LUXMOORE, JOHN (1766–1830), bishop successively of Bristol, Hereford, and St. Asaph, son of John Luxmoore of Okehampton, Devonshire, was born there in 1756. He was educated at Ottery St. Mary school and at Eton, whence he passed as scholar in 1775 to King's College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1780, and proceeding M.A. in 1783. On 30 June 1795 he was created D.D. at Lambeth by Archbishop Moore (Gent. Mag. 1864, i. 770). He became fellow of his college, and having been tutor to the Earl of Dalkeith, afterwards Duke of Buccleuch, he obtained much preferment. He was made rector of St. George's, Bloomsbury, in 1782, prebendary of Canterbury in 1703, dean of Gloucester in 1799, and rector of Taynton in 1800. In 1806 he exchanged St. George's, Bloomsbury, for St. Andrew's, Holborn. In 1807 he became bishop of Briatol, in 1808 he was translated to Hereford, and in 1815 to St. Asaph. In 1808 he resigned the deanery of Gloucester, and in 1816 the benefice of St. Andrew's, Holborn. Luxmoore held, as was usual, the archdeaconry of St. Asaph at the same time as the bishopric, and had other preferments (cf. ib. 1830, ii. 649), He died at the palace, St. Asaph, on 31 Jan. 1830. Luxmoore married a Miss Barnard, niece of Edward Barnard, provost of Eton, and left a large family. He published a few charges and sermons.
The eldest son, Charles Scott Luxmoore (1794?-1854), graduated B.A. 1815, and proceeded M.A. in 1818 from St. John's College, Cambridge. By his father's assistance he was a notable pluralist, holding the deanery of St. Asaph, the chancellorship of the same diocese, a prebend at Hereford, and three rectories at the same time. He died at Cradley, Herefordshire, on 27 April 1854.
[Gent. Mag. 1830 i. 372, ii. 649, 1854 i. 663; Le Neve's Fasti; Thomas's Hist. of St. Asaph, p. 234.]
LYALL. [See also Lyell and Lyle.]
LYALL, ALFRED (1795–1865), philosopher and traveller, born in 1795, was youngest son of John Lyall, of Findon, Sussex (d. 1805), and his wife, Jane Camming or Comyn, of Newcastle-on-Tyne. George Lyall [q. v.], M.P., and William Rowe Lyall, D.D. [q. v.], dean of Canterbury, were his brothers. He was educated at Eton, where his name appears in the lists of the fifth form, next to that of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Lyall matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pensioner, 13 Nov. 1813, and graduated B.A. in 1818. After spending some time at Frankfort and at Geneva, he settled in a small house of his own at Findon with his widowed mother, to whom he was devoted. While at Findon he edited the ‘Annual Register’ from 1822 to about 1827. The winter of 1825–6 he passed with an invalid sister in Madeira, and on his return he published in 1827 an anonymous and singularly well-written narrative, entitled ‘Rambles in Madeira and Portugal.’ The book was accompanied by a folio volume of lithographic sketches by Lyall's friend and fellow-traveller, Mr. (afterwards the Rev. James) Bulwer. Subsequently Lyall returned to Findon, and applied himself to metaphysical studies. He produced, anonymously, a thin volume entitled ‘Principles of Necessary and Contingent Truth,’ London, 1830, being intended as an introduction to a larger work that never was executed. In 1829 Lyall took holy orders, as curate to his old friend Dr. Hind, rector of Findon, and in 1832 he married. The winter of 1833–4 he passed at Rome, where he kept an interesting journal, still extant. In 1837 he was appointed vicar of Godmersham, Kent, and at the request of Messrs. Rivingtons, the proprietors, resumed the editorship of the ‘Annual Register,’ but a serious illness soon compelled him to relinquish the work, and, although a careful and charitable pastor and a good neighbour, he was unable henceforth to undertake much literary work. In 1848 he became rector of Harbledown, near Canterbury.
In 1856, under the title ‘Agonistes, or Philosophical Strictures, by the Author of the Principles of Necessary and Contingent Truth,’ London, 12mo, Lyall published his maturer views, which resemble those of Sir William Hamilton [see Hamilton, Sir William, 1788–1856]. About a third of the book consists of a very close and generally adverse discussion of the philosophical theories of John Stuart Mill. In company with Renn Dickson Hampden [q. v.], bishop of Hereford, J. H. Rose of the ‘New Biographical Dictionary,’ Smedley, and others, Lyall contributed to the ‘History of the Mediæval Church,’ in vol. xi. of the ‘Encyclopedia Metropolitana.’ He died at Llangollen, of hereditary paralysis, 11 Sept. 1865, and was buried at Harbledown. There is a tablet to his memory in the church.
Lyall married in 1832 Mary, daughter of James T. Broadwood of Lyne House, Sussex. His children included the eminent Etonians and Indian civilians, Sir Alfred Lyall, P.C., K.C.B., and Sir James Lyall, K.C.S.I., lieutenant-governor of the Punjab (1887–1892).
[Burke's Landed Gentry, 1886 ed.; Lyall's writings; information from private sources.]
