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Richard Brinsley Hinds
Richard Brinsley Hinds FRCS (1811-1846) was a British naval surgeon and botanist. He sailed on the 1835-42 voyage by HMS Sulphur to explore the Pacific Ocean, and edited the natural history reports of that expedition.
He was born at Aldermaston and in 1829 he began studying at St Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1830, he matriculated at London University, where he gained an honours degree. He is reported to have been awarded the Gold Medal of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries for botany, but no record of that seems to have survived and in 1833, he was accepted as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Hinds joined the Royal Navy with the rank of Assistant Surgeon in 1835, and was initially appointed to the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar before being appointed surgeon in HMS Sulphur. On his return to England in 1842 he was appointed to HMY William & Mary, with the duty of organising the natural history specimens acquired during Sulphur's voyage. In 1844, he was nominated (by Sir William Barnett, Director-General of Naval Hospitals and Fleets) to be, and was elected as, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, as a representative for the Royal Navy. His health had been affected by fever suffered during naval service and in 1845, he received permission to go to Australia, being discharged from William & Mary, and was placed on the unfit list with a diagnosis of "phthisis". He emigrated to Swan River, Western Australia; where he died the following year.
Genres: AOS Naval Non-Fiction (co-author 1 book with Sir Edward Belcher)