The author of Life and Correspondence of David Hume, he was secretary of the Scottish Prison Board (1854–77), and Historiographer Royal (1867–1881).

The monument to his first wife, Isabella and their joint children is in Dean Cemetery and this bears a fine portrait head of Burton in high relief sculpted by William Brodie.

[5][6] On 23 July 1844, at Edinburgh, John Hill Burton married Isabella, daughter of David Lauder, a Captain in the Perthshire Militia, by his wife Janet Patrick.

Their daughter, Matilda Lauder "Mattie" Burton (1848–1928) married Dr William Lennox Cleland (1847–1918) on 21 June 1877.

A further son, Cosmo Innes Burton (1862–1890) was a short-lived but noteworthy chemist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.