Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/344

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Lynch
338
Lynch

8vo, 1740, pp. 146, 152). Lynch was recalled, apparently in 1676, and Lord Vaughan was sent out with orders to suppress the pirates and put an end to piracy. In 1682 Lynch was again sent out to Jamaica as governor and captain-general, with similar instructions regarding piracy, and these he carried out very rigorously, both afloat and ashore, capturing and destroying the ships and hanging the men.

Lynch died, apparently in 1684, some time before the death of Charles II was known in the colony (ib. pp. 247-9). He was buried in the cathedral of Jamaica, beneath a black marble slab (Archer, Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies, p. 58). He married (1) Vere, daughter of Sir George Herbert, by whom he had a daughter Philadelphia, wife of Sir Thomas Cotton, bart., and (2) Mary, daughter of Thomas Temple of Frankton in Warwickshire, but does not seem to have left issue. His widow afterwards married his successor, Colonel Hender Molesworth (Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, 1789, v. 129).

[Authorities named in the text; Collins's English Baronetage, iii. 613, iv. 29.]

J. K. L.

LYNCH, THOMAS KERR (1818–1891), Mesopotamian explorer, younger brother of Henry Blosse Lynch [q. v.] and of Patrick Edward Lynch [q. v.], was born in 1818. His early years were spent at Partry, Ballinrobe, co. Mayo, after which he entered Trinity College, Dublin. On leaving college he joined his brother, Captain Henry Blosse Lynch, and was with him during the second Euphrates expedition of 1837−42, one of the results of which was the opening up of steam communication with the interior of the countries watered by the Euphrates and Tigris and the Persian Gulf. Steam-vessels, placed on the two great rivers of Mesopotamia, helped to bring the city of Baghdad, which was in a sense the headquarters of the survey, into touch with India and the west. But the cost of such steam-service was great, until Lynch, who, with a younger brother, had set up in business in Baghdad, offered to bear the expense of trading-steamers that should be specially constructed for the purpose. These steamers and their successors have since run continuously on the Tigris, and the prosperity of the country has been so much increased by the facilities they afford, that what before were wretched villages are now thriving towns. Lynch travelled extensively in Mesopotamia and Persia during his residence in the East. After his return home he was for some years consul-general for Persia in London. He was made knight of the Lion and Sun on one of the shah's visits to England. He died in London 27 Dec. 1891. He married a daughter of Colonel Taylor, late political resident at Baghdad, by whom he left a son and daughter. He was author of 'A Visit to the Suez Canal,' with ten illustrations (London, 1866, 8vo).

[Times, 29 Dec. 1891.]

H. M. C.

LYNCH, THOMAS TOKE (1818–1871), hymn-writer, son of John Burke Lynch, surgeon, was born at Dunmow, Essex, 5 July 1818. He was educated at a school in Islington, London, where he was afterwards an usher. In 1841 he became a Sunday-school teacher and district visitor, occasionally preaching and giving lectures on sightsinging and temperance. In 1843 he entered Highbury Independent College, but shortly withdrew, mainly from ill-health. He was pastor of Highgate Independent Church 1847-9, and of a congregation in Mortimer Street, which migrated to Grafton Street, Fitzroy Square, 1849-52. In September 1849 he married a daughter of the Rev. Edward Porter of Highgate, and in 1852 delivered a course of lectures on literature at the Royal Institution, Manchester. Owing to failing health he resigned his charge in 1856, but resumed it in 1860 in Gower Street, pending the opening of Mornington Church, a new structure in the Hampstead Road (pulled down in 1888 for the enlargement of Euston Station), where he laboured till his death on 9 May 1871.

Lynch's congregations were always small, and he was not attractive as a preacher. His 'Hymns for Heart and Voice: The Rivulet,' were first issued in 1855 (2nd edit. 1856, 3rd edit. 1868), and were declared to be pantheistic and theologically unsound. A long-and excited discussion, known as 'the "Rivulet" controversy,' ensued. Lynch himself replied to his opponents in 'The Ethics of Quotation,' and in a pamphlet of doggerel verse, entitled 'Songs Controversial' (both London, 1856, and issued under the pseudonym of 'Silent Long'). A full account of the controversy is given in his 'Memoirs.' Lynch had undoubtedly a cultivated mind and the true poetic spirit; but the hymns in the 'Rivulet' express too exclusively an admiration for nature to be suitable for Christian worship. Nine of his hymns are included in the new 'Congregational Church Hymnal' (London, 1887); but none of them are popular in the churches. He was the author of several prose works, which included, in addition to lectures, addresses, sermons, controversial tracts, and magazine articles:

  1. 'Thoughts on a Day' (London, 1844).
  2. 'Memorials of Theophilus Trinal (ib.