OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: March 23, 2022
Webpage updated: March 24, 2022

        

WHO WAS WHO IN OLD PLYMOUTH

ROBERT BURNARD (1848-1920)

Robert Burnard was born in 1848 in the Parish of Maker, East Cornwal, to Mr Charles Frederick Burnard (1816-1905) and his wife, the former Miss Jane Bice Evans, of Fowey, Cornwall.

On April 6th 1871 Mr Robert Burnard married Miss Fanny Louise Pearce, the eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs S H Pearce, of Paignton, Devon.  The wedding took place at the Church of Saint Mary, Wolborough, Newton Abbot.  The had a family of two sons and two daughters: Olive Louise Burnard, born 1873; Lawrence Friedrich Burnard, born 1874; Charles Burnard born 1876; and Dorothy Blanche Burnard, born 1877.

When his father retired from business in 1880, Mr Robert Burnard became the senior partner of Messrs Burnard and Alger.

The business was transferred to Cattedown in 1881, where under the authority of the Cattewater Wharves Act 1887 the constructed important deep water wharves, with spacious warehouses and the most modern equipment.  Twice the partnership was forced to enter into litigation with the Plymouth Borough Council when plans were put forward that would interfere with their rights, opposing the Cattewater Extension Bill and the Cattewater Wharves Scheme part of the Plymouth Corporation Act 1905.  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 equipment included one steam engine, two boilers, 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.

That was followed in July 1881 by the start of a new venture for the business.  For their process of producing artificial fertilizer, the Company had been shipping thousands of tons of sulphur ore from the Rio Tinto, in Spain, to Plymouth.  After the sulphur had been obtained from it by burning there remained in the cinders silver, copper and iron.  In the early days of the business this used to be shipped across Plymouth Sound to a works at South Down, Millbrook, but in July 1891 these cinders had been treated by the Company itself and the resultant iron ore was now being loaded aboard the Belfast steamer "Dunmurry", 3,700 tons, Captain McMorran, at Cattewater Wharves, for transportation to Baltimore, Ohio, for onward shipment to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Their hydraulic cranes, similar to those at London's Tilbury Docks, with a total lift of some 80 feet, were able to load between 400 and 500 tons per day.

Although both he and his wife had held a life-long interest in Dartmoor, it was not until 1887, when they both joined The Devonshire Association, that they took a keen interest in exploring it more widely, initially helping the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould with his projects.  In that year Mr Burnard gave his first lecture to the Association, "Recent Dredging in Cattewater", which had taken place for the construction of a new wharf.  Apparently this encouraged him to consider the miners on Dartmoor, and in 1888 he gave his second lecture to the Association, "The Track of the Old Men, Dartmoor".

The family business, which had been founded in 1854 as the Phoenix Chemical Works and was now known as Messrs Burnard and Alger following the death of Mr John Williams Lack in November 1872 and the retirement of its founder, Mr Charles Frederick Burnard, in 1880, was converted into a limited liability company in 1890.  In fact there seem to have been two separate companies at that time.  Messrs Burnard, Lack and Alger were listed as manufacturers of sulphuric acid, chemical fertilizers and extractors of silver, copper and other metals from ore, while Messrs Burnard and Alger Limited were wharfingers and warehousemen, with deep water wharves, hydraulic cranes and fire-proof warehouses for nitrate of soda.

Mr Robert Burnard's reputation as a sound and well-informed archaeologist led to him being elected president of the Plymouth Institution for 1891-1892.

Between 1890 and 1894 Messrs W Brendon and Son Limited, printers and publishers, produced four volumes of Mr Burnard's "Dartmoor Pictorial Records".

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 exist in Cornwall and Wales.  In 1895 he explored Carn Brea, at Redruth, Cornwall, and he also took part in excavations at Harlyn Bay, Padstow, also in Cornwall.

In 1900 Mr Burnard was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA) and inn 1904 he and his wife moved from number 3 Hillsborough, Compton Gifford, to Huccaby House, on the West Dart, seven miles from Princetown.  In 1911 he was elected president of The Dartmoor Association.

Mrs Fanny Louise Burnard died at Woodside Nursing Home, Plymouth, on August 17th 1919 and was buried at Stoke-in-Teignhead Parish Churchyard.

His father, Mr Charles Frederick Burnard died on Friday November 10th 1905.

Mr William Henry Alger (1836-1912) died in Plymouth on Wednesday February 21st 1912.  His son, Mr Harold Alger, was a director of the Company at that time.

Mr Robert Burnard died at Stoke-in-Teignhead Rectory, Devon, the residence of his youngest daughter and son-in-law, Mrs Dorothy Blanche Lake and the Reverend Kenneth Alexander Lake, on April 15th 1920.  He was survived by his two sons, Mr Lawrence Friedrich Burnard, who inherited the business; Major Charles Burnard DSO; and his eldest daughter, Mrs Olive Louise Munday, the wife of Surgeon-Commander Richard Cleveland Munday CB RN.

During his lifetime he had promoted the idea that Dartmoor should be acquired by Devon County Council and made into a country park.  As secretary of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, founded in 1883, he was on the alert for any cases of infringement of public rights of way on the Moor and he frequently took legal steps to protect those rights.  His contributions to the Transactions of the Devonshire Association included: "Dartmoor Stone Implements and Weapons"; "Notes on Dartmoor Kistvaens"; "The Great Central Trackway - Dartmoor"; and "The Ancient Population of the Forest of Dartmoor".

It would appear that the fertilizer side of the business, along with the name, was sold to Messrs Anglo-Continental Guano Works Limited while a new company, Messrs Cattedown Wharves Limited, was formed to continue operating the storage and wharf facilities.  Messrs Burnard and Alger Limited continued in business until 1937 when they were taken over by Messrs National Fertilizers Limited, a subsidiary of Messrs Fisons, Packard and Prentice.  A new factory was opened in 1957 by Sir Clavering Firson.  It employed around 120 men until it was closed down in 1981.