Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Ainsworth, William Francis
AINSWORTH, William Francis, Ph.D., L.R.C.S., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., was born in 1807. Having travelled abroad, he became, in 1829, editor of the Journal of Natural and Geological Science. On the breaking out of cholera in Sunderland, in 1832, he was one of the first to repair thither in order to study the new epidemic, and he published the result of his observations in a work "On Pestilential Cholera." He was successively appointed surgeon to the cholera hospitals at St. George's, Hanover Square, and at Westport, Ballinrobe, Claremorris, and Newport, in Ireland. Whilst in that country he lectured on geology in Dublin and Limerick. In 1835 he was appointed surgeon and geologist to the Euphrates Expedition, and published "Researches in Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldæa," 1838, in which year he was also sent by the Royal Geographical Society, and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to the Nestorian Christians in Kurdistan. His "Travels in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Armenia," 1842, and "Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand Greeks," of which an analysis was also given in Bohn's edition of Xenophon's "Anabasis," were the result of the two journeys, extending over a period of seven years. Mr. Ainsworth has edited "Claims of the Oriental Christians," "Lares and Penates; or, Cilicia and its Governors," "The Euphrates Valley Route to India," "On an Indo-European Telegraph by the Valley of the Tigris" (since carried out by the Turkish Government), "All Round the World," "The Illustrated Universal Gazetteer," &c. Mr. Ainsworth is a member of many foreign societies. He was one of the founders of the "West London Hospital," of which he is at present the Treasurer and one of the Trustees.