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The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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Charles Frederick Burnard was born in Plymouth on March 18th 1816, the son of Mr Robert Burnard. During his early years he displayed a fondness and aptitude for scientific research and upon leaving school he entered the Royal College of Chemistry in London, of which he later became a Fellow. For a few years he was involved with a chemical works at Southdown, on Millbrook Lake. In those early days he foresaw the possibilities of developing the land on the shore of the Cattewater. He founded a chemical fertiliser manufacturing business near Phoenix Wharf, on the Barbican, along with Mr John Williams Lack and Mr William Henry Alger. The business was soon moved to Sutton Road at Coxside. Charles married Miss Jane Bice Evans, of Fowey, at St Andrew's Church on May 21st 1839. In 1861 he was an analytical chemist employing 19 men and lived at 8 Bedford Terrace. Mr Burnard took a keen interest in education and was one of a small band of young men who gave their time lecturing at the Plymouth Mechanics' Institute and helped to make it am educational centre of real power at a time when there was no provision for organised education. It is not surprising, therefore, that when the Plymouth School Board was formed in January 1871, Mr Charles Burnard was elected to serve. At the time of the 1871 census he was described as an artificial manure manufacturer and was living at Chatworth Lodge, Compton Park Road, Mannamead, Compton Gifford. In 1879 he was elected as a Town councillor for the Sutton Ward and retired from his business the following year in order to devote his time to his new civic responsibilities. Such was his oratorical and business skills that after only two year's apprenticeship in local government, he was chosen to be Mayor of Plymouth in 1881-82, in which capacity he entertained HRH the Duke of Edinburgh when he came to open Smeaton's Tower. The business was transferred to Cattedown in 1881, where important deep water wharves, with spacious warehouses and modern equipment, were built. On Tuesday May 3rd 1881 the freehold portion of their old premises, which had only been erected within the last couple of years, was offered for auction. Evidently some of the site was leased. The eqipment included one steam engine, two bpilers, two sets of mill stones, and the tramway that connected the two sites north and south of Sutton Road. The sale document pointed out that whereas the dues payable elsewhere in Sutton Harbour were 7d per ton for both imports and exports, at the quay forming part of this site the dues were only 3½d per ton on imports and nothing at all on exports. In April 1884 he was appointed as a Justice of the Peace. He also stood as the Liberal candidate for the Cornish town of St Ives but withdrew in favour of another candidate, which was just as well as the constituency was abolished the following year. Mr Robert Burnard Mr Robert Burnard, an only son, married Miss Fanny Louise Pearce, daughter of Mr & Mrs S H Pearce of Paignton, at Woolborough Church, Newton Abbot, on April 6th 1871. They had four children: Mr Lawrence Burnard, who became a director of Messrs Burnard & Alger Ltd and was a son-in-law to the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould; Major Charles Burnard, DSO; Mrs Olive Louise Munday, wife of Surgeon-Commander Richard Cleveland Munday, CB, RN; and Mrs Dorothy Blanch Lake, wife of the Reverend Kenneth Alexander Lake, rector of Stoke-in-Teignhead. Mr Lack died suddenly on Saturday November 2nd 1872 at the young age of 51 years. As a result the business was renamed Messrs Burnard and Alger Ltd, of which the senior partner was Mr Robert Burnard. He was a Justice of the Peace and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and for many years chairman of the Cattewater Harbour Commission (ers). Although he had been a lifetime lover of Dartmoor it was not until 1887 that he read to the Plymouth Institution a paper entitled "Recent Dredging in Cattewater", which led him to research the work of the early miners and resulted in another paper, "The Track of the Old Men, Dartmoor" being presented to the Institution in 1888. Once started upon this research, it is said that he 'pursued it with patience and a happy contempt for the merely speculative'. It earned him great respect as a local antiquary and he was elected President of the Plymouth Institution in 1891-92. In 1891 he was described as a chemical manufacturer and wharfinger. From 1894 onwards he and the Reverend Baring-Gould, assisted by Mr George French, of Postbridge, started to excavate the hut-circles, stone rows and cairns on the Moor, which he followed up with research into the construction of the prehistoric camps that surround Dartmoor and and exist in Cornwall and Wales. In 1895 he explored Carn Brea, near Redruth. In addition, he contributed many papers to the Devonshire Association, of which he became President in 1911. He published several volumes of photographs of Dartmoor including some taken during the Great Blizzard of 1891. Until 1904 Mr Robert Burnard lived at Hillsborough, Plymouth, but then he transferred to Huccaby House, on the West Dart river near Princetown, before moving on to Stoke-in-Teignhead and finally Torquay. His mother, Mrs Jane Bice Burnard, died in 1896 and his father, Mr Charles Frederick Burnard, passed away on the evening of Friday November 10th 1905. Mr Robert Burnard died on April 15th 1920. His wife had predeceased him, on August 17th 1919, and was buried at Stoke-in-Teignhead. She had been an active supporter of her husband's work in connection Dartmoor.
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