John Berkenhout

Who was John Berkenhout?

John Berkenhout was an English physician, naturalist and miscellaneous writer.

Berkenhout was the son of John Berkenhout Snr, a Dutch merchant who had settled in Yorkshire, and Anne Kitchingman. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School and served in the Prussian and English armies before finishing his education at Edinburgh University and Leyden, where he became a Doctor of Physic in 1765. While at Edinburgh he published Clavis Anglicae Linguae. He published several works on natural history, including Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland and Synopsis of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland. It was in these works that Berkenhout, not Linnaeus as is often claimed, named the brown rat as the Norway Rat. He served as a British agent in the colonies during the American Revolution.