Sir William Duncan, 1st Baronet (died 1 September 1774) was a Scottish physician. He was a fashionable society doctor in London, and physician in ordinary to George III of Great Britain.[1][2]
Life
He was the brother of Alexander Duncan of Lundie, Forfarshire, and uncle of Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan.[3]
Duncan graduated M.D. from the University of St Andrews in 1751.[1] He attended George III, becoming physician in ordinary in 1760, taking the place in the new reign of Frank Nicholls; and was created a baronet of Marylebone in the County of Middlesex on 9 August 1764.[4] He treated the king in his first illness (1765).[5][6][7]
In partnership with a Scottish physician, Andrew Turnbull, he obtained land grants in Florida, where they planned a new settlement, New Smyrna, using indentured labour from the Mediterranean and Negro slaves. In 1768 eight ships set off from Minorca with more than a thousand settlers on board, but on arrival they found conditions deplorable.
Duncan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1771.[8] Towards the end of his life he moved abroad, passing his practice to Sir John Eliot.[2] He died at Naples, on 1 September 1774.[9]
The large investment he had made at New Smyrna was lost a few years later in 1777 when the surviving indentured settlers deserted New Smyrna en masse.[10]
Family
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In 1763, Duncan married Lady Mary Tufton, daughter of Sackville Tufton, 7th Earl of Thanet.[11] He left no son, and the baronetcy died with him.[12] Lady Mary was born in 1723, and died in 1806.[13][14] She was noted for her high wigs, and supposed infatuation with Gaspare Pacchierotti.[15]