Robert Kerr (writer)
Dr Robert Kerr FRSE FAS FRCSE (20 October 1757 – 11 October 1813) was a Scottish surgeon, writer on scientific and other subjects, and translator.
Life
Kerr was born in 1757[1] in Bughtridge, Roxburghshire, the son of James Kerr, a jeweller, who served as MP for Edinburgh 1747–1754,[2] and his wife Elizabeth. He was sent to the High School in Edinburgh.
He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and practised at the Edinburgh Foundling Hospital as a surgeon. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1788. His proposers were Alexander Fraser Tytler, James Russell and Andrew Dalzell.[2] At this time he lived at Foresters Wynd off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.[3]
He translated several scientific works into English, such as Antoine Lavoisier's work of 1789, Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, published under the title Elements of Chemistry in a New Systematic Order containing All the Modern Discoveries, in 1790.[4] In 1792, he published The Animal Kingdom, the first two volumes of a four-tome translation of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae, which is often cited as the taxonomic authority for a great many species. (He never translated the remaining two volumes.)
In 1794 he left his post as a surgeon to manage a paper mill at Ayton in Berwickshire which he had purchased. He lost much of his fortune with this enterprise. Out of economical necessity he began writing again in 1809, publishing a variety of minor works, for instance a General View of the Agriculture of Berwickshire. His last work was a translation of Cuvier's Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupedes, which was published after Kerr's death under the title "Essays on the Theory of the Earth".
His other works included a massive historical study entitled A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels in eighteen volumes. Kerr began the series in 1811, dedicating it to Sir Alexander Cochrane, K.B., Vice-Admiral of the White. Publication did not cease following Kerr's death in 1813; the latter volumes were published into the 1820s.
He died at home, Hope Park House,[5] east of the Meadows in Edinburgh, where he had lived since 1810, and is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in central Edinburgh against the eastern wall. His stone is added to a much earlier (1610) ornate stone monument. His son, David Wardrobe Kerr (1796–1815) lies with him.
Selected writings
- Kerr, Robert (1824). A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. Edinburgh: William Blackwood.
See also
Notes
- ^ Seccombe, Thomas (2004). "Kerr, Robert (1757–1813)". In McConnell, Anita (ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15466. Retrieved 18 February 2016. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ a b Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
- ^ Edinburgh and Leith Post Office Directory 1784-90
- ^ Lavoisier, Antoine (1790). Elements of Chemistry.
- ^ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1813
References
- Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 31. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Further reading
- Lavoisier, Antoine (1965). Elements of Chemistry. New York: Dover.- The introduction by Douglas McKie has information on Robert Kerr, the book's translator.
External links
- Works by Robert Kerr at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Robert Kerr at Internet Archive
- Contemporary review of the "Essays on the Theory of the Earth"
- Significant Scots: Robert Kerr from ElectricScotland.com.