Burke, William, 1730-1798

BURKE, WILLIAM, eldest son of John Burke (or Bourke), Middle Temple and St. James’s, London, and his first wife Elizabeth, dau. of Thomas Burke, London, vintner; b.; adm. (aged 13) Sep 1742 (Durand's); KS 1743; elected to Christ Church, Oxford 1747, matr. 26 Jun 1747, Westminster Student 24 Dec 1747 - 26 Jun 1761 (void), leave of absence on appt. as Secretary, Guadeloupe, 25 Aug 1759; BCL 1755; adm. Middle Temple 26 May 1750, called to bar 28 Nov 1755; Secretary and Registrar, Guadeloupe, 1759-63; Under-Secretary of State, Jul 1765 - Feb 1767; MP Great Bedwyn 16 Jun 1766-8, 29 May 1768-74; lost substantial sums of money in speculations on the Stock Exchange, 1769; in India 1777-8, becoming agent for Rajah of Tanjore; again in India 1780-93, initially at Madras, subsequently at Calcutta; Deputy Paymaster of the Forces, East Indies, 1782-93; present at OWW dinner at Calcutta 1783 (Hickey, Memoirs, iii, 245-6); figures in Goldsmith’s Retaliation; lived on intimate terms with his distant kinsman Edmund Burke, with whom he wrote An Account of the European Settlements in America, 1757; author of two pamphlets on the peace negotiations, 1759 and 1761; d. Mar 1798. DNB.

International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) 2nd edition

Prepared for import into AtoM by Westminster School Archive staff, 2019-2020

Users should note that the information recorded here that is not to be found in the first two volumes of the Record of Old Westminsters and its first Supplement has been assembled from various published and manuscript sources by Hugh Edmund Pagan MA FSA, and all new resulting text is his copyright, © 2014.

The Record of Old Westminsters: A biographical list of all those who are known to have been educated at Westminster School from the earliest times to 1927, Volumes 1 & 2, compiled by G. F. Russell Barker and Alan H. Stenning, London, 1928.