol. is patrimony, and was one of the first persons Campbell (Lives Chancellors, i.) careless and and much inferior to of distinction to suffer by the facilities for inaccurate, the biography in Foss (Judges of England, iii. recovering trader's debts which the statute 63-7 ; Biographia Juridica, p. of Acton Burnell had afforded EYTON", 143).] (see T. F. T. Shropshire). He died in 1294, only two years after his uncle. Twice his descendants were BURNES, Sm ALEXANDER (1805- summoned by writ to the House of Lords, 1841), an Indian political officer, was the but before the fourteenth century was over fourth son of James Burnes, writer of the the peerage became extinct (CotfRTHOPE, signet and provost of Montrose. He be- Historic Peerage, p. 85). Only a few ruins longed to the same family as Robert Burns, now remain of the great hall at Acton in the poet, his great-grandfather and the poet's which the parliament held its session, and father having been brothers. Through the in- modern alterations have almost destroyed the fluence of Joseph Hume, he was appointed, identity of Burnell's great house, built with at the age of sixteen, to an Indian cadet- timber from the royal woods, strengthened ship, and joined the Bombay native infantry with a wall of stone and lime, and crenellated in 1821. Devoting himself, immediately by special royal license (Rot. Pat. 12 E. I, after his arrival in India, to the study of the mm. 17 and 6). native languages, he was selected, while still Burnell's faithfulness, wisdom, and expe- an ensign, for the post of regimental inter- rience must be set against the greediness preter, and shortly afterwards for that of and the licentiousness and the nepotism that adjutant. His subsequent advancement was stained his private character (An. Dunst. in rapid. In 1825 he was appointed to the quar- An.