The son of a stonemason, George Burnard, he showed an astonishing talent at an early age. Aged just seventeen, he sculpted a likeness of John Wesley on the Altarnun Wesleyan Chapel (pictured left) which was next door to his home. 

Exhibiting at the Royal Academy and becoming a celebrated society sculptor he was introduced to Queen Victoria (who commissioned a bust of the future King Edward VII, then a child) and was in constant demand for public and private commissions.

Notable works in Cornwall include of course, the Wesley relief but also the Richard Lander statue in Truro and a bust of the discover of Neptune, John Couch Adams (January 21^st).  

In 1844, the celebrated Burnard married Mary Ann Nicholson and had two sons and two daughters but in 1870 his life disintegrated with the death of his eleven year old daughter, Charlotte, and his brother, George, both of scarlet fever and within a day of each other.  He turned to drink, lost his wife, remaining children and clients and, broken, returned to Cornwall, where he spent the rest of life as a tramp and died in Redruth Workhouse on this day in 1878. 

He was commemorated in a poem ‘A Short Life of Nevil Northey Burnard’ by Charles Causley (August 24^th).