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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E001099 - Bynoe, Benjamin (1803 - 1865)
Title:
Bynoe, Benjamin (1803 - 1865)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E001099
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2010-11-11

2018-07-04
Description:
Obituary for Bynoe, Benjamin (1803 - 1865), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Bynoe, Benjamin
Date of Birth:
25 July 1803
Place of Birth:
Barbados
Date of Death:
13 November 1865
Place of Death:
London, UK
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS May 20th 1825

FRCS (by election) August 26th 1844
Details:
Entered the Royal Navy and retired with the rank of Staff Surgeon. He died at Old Kent Road, SE, on November 15th, 1865. See below for an expanded version of the published obituary uploaded 4 July 2018: Benjamin Bynoe was a Royal Navy surgeon, botanist and naturalist who served aboard the *Beagle* during Charles Darwin's epic five-year voyage. He was born in Barbados on 25 July 1803, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth Bynoe, and was baptised on 26 December 1803 at Christ Church, Barbados. There are no records of his medical education, but on 20 May 1825 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and on 26 September 1825 joined the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon. He joined the maiden voyage of HMS *Beagle*, tasked with surveying the coasts of South America south of the Rio Plata. In July 1828, the ship's surgeon Evan Brown was invalided home and Bynoe was made acting surgeon in his place. The *Beagle* surveyed Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the channels adjoining the Straits of Magellan and the island of Chiloe. During the voyage, Bynoe collected geological and other specimens, and two landmarks were named after him - Cape Bynoe and Bynoe Island. By October 1830 the *Beagle* had returned to England and Bynoe was living on half-pay in the New Kent Road area, London. He studied through the winter and on 5 July 1831 passed his examination as a surgeon in the Royal Navy, but promotion was slow, and two days later he rejoined the *Beagle* with the rank of assistant surgeon, serving under the surgeon Robert McCormick. Also on board was Charles Darwin, then just 22, a guest of the captain, Robert FitzRoy. The rest of the year 1831 was spent preparing the ship for the voyage; Bynoe made sure the medical supplies included foods to prevent scurvy, including 'pickles, dried apples, and lemon juice - of the best quality'. On 27 December 1831, the *Beagle* set sail and passed via the Canaries to the Cape Verde Islands. Towards the end of April 1832, McCormick invalided himself home, disgruntled that Darwin had in effect been made the ship's naturalist, a role he assumed, as surgeon, was his own. Bynoe was made acting surgeon, in which role he continued for the rest of the long voyage. The ship sailed across the Atlantic and then coasted South America, visiting Bahia, Rio, Monte Video, Buenos Aires, Bahia Blanca and Teirra del Feugo. Bynoe found himself dealing with unknown fevers among the crew (probably yellow fever), together with the more familiar pulmonary tuberculosis. In the autumn of 1834, the *Beagle* had reached Valparaiso, Chile. After visiting Santiago and the Andes, Darwin became ill at the end of September; Bynoe attended him ashore for a month while the ship was being repaired and restocked with supplies. After further cruises off the Chilean coast, they reached Callao, the port of Lima, Peru, then headed to the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin made the observations which led to his theory of natural selection. For nine days Bynoe and Darwin were ashore with just three seamen with them, studying the rocks, lizards, tortoises and vegetation. The *Beagle* then sailed west to Polynesia, Tahiti and New Zealand, before heading home via Sydney, Keeling Island, Mauritius, the Cape, St Helena, Brazil and then the Azores and home, setting anchor at Falmouth on 2 October 1836. Once again, Bynoe returned to London on half-pay. In December 1836, he married Charlotte Ollard and in the same month, after many years as an acting surgeon he was, on the recommendation of FitzRoy, officially confirmed in his post as surgeon. He rejoined the *Beagle*, this time commissioned to survey Australian waters. The ship left Plymouth in July 1837. After investigating western Australia, the *Beagle* continued eastwards, visiting Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef. They then turned south, to the Adelaide River and then north to the Timor Sea, where a bay in what is now the Northern Territory was named Bynoe Harbour. In August 1841, the ship was in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia, when one of the officers, Fitzmaurice, who was surveying onshore, was accidentally shot in the foot by a musket. Bynoe attended the injured man and saved his foot; the river Fitzmaurice had been investigating was named Bynoe River in his honour. During the voyage, Bynoe collected numerous specimens and wrote several papers, including one on marsupial gestation and on geological formations in Queensland. The ship eventually sailed back to England via Mauritius and Cape Verde, arriving back in 1843. In February 1844, he was appointed surgeon superintendent of the convict ship *Blundell*, which was sailing to Norfolk Island with prisoners from Millbank prison. The journal he wrote during the first part of the journey has survived, listing the case he treated, including patients with diarrhoea, rheumatism, an injured finger (which required amputation) and a case of pulmonary tuberculosis. On 26 August 1844, Bynoe was made a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Bynoe left the *Blundell* in April 1845. His next appointment was on the *Lord Auckland*, another convict ship, this time bound for Hobart, which left England in March 1846. With him was his long-suffering wife; the couple may have been planning to emigrate to New South Wales. But in July, the ship landed in Simon's Bay, in southern Africa, so Bynoe, who was ill with pneumonia, could be transferred to Cape Town Hospital. Once he recovered, the Bynoes boarded the *Maria Soames* and returned back to England in October 1846. His next appointment was to Ireland, then facing serious famine after the failure of successive potato crops. At the end of February 1847, he was directed to go to Cork 'to aid in carrying out measures for the relief of the Distressed Irish'. A relief centre was set up at Belmullet, which Bynoe joined in April, to help with outbreaks of typhus and dysentery. But the promised medical supplies were slow to arrive and Bynoe himself became sick with dysentery. By September his appointment had ended and in October he was back in London and on half-pay. He then had two short appointments, to the *Ocean* and the *Ganges*, and then in February 1848, joined the *Wellington*, where he remained for nearly three years. He was subsequently appointed to the *Monarch*, on which he served until March 1851. In November 1851, he was appointed to the *Aboukir*, another prison vessel taking convicts to Van Diemen's Land. His journal of the voyage survives and describes treating a prisoner for advanced tuberculosis (and carrying out a post mortem), treating catarrh, constipation and diarrhoea, and directing that the woodwork of the living quarters be washed down with the antiseptic chloride of zinc. On 22 March 1852 Bynoe arrived in Hobart, and a few weeks later sailed homeward. After almost a year on half-pay in London, in the autumn of 1853 he was appointed to the *Madagascar*, a receiving ship at Rio, where he spent almost six gruelling years, returning on the *Industry* in the spring of 1859. In the autumn of 1860, Bynoe was promoted to staff surgeon, but was not appointed to any further voyages and on 23 January 1863 was placed on the retired list by the Admiralty. Benjamin Bynoe died in the Old Kent Road, London on 13 November 1865 and was buried at Norwood Cemetery, Lambeth. Despite taking part in several important surveying voyages, aiding Darwin with his ground-breaking work and collecting a large number of specimens in his own right, his name had been largely forgotten. Even during his lifetime, he arguably failed to get the credit he was due; only one species (of acacia) was named after him - *Acacia bynoeana*. But, perhaps just as importantly, he was remembered as a kind and caring surgeon by his colleagues and crew: Robert FitzRoy, his long-standing captain on board the *Beagle*, noted movingly of the 'affectionate kindness of Mr Bynoe…which…will never be forgotten by any of his shipmates'. Sarah Gillam
Sources:
Keevil J J. 'Benjamin Bynoe, surgeon of HMS Beagle' *Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences* Issue 1, 1 December 1949, p.90-111

Bajan Things: Bajan history, Bajan folklore Dr Benjamin Bynoe (1803-1865) www.bajanthings.com/dr-benjamin-bynoe/ - accessed 18 June 2018

Council of Heads of Australasian Herbia CHAH Biographical notes Bynoe, Benjamin (1803-1865) www.anbg.gov.au/biography/bynoe-benjamin.html - accessed 18 June 2018

Free Settler or Felon? Convict ship surgeons Benjamin Bynoe RN www.jenwilletts.com/benjamin_bynoe_surgeon.html - accessed 18 June 2018
Rights:
Copyright (c) The Royal College of Surgeons of England
Collection:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format:
Obituary
Format:
Asset
Asset Path:
Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
Media Type:
Unknown