William Dunkin (judge)

Sir William Dunkin (died 1807)[1] was an Irish barrister and judge in Bengal.

William Dunkin
Born1807
NationalityIrish
Occupations
  • Barrister
  • judge

Life

Dunkin was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1753, as the eldest son of John Dunkin of Bushfoot, County Antrim;[2] Later he was described as from Clogher, County Antrim.[3] He was High Sheriff of Antrim in 1777.[4] Although he had inherited an estate, he encumbered it with debt, and went to Calcutta to practise as a barrister.[5]

In October 1781 Dunkin was mentioned as on the way to India in a letter from Edmund Burke to Lord George Macartney, two of his friends.[6] There he was a friend of William Hickey.[7] He lived a bachelor life, sharing accommodation with Stephen Cassan, another Irish barrister.[5] In 1788 he set off to go to England in search of a judicial appointment in Calcutta,[8][9] sailing to Europe in December on the Phoenix under Captain Gray.[10]

Dunkin returned to Bengal on the Phoenix in August 1791;[11] he had been appointed a member of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William.[12][13] being knighted in March of that year.[14] The appointment was later attributed to the influence of Henry Dundas.[15] Dunkin had in fact obtained a reluctant support for it from Lord Thurlow. His senior colleague on the court, Robert Chambers, did not welcome it, regarding Dunkin as suspect;[7] further Dunkin and Hickey were allies in opposition to Chambers.[16] Hickey's accounts of Chambers in his memoirs, in relation to Dunkin on the court, have been called partisan and misleading, in particular in relation to a bazaar case where John Hyde was brought from his sickbed in 1796 as a supporting vote by Chambers against Dunkin.[17]

Dunkin resigned from the post in 1797, being replaced by John Royds.[18][19] He had a house in Portman Square, London,[20] where Thomas Reynolds knew him as one of a set of wealthy returnees from India;[21] and died at The Polygon, Southampton in 1807.[1]

Works

When Sir William Jones died in 1794, Dunkin wrote a Latin epitaph, used on his tomb in Calcutta.[22][23][24] An English paraphrase was later made by Eyles Irwin.[25]

Family
Elizabeth Blacker (1739–1822), wife of William Dunkin, portrait by Thomas Gainsborough

Dunkin married Elizabeth or Eliza Blacker (1739–1822), daughter of William Blacker (1709–1783), in 1764.[26][27][28] Their eldest daughter Letitia married Sir Francis Workman Macnaghten, having a family of 16 children, among them William Hay Macnaghten.[29][30] When Dunkin clashed with William Burroughs, attorney-general in Bengal from 1792, Francis Macnaghten tried to challenge Burroughs to a duel, and then to have him disbarred.[31] Through the marriage, the Macnaghtens acquired the Dunkin family house at Bushmills.[32]

Of Dunkin's other children, his daughter Jane married Richard William Wake, son of Sir William Wake, 8th Baronet,[33] and his daughter Rachel married John Bladen Taylor, the Member of Parliament for Hythe, as her second husband, the first being George Elliott of Bengal.[34][35] The youngest daughter, Matilda, married Valentine Conolly, son of William Conolly.[36][37]

Hickey mentions two sons. One, Edward, came to Bengal with his father in 1791, in his late teens but suffered from fits.[11] According to Hickey, he returned to Europe and died young.[38] He also makes Captain John Dunkin (John Henry Dunkin) of the 8th Light Dragoons a brother of Letitia.[39]

References
  1. The Gentleman's Magazine: 1807. E. Cave. 1807. p. 383.
  2. Register of Admissions to the Middle Temple, p. 341
  3. Edmund Lodge; Anne Innes; Eliza Innes; Maria Innes (1860). The peerage and baronetage of the British empire as at present existing. Hurst and Blackett. p. 734.
  4. High Sheriffs of the County of Antrim, Ulster Journal of Archaeology Second Series, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr., 1905), pp. 78-83, at p. 82. Published by: Ulster Archaeological Society. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20566218
  5. "Memoirs of William Hickey". Internet Archive. pp. 261–2. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  6. Edmund Burke (1978). The Correspondence of Edmund Burke. Vol. 10. Cambridge University Press. p. 13 note 4. ISBN 978-0-521-21024-9.
  7. Thomas M. Curley; Samuel Johnson (1998). Sir Robert Chambers: Law, Literature, and Empire in the Age of Johnson. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 485. ISBN 978-0-299-15150-8.
  8. Jeremiah P. Losty; British Library (1990). Calcutta: city of palaces: a survey of the city in the days of the East India Company, 1690-1858. British Library. p. 61.
  9. "Memoirs of William Hickey". Internet Archive. pp. 329–30. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  10. Memoirs of William Hickey. Vol. 3. London Hurst & Blackett. p. 341. Retrieved 21 March 2015 – via Internet Archive.
  11. William Hickey (1925). Memoirs of William Hickey. Vol. 4 1790-1809). A. A. Knopf. p. 32.
  12. The Annual Register. J. Dodsley. 1824. p. 53.
  13. The Bengal almanac, for 1827, compiled by S. Smith and co. 1827. p. xxi.
  14. Andrew Kippis (1792). The New Annual Register, Or General Repository of History, Politics, and Literature: To which is Prefixed, a Short Review of the Principal Transactions of the Present Reign. s.n. p. 61.
  15. The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure. J. Hinton. 1811. p. 34.
  16. Thomas M. Curley; Samuel Johnson (1998). Sir Robert Chambers: Law, Literature, and Empire in the Age of Johnson. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 501. ISBN 978-0-299-15150-8.
  17. Thomas M. Curley; Samuel Johnson (1998). Sir Robert Chambers: Law, Literature, and Empire in the Age of Johnson. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 508. ISBN 978-0-299-15150-8.
  18. William Cooke Taylor; P. J. Mackenna (1857). Ancient and modern India. James Madden. p. 524.
  19. Robert Beatson (1806). A Political Index to the Histories of Great Britain & Ireland. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme. p. 283.
  20. "Central Criminal Court Records, WILLIAM HALSGROVE, ESTHER SIMONS, Theft, 3rd December 1806". Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  21. Thomas Reynolds (1839). The Life of Thomas Reynolds, Esq: Formerly of Kilkea Castle, in the County of Kildare : in Two Volumes. Hooper. pp. 237–.
  22. The Monthly Mirror, vol. VII. 1799. p. 284.
  23. Hugh James Rose (1857). A new general biographical dictionary. T. Fellowes. p. 38.
  24. La Décade philosophique, littéraire et politique. J.B. Say. 1803. p. 353.
  25. William Ouseley (21 March 2013). The Oriental Collections: Consisting of Original Essays and Dissertations, Translations and Miscellaneous Papers. Cambridge University Press. p. 159. ISBN 978-1-108-05641-0.
  26. John Burke (1835). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Enjoying Territorial Possessions Or High Official Rank: But Univested with Heritable Honours. H. Colburn. p. 51.
  27. Edmund Burke (1978). The Correspondence of Edmund Burke. Cambridge University Press. p. 298. ISBN 978-0-521-21024-9.
  28. The Gentleman's and London Magazine: Or Monthly Chronologer, 1741-1794. J. Exshaw. 1741. p. 524.
  29. Katherine, Prior. "Macnaghten, Sir William Hay". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17705. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  30. Debrett, John (1840). The baronetage of England. revised, corrected and continued by G.W. Collen. pp. 366.
  31. "Burroughs, William (?1753-1829), of Castle Bagshaw, co. Cavan, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  32. Bushmills Conservation Area (PDF)
  33. Debrett's Baronetage of England. C. and J. Rivington. 1828. p. 59.
  34. Bernard Burke (1906). A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. Рипол Классик. p. 322. ISBN 978-5-88372-227-0.
  35. "Taylor, John Bladen (1764-1820), History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  36. The European Magazine, and London Review. Philological Society of London. 1802. p. 422.
  37. The European Magazine. Vol. 56, July to December, 1809. 1809. p. 355.
  38. Hickey, Memoirs IV p. 45.
  39. Hickey, Memoirs IV p. 192.
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