John Berkenhout

John Berkenhout (8 July 1726 – 3 April 1791) was an English physician, naturalist and miscellaneous writer.

Berkenhout was the son of John Berkenhout Snr, a Dutch merchant who had settled in Yorkshire, and Anne Kitchingman. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School and served in the Prussian and English armies before finishing his education at Edinburgh University and Leyden, where he became a Doctor of Physic (medicine) in 1765. While at Edinburgh he published Clavis Anglicae Linguae Botanicae. He published several works on natural history, including Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland (1769) and Synopsis of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland (1789). It was in these works that Berkenhout, not Linnaeus as is often claimed, named the brown rat as the Norway Rat ("Rattus norvegicus"). He served as a British agent in the colonies during the American Revolution.

Berkenhout was born about 1730 at Leeds and attended Leeds Grammar School. His father intended him for a commercial career, and sent him to Germany to study languages. After spending some years in Germany he accompanied some English noblemen on a tour through Europe. On returning to Berlin he stayed with his father's relative Baron de Bielfeld.

Berkenhout became a cadet in a Prussian infantry regiment, where he was promoted to the rank of ensign and then captain. In 1756, at the start of the Seven Years' War, he left the Prussian service, and received a commission in an English regiment. In 1760 he entered Edinburgh University as a medical student. From Edinburgh he went to the University of Leyden, where he took his degree of doctor of physic on 13 May 1765. On his return to England he settled at Isleworth in Middlesex, It is stated in David Elisha Davy's 'Suffolk Collections' (xc. 403) that he practised for some time as a physician at Bury St Edmunds.

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