William Falconer (writer)
William Falconer (23 February 1744 – 31 August 1824) was an English physician, miscellaneous writer, and also Fellow of the Royal Society. Life. Falconer was born at Chester on 23 February 1744, the younger of two surviving sons of William Falconer of the Inner Temple, recorder of Chester, by marriage with his second cousin, Elizabeth, daughter of Randle Wilbraham Falconer of Townsend, near Nantwich, Cheshire. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1766. From Edinburgh he went to Leyden, where he attended the lectures of Hieronymus David Gaubius and Bernhard Siegfried Albinus , proceeding M.D. there on 28 May 1767. He had been previously admitted an extra-licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians on 12 March 1767. In the same year he was appointed physician to the Chester Infirmary. After building up a good practice in Chester, Falconer, at the suggestion of Dr. John Fothergill, removed to Bath, Somerset in January 1770, where he was equally successful. On 18 March 1773 he became F.R.S. On 12 May 1784 he was elected physician to the Bath General Hospital, an appointment which he retained until 10 February 1819. He was elected a Foreign Honorary  Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1800. He died at his house in the Circus, Bath, on 31 August 1824, and was buried at Weston, near the city. His wife, Henrietta, daughter of Thomas Edmunds of Worsbrough Hall, Yorkshire, had died on 10 September 1803. He left a son, Thomas Falconer. His portrait by Daniel was engraved by James Fittler. Works. Falconer was close to Samuel Parr, who procured from the Cambridge University Press the publication of his 'Miscellaneous Tracts,’ 1793, and who wrote of him in his 'Remarks on the Statement of Dr. Combe,’ pp . 71–83, as 'a man whose knowledge is various and profound, and whose discriminations upon all topics of literature are ready, vigorous, and comprehensive.' In his will Parr referred to him in most flattering terms. Edmund Burke addressed a letter to Falconer, dated 14 Nov. 1790, thanking him 'for the temperate, judicious, and reasonable paper [on the French revolution] which appeared in the Bath prints some time since.' In 1800 Charles Dunster inscribed to him his 'Considerations on Milton's Early Reading,’ besides mentioning him in his lines on Durdham, written in May 1801. Falconer was a frequent contributor to the  transactions of learned societies. His separate writings are as follows: Falconer also wrote an 'Appendix' for Dr. Matthew Dobson's 'Medical Commentary on Fixed Air,’ 1787. His 'Thoughts on the Style and Taste of Gardening among the Ancients,’ in the 'Transactions' of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (i. 297), was enlarged and published separately. 'A Table of the Greek Names of Plants' drawn up by him is to be found in v. 552–79 of Dr. Alexander Hunter's 'Georgical Essays,’ 1803–1804.