William Barrett (antiquarian)

William Barrett (1733 to 1789) was an English surgeon and antiquary who practised in Bristol. Born early in 1733 at Notton in Wiltshire, he passed his examination as a surgeon on 19 February 1755 and settled in Bristol. He became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 9 November 1775 and died on 13 October 1789 at High Ham in Somerset. He is remembered chiefly for his History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol, which he announced early, so that an engraving of him as surgeon and author of that history was issued some 25 years before the book appeared. While researching it he met the young forger Thomas Chatterton, accepted his statements and received many documents from him. Many of Chatterton's fabrications entered the History when it was finally printed in 1789, after the forger had died, and this damaged Barrett's reputation severely. Chatterton's forged papers later passed to the British Museum.