William Francis AinsworthFSA (9 November 1807 – 27 November 1896) was an English surgeon, traveller, geographer, and geologist, known also as a writer and editor.
Ainsworth was born inExeter, the son of John Ainsworth ofRostherne inCheshire, captain in the 15th and 128th regiments. The novelistWilliam Harrison Ainsworth was his cousin; at his cousin's request he adopted the additional Christian name Francis, to avoid confusion.
In 1827 he became a licentiate of theRoyal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where he filled the office of president in the Royal Physical society and thePlinian Society. He then went to London and Paris, where he became an intern at theÉcole nationale supérieure des mines. While in France he also gained practical experience of geology in theAuvergne andPyrenees. After studying atBrussels he returned to Scotland in 1829 and founded, in 1830, theEdinburgh Journal of Natural and Geographical Science, which was discontinued in the following year.
In 1831 there was an outbreak ofcholera atSunderland; Ainsworth went there to study it, and published his experiences inObservations on the Pestilential Cholera, London, 1832. This book led to his appointment as surgeon to the cholera hospital ofSt. George's, Hanover Square. On another outbreak, in Ireland he acted successively as surgeon of the hospitals atWestport,Ballinrobe,Claremorris, andNewport.
In 1834 Ainsworth, after studying under SirEdward Sabine, was appointed surgeon and geologist to the expedition to theRiver Euphrates underFrancis Rawdon Chesney. Shortly afterwards he was placed in charge of an expedition to the Christians ofChaldaea, which was sent out by theRoyal Geographical Society and theSociety for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He went toMesopotamia, throughAsia Minor, the passes of theTaurus Mountains, and northernSyria, reachingMosul in the spring of 1840. During the summer he explored theKurdistan mountains and visitedLake Urimiyeh inPersia, returning throughGreater Armenia; and reachedConstantinople late in 1840. This expedition had financial troubles, and Ainsworth had to find his way home at his own expense.
After his return to England in 1841 Ainsworth settled atHammersmith, and assisted his cousin, William Harrison Ainsworth, in the conduct of several magazines, includingAinsworth's Magazine,Bentley's Miscellany, and theNew Monthly Magazine. In 1871 he succeeded his cousin as editor of theNew Monthly, and continued in the post until 1879.
For some years he acted as honorary secretary to the Syro-Egyptian Society, founded in 1844, and he was concerned to promote the Euphrates and Tigris valley route to India, with which Chesney's expedition had been connected. He was one of the founders of theWest London Hospital, and its honorary treasurer until his death at 11 Wolverton Gardens, Hammersmith, on 27 November 1896. He was the last survivor of the original fellows of theRoyal Geographical Society from its formation in 1830, was elected aFellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 14 April 1853, and was also a corresponding member of several foreign societies. He married, and left a son and two daughters.
He recorded incidents of his time in Ireland inAinsworth's Magazine and theNew Monthly Magazine. In 1834 he publishedAn Account of the Caves of Ballybunian in Kerry, Dublin.
On his return from the Euphrates expedition he published his observations under the title of 'Researches in Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldea,' London, 1838, with a dedication to Chesney. In 1842 he published an account of the Mesopotamia expedition entitled 'Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldsea, and Armenia,' London, 2 vols. Two years later, in 1844, he produced his major work, the 'Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand Greeks,' London, a geographical and descriptive account of the expedition ofCyrus the Great and of the retreat of his Greek mercenaries after the death of the Persian prince. In 1854 he furnished a geographical commentary to accompany the translation ofXenophon'sAnabasis byJohn Selby Watson, which was issued inBohn's Classical Library, and was republished in 1894 as one ofSir John Lubbock's Hundred Books.
Ainsworth was also the author of:
He translatedFrançois Auguste Marie Mignet's 'Antonio Perez and Philip II,' London, 1846, and editedWilliam Burckhardt Barker's‘Cilicia: its Former History and Present State, with an Account of the Idolatrous Worship Prevailing There Previous to the Introduction of Christianity,’ 1862, and 'Lares and Penates' from the papers of William Burckhardt Barker, London, 1853.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: "Ainsworth, William Francis".Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
