William Burkitt (judge)


Sir William Robert Burkitt was an Irish judge in British India in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Education

From the Irish branch of a prominent family of judges, theologians, and doctors, Sir William was born in Dublin. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin and called to the bar at Middle Temple.
He took the Indian Civil Service exams in 1860 and graduated to the Bengal Civil Service in 1869.

Career

William Burkitt arrived in India 11 October 1861.
From October 1862, he served in the North Western Provinces as Assistant Magistrate and Collector, Joint Magistrate and Deputy Collector, District and Sessions Judge Gorakhpur, Basti, Banda, Cawnpore, Bareilly, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Etawah, Azamgarh & Mutter 1862-1891, and a Judicial Commissioner in locations such as Oudh, Allahabad, Delhi and Calcutta.
He served as a High Court Judge in Allahabad 1895-1908 and was appointed Chief Justice of the United Provinces and Puisne Judge, the most senior judge in British India.
He was made a Knight Bachelor on 19 July 1904, the year of his retirement.

District Grandmaster of Bengal

Burkitt was District Grand Mark Master of District Grand Mark Lodge, Bengal and then District Grandmaster of Bengal, presiding over Freemasonry for over half of India's population in the Bengal Presidency.

Emir of Afghanistan

His most well-known achievement was, together with Lord Kitchener, to induct the Emir of Afghanistan Habibullah Khan at Freemasons Hall at Lodge Concordia in Park Street, Kolkata in 1907. This lodge is the home of the United Grand Lodge of Bengal of which Burkitt was District Grandmaster.
An account of this highly unusual event was written at the time by Sir Henry McMahon. It was performed in an unusual style, the Emir taking all three ordinary degrees of masonry at once - a rare event rumoured to signify membership of the Roshaniya.

Personal life

Married first to Katheleen Dwyer and then to Frances Gill, he had a number of children with both wives.
His son William John Dwyer Burkitt, also a judge, was tipped to follow in his father's footsteps but died young from pneumonia on 19 May 1918 in Nainital.

Later life

He died in at Norris's Hotel, 48-53 Russell Road, Kensington, London on 16 June 1908 once his health had declined after a life in the Gangetic climate. It was normal for luminaries of the British Raj to retire to London.