‘Demagogue,’ a political satire, attacking Wilkes, Churchill, and Lord Chatham, and showing much loyalty and some power of vituperation. In 1767 he was appointed purser to the Swiftsure. In 1769 he published ‘The Universal Marine Dictionary,’ a book well spoken of, in which ‘retreat’ is described as a French manœuvre, ‘not properly a term of the British marine.’ There were later editions in 1771, 1784, 1815, and 1830. By this time Falconer is said to have been living in poverty in London, though the dates of his appointments seem to imply that he cannot have been long unemployed. Chalmers contradicts upon authority Clarke's statement that he had ‘a small pittance for writing in the “Critical Review.”’ Hamilton, the proprietor of the Review, received him hospitably, but did not employ him as a writer. In 1768 John Murray, the first publisher of the name, was starting in business by the purchase of Sandby's bookselling shop opposite St. Dunstan's Church. He offered a partnership in his enterprise to Falconer in a letter dated 16 Oct. 1768 (in Nichols, Lit. Anecd. iii. 729). The offer seems to prove that Falconer was favourably known to publishers. He declined it, apparently in consequence of an offer of the pursership of the Aurora frigate, which was about to take Messrs. Vansittart, Scrafton, and Ford to India as supervisors of the company's affairs. Falconer was promised the secretaryship. He sailed in the Aurora 20 Sept. 1769. After touching at the Cape the ship was lost. Clarke mentions but disbelieves a report that she was burnt by an accident caused by the supervisors' passion for ‘hot suppers.’ The à priori probability of such a catastrophe is small, he thinks, and is certainly not sufficient to command assent in the absence of all direct testimony. Falconer's widow died 20 March 1796, and was buried at Weston, near Bath (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. xi. 322). Cadell, the proprietor of the ‘Marine Dictionary,’ supplied her liberally, even after the ‘expiration of the usual period of copyright.’
A third edition of the ‘Shipwreck’ was prepared by Falconer just before his departure. It contained many alterations, which appear from the preface to have been his own, though Clarke, who thinks them injurious, attributes them to Mallet, who died in 1765. It reached an eleventh edition in 1802, and has since appeared separately and in many collections. Falconer's ‘Shipwreck’ resembles most of the didactic poems of the time, and is marked by the conventionality common to them all. But it deserves a rather exceptional position from the obvious fidelity with which he has painted from nature; and though his use of technical nautical terms is pushed even to ostentation, the effect of using the language of real life is often excellent, and is in marked contrast to the commonplaces of classical imitation which make other passages vapid and uninteresting. In this respect the poem made some mark, and Falconer had certainly considerable powers of fluent versification.
Clarke describes Falconer as five feet seven inches in height, slight in frame, weather-beaten, and pock-marked. His manners were ‘blunt, awkward, and forbidding;’ he talked rapidly and incisively; he was cheerful, kindly, and a good comrade, and seems to have been a thorough seaman, with all the characteristics of his profession. His education had been confined to English and a little arithmetic; but he understood French, Spanish, Italian, and ‘even German.’
[Lives prefixed to editions of ‘Shipwreck:’ anonymous in 1803; by James Stanier Clarke [q. v.] in 1804; by Alexander Chalmers in ‘English Poets,’ vol. xiv., 1810; by R. Carruthers in 1858; and life in David Irving's ‘Lives of Scotish [sic] Authors,’ 1801. Clarke had information from Falconer's friend, Governor Hunter.]
FALCONER, WILLIAM, M.D. (1744–1824), miscellaneous writer, was born at Chester on 23 Feb. 1744, the younger of two surviving sons of William Falconer of the Inner Temple, recorder of Chester, by marriage with his second cousin, Elizabeth, daughter of Randle Wilbraham of Townsend, near Nantwich, Cheshire. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1766 (Dissertatio Medica Inauguralis, ‘De Nephritide Vera,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1766). From Edinburgh he went to Leyden, where he attended the lectures of Gaubius and Albinus, proceeding M.D. there on 28 May 1767 (Index of Leyden Students, Index Soc. p. 34). He had been previously admitted an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians on 12 March 1767. In the same year he was appointed physician to the Chester Infirmary. After attaining to good practice in Chester, Falconer, at the suggestion of Dr. John Fothergill [q. v.], removed to Bath in January 1770, where he was equally successful. On 18 March 1773 he became F.R.S. On 12 May 1784 he was elected physician to the Bath General Hospital, an appointment which he retained until 10 Feb. 1819. He died at his house in the Circus, Bath, on 31 Aug. 1824, and was buried at Weston, near that city. His wife, Henrietta, daughter of Thomas Edmunds of Worsbrough Hall, Yorkshire, had died on 10 Sept. 1803. He left a son, Thomas Falconer, M.D. (1772–1839) [q. v.], who is separately
