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{{short description|Scottish surgeon and writer (1757–1813)}}{{Other people|Robert Kerr}}{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2013}}{{Use British English|date=December 2012}}(File:The grave of Robert Kerr, Greyfriars Kirkyard.jpg|thumb|The grave of Robert Kerr, Greyfriars Kirkyard)Dr Robert Kerr FRSE FAS FRCSE (20 October 1757 – 11 October 1813) was a Scottish surgeon, writer on scientific and other subjects, and translator.

Life

Kerr was born in 1757ODNB, Thomas, Seccombe, Thomas Seccombe, Kerr, Robert (1757–1813), McConnell, Anita, 2004,weblink Online, 2016-02-18, 10.1093/ref:odnb/15466, in Bughtridge, Roxburghshire, the son of James Kerr, a jeweller, who served as MP for Edinburgh 1747–1754,BOOK, Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002, July 2006, The Royal Society of Edinburgh, 0-902-198-84-X,weblink 12 February 2017, 4 March 2016,weblink dead, and his wife Elizabeth. He was sent to the High School in Edinburgh.He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and practised at the Edinburgh Foundling Hospital as a surgeon. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1788. His proposers were Alexander Fraser Tytler, James Russell and Andrew Dalzell. At this time he lived at Foresters Wynd off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.Edinburgh and Leith Post Office Directory 1784-90He translated several scientific works into English, such as Antoine Lavoisier's work of 1789, Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, published under the title Elements of Chemistry in a New Systematic Order containing All the Modern Discoveries, in 1790.BOOK, Antoine, Lavoisier,weblink Elements of Chemistry, 1790, In 1792, he published The Animal Kingdom, the first two volumes of a four-tome translation of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae, which is often cited as the taxonomic authority for a great many species. (He never translated the remaining two volumes.)In 1794 he left his post as a surgeon to manage a paper mill at Ayton in Berwickshire which he had purchased. He lost much of his fortune with this enterprise. Out of economical necessity he began writing again in 1809, publishing a variety of minor works, for instance a General View of the Agriculture of Berwickshire. His last work was a translation of Cuvier's Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupedes, which was published after Kerr's death under the title "Essays on the Theory of the Earth".His other works included a massive historical study entitled A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels in eighteen volumes. Kerr began the series in 1811, dedicating it to Sir Alexander Cochrane, K.B., Vice-Admiral of the White. Publication did not cease following Kerr's death in 1813; the latter volumes were published into the 1820s.He died at home, Hope Park House,Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1813 east of the Meadows in Edinburgh, where he had lived since 1810, and is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in central Edinburgh against the eastern wall. His stone is added to a much earlier (1610) ornate stone monument. His son, David Wardrobe Kerr (1796–1815) lies with him.

Selected writings

• BOOK, Kerr, Robert, A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time,weblink 1824, William Blackwood, Edinburgh,

See also

• (:Category:Taxa named by Robert Kerr (writer))

Notes

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References

• DNB, Kerr, Robert (1755-1813), Kerr, Robert (1755–1813), 31,

Further reading

• BOOK, Lavoisier, Antoine, Elements of Chemistry,weblink registration, 1965, Dover, New York, - The introduction by Douglas McKie has information on Robert Kerr, the book's translator.

External links

• {{Gutenberg author |id=3594| name=Robert Kerr}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Robert Kerr |birth=1755 |death=1813}}
• Contemporary review of the "Essays on the Theory of the Earth"
• Significant Scots: Robert Kerr from ElectricScotland.com.

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