James Parsons Burkitt

James Parsons Burkitt (1870 – 1959) was a civil engineer; he was County Surveyor in County Fermanagh from 1900 until his retirement in 1940. Burkitt was a keen amateur ornithologist and studied European robins in the garden of his home (called Lawnakilla) near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. He started ringing the birds in October 1922, and his research, which was published in the journal British Birds between 1924 and 1926, was one of the first studies of bird behaviour and territory to use rings that enabled individual birds to be identified in the field. Later, at Laragh, Ballinamallard, County Fermanagh, Burkitt proved the longevity of one female robin. He had ringed this bird on 18 December 1927 and trapped her again on 14 July 1938 -- this robin was at least 11 years old, "the oldest living robin in the world".

Burkitt's work was greatly admired by David Lack, who carried out further research on robins in the 1930s and 1940s.

Burkitt's elder son was the surgeon Denis Parsons Burkitt FRS (1911-1993), for whom Burkitt's lymphoma is named.

James Burkitt was born on 20 August 1870, at Killybegs, Co. Donegal, third son of Thomas Henry Burkitt, Presbyterian minister, and his wife Emma Eliza, née Parsons.

He was educated at Galway Grammar School, Queen's College, Galway, and the Royal University of Ireland, obtaining the degrees of BA (1891) and BE (1892) with first-class honours.

He then became an assistant to James Perry in Galway, during which period he superintended the underpinning of a large bridge and the erection of a pier and swing bridge over and estuary of the sea. In May 1893 he became assistant engineer to - Fisher on the Westport & Mulranny extension of the Midland Great Western railway, and in February 1894 to the partnership of Fisher & Le Fanu in the construction of the Collooney & Claremorris railway. On the completion of the latter, he continued to work for Fisher & Le Fanu on the Belfast waterworks. In 1897 he was employed on the Downpatrick waterworks under Peter Chalmers Cowan. He appears to have moved briefly to Co. Donegal before being appointed county surveyor for Co. Fermanagh at the end of 1898 in succession to Frederick Richard Thomas Willson.

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