Charles Ker and Mr. Weir. They subsequently acted upon his experience; and, from the information which-Dr. Franklin was enabled to furnish, many changes and improvements were adopted in the service.

From the year 1810, up to the year of his death, Dr. Franklin remained in the same appointment, sedulously and honourably discharging the very arduous duties of his situation. In all the splendid events which took place on the Continent, after his appointment to the Board, he may justly be said to have had a share. By the judicious arrangements which were now introduced in the medical part of the army, by the good regulations which he, in conjunction with his colleagues, established for the supply of medicine, and for the maintenance of a skilful body of medical officers, he may, without exaggeration, be said to have silently contributed to them all. From these considerations, added to the constant zeal and strict integrity which he displayed in the discharge of all his duties, he received the honour of knighthood, at the especial request of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, from his late Majesty George the Fourth. This took place in the year 1823; and about the same period he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

The next event of any consequence which we have to detail is the presentation of a very handsome service of plate, by the medical staff of the army. In the year 1826 it was intimated to Sir William that by the universal consent of the medical officers, both of ordnance and line, a sum of money had been subscribed, amounting to about 350%, and that a silver vase, and other pieces of plate, awaited his acceptance.

It was decided by a committee formed for the purpose that Sir John Webb, Director-General of the Ordnance Medical Department; Sir James M'Grigor, Director-General of the Army; and Mr. Calvert Clarke, Apothecary-General, should wait upon Sir William as a deputation. The inscription on the vase was as follows: :

་

TO

SIR WILLIAM FRANKLIN, KNIGHT, M.D. F.R.S.

PRINCIPAL INSPECTOR OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT,

IN TESTIMONY OF THE REGARD AND ESTEEM ENTERTAINED FOR PRIVATE WORTH,

AND THE RESPECT DUE TO A LONG CAREER OF

UPRIGHT AND HONOURABLE CONDUCT

IN THE SERVICE OF

HIS COUNTRY,

THIS VASE

IS PRESENTED BY THE OFFICERS OF THE MEDICAL

DEPARTMENT OF THE LINE AND ORDNANCE,
JANUARY 31. 1826.

So honourable a testimony of the worth of Sir William, and the esteem with which he was regarded by his companions in the service of his country, hardly needs a comment.

From this period, the active duties of war being at an end, and the uniform routine of duty which now occupied his attention not calling forth that peculiar energy which was demanded in the earlier portions of his life, we do not find much of interest to record. He was not inactive, however, during this period, in promoting many charitable and benevolent designs. From him, in conjunction with his eminent and deservedly-respected colleague and friend, Sir James M'Grigor, the Widows' Fund, for medical officers in the army, may be said to have taken its origin. Another charitable society of the same description, for the orphans of medical officers, was originated by the same individuals; and of this latter society Sir William was president to the day of his death. A military publication, of some notoriety, refers in terms of considerable praise to these two institutions; and in regard generally to the many practical improvements which had been wrought in the medical department since the time of Sir William, the same publication thus speaks: Fifty years ago there was no department at all. A surgeon was something like our present military parson: he used to

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go about in plain clothes, with a black coat and a military cocked-hat. The Duke (the Duke of York) first raised the pay of the surgeons, and thus made the situation more worthy to be filled by men of education. Sir James M'Grigor and Sir William Franklin have completed what the Duke began; and now, thanks to those gentlemen, our department is not only happily organised, and its ranks sustained, but we can furnish in the field men of genuine professional education; not tyroes of the pestle, but scientifically bred surgeons."

In the year 1832 his present Majesty was pleased to confer on Sir William the rank of Knight Commander of the Guelphic Order. The title of his office was also raised to that of Principal Inspector General. These honours, however, Sir William did not long live to enjoy. No mant was ever more apparently free from the infirmities of age. Still, however, of late years he had been subject to an attack of a very dangerous character, which considerably impaired his general constitution. In the commencement of 1833 he suffered from the prevailing epidemic influenza, which, beyond doubt, though he recovered for the time, laid the foundation of the disease of which he ultimately died. It was curious, that while Sir William was thus confined to his bed, under serious danger, his opposite neighbour and friend, Dr. Babington, a man of great celebrity in his profession, and who was also associated with him in the earliest period of his medical education, should also have been attacked by the same malady, which ended in his case with more immediate fatality. In the commencement of the same year, in conformity with the system of economy pursued by the government, a reduction of one of the heads of the medical department was determined on. It was consequently arranged that Sir William should retire from his situation at the Board.

Removing to Brighton in the autumn of 1833, he still continued in a bad though not an alarming state of health; but upon his return to his house in London, at the latter end of October, he was suddenly seized by an attack of an apo

plectic character, and though every aid was afforded which medical skill could furnish, he was removed from his family and friends on the 29th of October, 1833, having been confined to his bed only three days, and having, within a day or two, completed his 70th year. During this last illness, he was very anxiously and carefully attended by his old friends, Dr. Pinckard, of Bloomsbury Square, Dr. Bartlett, and Mr. Robinson, all of whom spared nothing that skill and attention could furnish towards the recovery of their valued friend.

Of the seventy years with which it pleased God to bless the very estimable subject of our present memoir, forty-six were passed in the service of his king and country. During the whole of that period he was but one year on half pay, and seventeen were passed in the more active and dangerous services of the West Indies, Holland, and the Mediterranean. In private life, as well as in public, Sir William was of the most amiable and honourable character. He was remarkable for an extreme reserve and caution in his demeanour, which especially fitted him for the situation which he held. He was also, to a fault, backward and modest in all opinions regarding himself; any mention of his services, or any allusion to events in which he had been engaged in early life, seldom passed his lips. So far did this reserve and love of retirement carry him, that he for a long time refused the honour of knighthood, from the trouble and publicity to which he would necessarily have to submit in attending the royal levee; indeed, all the honours and distinctions which he received at the hands of his sovereign were entirely without his solicitation, and were literally thrust upon him by his friends, rather than desired by himself. In his domestic manners he was frugal and prudent. Notwithstanding his reserved character, he was a very social companion, and took great delight in the convivial meetings of his more intimate friends. He was a member of the oldest and most celebrated medical club in London, the "Pau Wau," to which John Hunter, when a member, was in the habit of reading his

works, for the purpose of receiving the corrections of the club previous to publication. This club was limited to twelve members; and Sir William's associates in it were the late Sir Gilbert Blane, Sir Astley Cooper, Dr. Baillie, Dr. Cook, Sir Patrick McGregor, Sir James M'Grigor, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Dr. Holland, Sir Walter Farquhar, Mr. Mayo, Mr. Leigh Thomas, and his colleague Dr. Somerville, — all names eminent in the medical world, both military and civil.

Sir William, among other marks of his domestic life, was a great proficient in the game of whist, belonging to a medical club, of which he was the chief support. During the lifetime of Sir Walter Farquhar he constantly made one of those chosen friends who were admitted to the select whist parties of that eminent physician.

One of Sir William's favourite maxims was never to make an enemy; and though from time to time, upon his examination of wounds for the purpose of granting certificates for pensions, some few officers might murmur at his decisions, yet nevertheless few men have passed through the public situations which it was his fortune to hold with less of that ill will which generally attaches more or less to those who are at the head of their profession. He was married during his residence at Sicily to an Italian lady who died some years previous to himself. He left behind him six children, only one of whom, a daughter (married to the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett), was beyond the age of twenty-one.

No laboured panegyric on the character of this amiable man, and distinguished officer, need be drawn up, when the fact is known of several hundred pounds being subscribed by the medical officers of the army, in conjunction with private friends, for the purpose of erecting a monument to his also mention that in a work on Morbid memory. may Anatomy published by the medical officers of the army, the first fasciculus of which was inscribed to the memory of the late Duke of York, the second fasciculus, which appeared shortly

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