Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/393

 was sent out to the Black Sea, where she carried the flag of (Sir) [q. v.] at the reduction of Kinburn. On 5 July 1855 Buckle was nominated a C.B. From 1857 to 1863 he was superintendent of Deptford dockyard, and on 14 Nov. 1863 was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. In November 1867 he was appointed commander-in-chief at Queenstown, where he remained until he retired, under Mr. Childers's scheme, in 1870. He was made a vice-admiral on 1 April 1870, K.C.B. on 29 May 1875, admiral on 22 Jan. 1877, and was granted a good-service pension on 30 Oct. 1885. He died on 10 March 1894. He married in 1847 Harriet Margaret, eldest daughter of Thomas Deane Shute of Bramshaw, Hampshire, and left issue one son.



BUCKNILL, JOHN CHARLES (1817–1897), physician, elder son of John Bucknill, surgeon, of Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, was born on 25 Dec. 1817, and was educated first at Rugby during the head-mastership of Dr. Arnold, and afterwards at the Market Bosworth grammar school. Bucknill entered University College, London, in 1835, and studied medicine. He was admitted a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1840, and in the same year he graduated M.B. at the university of London, being placed first in surgery and third in medicine in the honours list. He was then appointed house surgeon to [q. v.] at University College Hospital, and at the expiration of his term of office he practised for a year in Chelsea. Here his health broke down, and he was ordered to live in a warmer climate. He therefore applied for, and obtained, the post of first medical superintendent of the Devon County Asylum at Exminster, which he held with marked success from 1844 to 1862. In 1850 he was elected a fellow of University College, London, becoming a member of its council in 1884. In 1852 he graduated M.D. in London University. He was the lord chancellor's medical visitor of lunatics from 1862 until 1876, when he resigned the office through ill-health, and subsequently devoted himself to private practice. He lived at first in Cleveland Square, afterwards at Hillmorton in Warwickshire, where he farmed a considerable acreage; in 1876 he moved to Wimpole Street, though he retained his home in Warwickshire.

At the Royal College of Physicians of London he was admitted a licentiate in 1853, being elected a fellow in 1859, councillor 1877–8, censor 1879–80, and Lumleian lecturer in 1878, taking as the subject of his lectures ‘Insanity in its legal relations.’ He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 7 June 1866, and was knighted in July 1894.

Bucknill died at Bournemouth on 19 July 1897, and is buried at Clifton-on-Dunsmore near Rugby. He married in 1842 Maryanne, the only child of Thomas Townsend of Hillmorton. She died in 1889 and left three sons, of whom the second, Sir Thomas Townsend Bucknill, became in 1899 judge of the king's bench division of the high court. Sir John Bucknill left over 6,000l. to University College, London, to found a scholarship.

Bucknill made a name for himself in many ways. He held a high position among the physicians who devoted themselves to the treatment of insanity, and Sir James Crichton Browne, F.R.S., says of him, ‘For twenty years he was the acknowledged and dignified head of his department in this country, and mingled on an equal footing with all the finest intellects of his times.’ He took an enlightened view of the method to be adopted in the treatment of patients under his care, and thought that the more wealthy among them should be nursed and cared for in houses of their own, that they might enjoy life as far as possible. In general literature he turned his knowledge of psychology and lunacy to excellent account by writing two criticisms upon Shakespeare and his works, in which he dealt with the psychology of the dramatist and the mad people depicted in his plays. He was an ardent sportsman, being especially proficient in fishing, hunting, sailing, coursing, and shooting with the rifle. In 1852 he was actively engaged in obtaining the sanction of the war office to the enrolment of a corps of citizen soldiers under the name of the Exeter and South Devon volunteers, and with the help of the Earl Fortescue, the lord-lieutenant of the county, he effected his purpose. This corps was highly successful and proved the nucleus of the present volunteer system. Bucknill threw himself heart and soul into the new movement, was the first recruit sworn into this the first regiment of volunteers established under the system, and throughout his service chose to remain in the ranks rather than accept a commission. His services in connection with the volunteer movement were afterwards recognised by the erection, by public subscription, of a handsome memorial, with