Hospital for Children, and the Royal Maternity Hospital.
Barnes took a prominent part in founding the Obstetrical Society of London in 1858 and was president in 1865–6. But a dispute with the council of this society led him in 1884 to establish the British Gynæcological Society, of which he was honorary president until his death. The justification of the schism was the antagonism of the old society to the performance of ovariotomy and other important operations by obstetricians. Barnes was one of the pioneers of operative gynæcology, and the cause he advocated gained the day. The two societies were united in the obstetrical and gynæcological section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1907.
At the College of Physicians Barnes delivered the Lumleian lectures ‘On Convulsive Diseases in Women’ in 1873 and was censor (1877–8). He was elected honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1883; of the Medical Society of London in 1893 (he had given the Lettsomian lectures in 1858), and of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society at the centenary meeting of 1905.
A leading teacher and gynæcologist in London, Barnes was a rival of James Matthews Duncan [q. v. Suppl. I] both in debates at the Obstetrical Society and in practice. One of the first to work at the minute pathology of obstetrics, he influenced the progress of obstetric medicine. His name has been attached to an obstetric instrument and to a curve of the pelvis. He expressed with decision his very definite opinions, and his mental and physical vigour was shown by his learning Spanish when over eighty-five and by rowing out to sea and bathing from the boat until he was eighty-nine. He was a director of the Prudential Assurance Company (1848–9; 1884–1907), amassed a considerable fortune, and gave liberally to medical institutions, among others to the medical school of St. George's Hospital, where the pathological laboratory is called after him. He died at Eastbourne on 12 May 1907, and was buried there. A portrait by Horsburgh is in possession of his family.
Barnes married: (1) Eliza Fawkener, daughter of a London solicitor; (2) Alice Maria, daughter of Captain W. G. Hughes, of Carmarthenshire, D.L. and J.P. for that county. By his first wife he had one son, Dr. R. S. Fancourt Barnes, and two daughters, and by his second wife one son and one daughter. Besides thirty-two papers in the ‘Transactions of the Obstetrical Society,’ and an official report on scurvy at the Seamen's Hospital, 1864, Barnes was author of: 1. ‘Obstetrical Operations,’ 1870; 3rd ed. 1876; translated into French. 2. ‘Medical and Surgical Diseases of Women,’ 1873; translated into French. 3. ‘Obstetric Medicine and Surgery,’ 2 vols. (with his son, Fancourt Barnes), 1884. 4. ‘Causes of Puerperal Fever,’ 1887.
[Brit. Med. Journ., 1907, ii. 1221; information from his son-in-law, H. Robinson, M.D.]
BARRETT, WILSON [originally William Henry] (1846–1904), actor and dramatist, born at the Manor House Farm, near Chelmsford, Essex, on 18 Feb. 1846, was eldest son of George Barrett, a farmer, by his wife and cousin Charlotte Mary Wood. The family was of old Hertfordshire descent. Two brothers, George Edward (1848-1894), an excellent low comedian, and Robert Reville (d. 1893), with a sister, Mary Brunell, were also on the stage, and the three were in 1872 members of Barrett's travelling company.
Owing to family reverses, Barrett began life as a printer in London, but in 1864 made his first appearance on the stage at the Theatre Royal, Halifax, where he was engaged for 'general utility.' He was seen three months later at the Adelphi theatre, Liverpool, and shortly afterwards, purchasing a 'fit-up' theatre, he started management at Burnley in Lancashire with disastrous results. Returning to stock work, he played 'the heavy business' at Nottingham, under Mrs. Saville. At Aberdeen he met on a starring visit Caroline Heath (1835-1887), actress and reader to the Queen, and after a short wooing he married her at Brechin on 31 July 1866. For many years he lent support to his wife's leading roles, and her reputation overshadowed his.
On 26 June 1867, at the Surrey theatre, London, Barrett played at very short notice Tom Robinson in 'It's never too late to mend,' in place of Richard Shepherd, the actor-manager, who had lost his voice. On 29 June he performed Archibald Carlyle to Miss Heath's Lady Isabelle in 'East Lynne.' In this role he was welcomed by the press as a painstaking newcomer to the London stage. For the autumn season of 1867 he joined F. B. Chatterton's company at Drury Lane, and subsequently travelled in the provinces with Miss Heath and a company of his own.
