William Burnet Kinney

William Burnet Kinney (September 4, 1799 – October 21, 1880) was an American politician and diplomat.

His grandfather, Sir Thomas Kinney, came to the United States from England before the Revolution to explore the mineral resources of New Jersey. Kinney was born and raised in the Speedwell section of Morristown, New Jersey, and lived there in later life. William Burnet received a good education. After graduating from Princeton University, he studied law under Joseph C. Hornblower. In 1820, he began the life of an editor in Newark, New Jersey, where he founded the Advertiser in 1832. He continued to lead this life until his appointment, in 1851, as U. S. minister to Sardinia. Prior to this event, he had been conspicuous in various public capacities, and among them as a delegate, in 1844, to the Baltimore Whig convention, where he was largely instrumental in securing the nomination of his friend, Theodore Frelinghuysen, for the vice-presidency, with Henry Clay.

While minister at Turin he discussed with Count Cavour and other eminent men of the kingdom of Sardinia the movement for the unification of Italy. He rendered also, at the same time, important services to Great Britain, for which he received an acknowledgment in a special despatch from Lord Palmerston. When the U. S. government offered to transport Lajos Kossuth to the United States in a national ship, detached from the Mediterranean Squadron. Kinney made himself acquainted with the aims and purposes of the Hungarian exile, and gave prompt instructions to the commander, and information to his own government, of the objects of the fugitive. Daniel Webster, who was at that time United States Secretary of State, thwarted Kossuth's philanthropic but impracticable efforts to enlist the United States in a foreign complication.

On the expiration of his term of office, Kinney moved from Turin to Florence, where he devoted much of his time to researching the Medici family with a view to producing a historical work, but he did not live to accomplish it.