Sir William Duncan, 1st Baronet

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Sir William Duncan, 1st Baronet (died 1774) was a Scottish physician. He was a fashionable society doctor in London, and physician in ordinary to George III of Great Britain.[1][2]

Life[]

He was the brother of Alexander Duncan of Lundie, Forfarshire, and uncle of Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan.[3]

Duncan graduated M.D. from the University of St Andrews in 1751.[1] He attended George III, becoming physician in ordinary in 1760, taking the place in the new reign of Frank Nicholls; and was created a baronet of Marylebone in the County of Middlesex on 9 August 1764.[4] He treated the king in his first illness (1765).[5][6][7]

In partnership with a Scottish physician, Andrew Turnbull, he obtained land grants in Florida, where they planned a new settlement, New Smyrna, using indentured labour from the Mediterranean and Negro slaves. In 1768 eight ships set off from Minorca with more than a thousand settlers on board, but on arrival they found conditions deplorable.

Duncan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1771.[8] Towards the end of his life he moved abroad, passing his practice to Sir John Eliot.[2] He died at Naples, in September 1774.[9]

The large investment he had made at New Smyrna was lost a few years later in 1777 when the surviving indentured settlers deserted New Smyrna en masse.[10]

Family[]

Lady Mary Duncan

In 1763, Duncan married Lady Mary Tufton, daughter of Sackville Tufton, 7th Earl of Thanet.[11] He left no son, and the baronetcy died with him.[9] Lady Mary was born in 1723, and died in 1806.[12][13] She was noted for her high wigs, and supposed infatuation with Gaspare Pacchierotti.[14]

Notes[]

  1. ^ a b "Munks Roll Details for William (Sir) Duncan". Retrieved 10 September 2015.
  2. ^ a b Overy, Caroline. "Eliot, Sir John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8678. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ William Anderson (1867). The Scottish nation: or, The surnames, families, literature, honours, and biographical history of the people of Scotland. A. Fullarton & co. p. 82.
  4. ^ "No. 10442". The London Gazette. 11 August 1764. p. 1.
  5. ^ (1814). The topography and natural history of Hampstead, in the county of Middlesex. Printed for White, Cochrane, and Co. ... and Nichols, Son, and Bentley. pp. 340–1.
  6. ^ Edward Wedlake Brayley; Gideon Mantell (1850). A Topographical History of Surrey. G. Willis. pp. 13–.
  7. ^ Henry Laurens (1968). The Papers of Henry Laurens: Sept. 1, 1765-July 31, 1768. Univ of South Carolina Press. p. 524 note. ISBN 978-0-87249-331-5.
  8. ^ "The Record of the Royal Society of London". Internet Archive. London, Printed for the Royal Society. 1901. p. 282. Retrieved 10 September 2015.
  9. ^ a b William John Courthope (1835). Synopsis of the Extinct Baronetage of England: Containing the Date of the Creation, with the Succession of Baronets, and Their Respective Marriages and the Time of Death. Rivington. p. 69.
  10. ^ "Florida History Online, The Letters of Dr. Andrew Turnbull". Retrieved 10 September 2015.
  11. ^ Daniel Lysons (1811). The Environs of London: Kent, Essex, and Herts. T. Cadell and W. Davies. p. 360.
  12. ^ A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. Henry Colburn. 1839. p. 1030.
  13. ^ Charles Cornwallis Marquis Cornwallis (1859). Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis of Cornwallis. John Murray. p. 201 note 5.
  14. ^ Fanny Burney; Stewart Cooke (13 October 2011). The Court Journals and Letters of Frances Burney: Volume II: 1787. OUP Oxford. p. 252 note 708. ISBN 978-0-19-926280-9.
Baronetage of Great Britain
New creation Baronet
(of Marylebone)
1764–1774 		Extinct
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