John Burton (antiquary)

John Burton, M.D. (1710–1771) was an English physician and antiquary.

Burton was born at Colchester in 1710, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London (1725–6), and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1727 and graduated M.B. in 1733. In 1734 he was practising medicine at Heath, on the outskirts of Wakefield. He was a good Greek and Latin scholar, and attained no little eminence in his profession both in the city and county of York. Already displaying the strong support for the Tory party that he maintained throughout his life, Burton was vigorous on his party's behalf during the bitterly contested county election of 1734. His activities badly affected the success of the Whig interest in York, personified in the prominent local clergyman, the Rev. Dr Jaques Sterne. This sowed the seeds of the animosity between the two men that was to bedevil Burton for some years to come. On 2 January 1735, in York Minster, Burton married Mary (c.1715–1771), only child of Samuel Henson (d. 1716) and his wife, Mary (d. 1743); their only son, John, became an army officer. It was probably his wife's income that enabled Burton to continue his medical studies, under Herman Boerhaave at Leiden University, where he became acquainted with Heinrich van Deventer's teachings on midwifery; he was awarded MD from Reims. His first medical articles were published by the Edinburgh Philosophical Society in 1734 and 1736, and his Treatise of the Non-Naturals was printed at York in 1738. By then he had established his practice as physician and man-midwife in York, and he was a prime mover in establishing in 1740 the York County Hospital, where he was honorary physician until 1746.

Burton actively campaigned for the Tory interest in the elections of 1741, further incurring the hostility of Sterne, now Precentor of York Minster, and his nephew and political assistant, Laurence Sterne.

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