John Lyons (Antiguan politician)

Captain John Lyons, JP, DL (20 October 1760 – 6 February 1816) was a British owner of extensive sugar plantations, of 563 acres in total, in Antigua, where he served as a politician and a Captain in the Royal Navy.

He married Catherine Walrond, the daughter of the 5th Marquis de Vallado and Sarah Lyons (1731-1764). John and Catherine Lyons had 15 children, including Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons. John's grandchildren included Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, the diplomat who solved the Trent Affair, Sir Algernon McLennan Lyons, Admiral of the Fleet, and Richard Lyons Pearson, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Life

Family

John was born in Antigua on 20 October 1760.[1] He was the eldest of 11 children.[1] His father was John Lyons (1731-1775), who had succeeded to the 563-acre Lyons Estate in Antigua in 1748 and served as a member of the Council of Antigua from 1764 to 1775.[1] His grandfather and great-grandfather had also been members of the council.[1] John's great-grandfather Major Henry Lyons had emigrated from River Lyons, King's County, Ireland, the Irish seat of the Lyons family.[1][2]

The family is not Irish in origin, but a noble Norman-English family descended from the Norman Baron Sir John de Lyons, who arrived in England with the Norman Conquest and was granted lands at Warkworth, Northamptonshire, where the family seat was Warkworth Castle (Northamptonshire).[3][4][5]

John's mother was Jane Harman (1733-1792), the daughter of Colonel Samuel Harman, who was elected a Member of Assembly for Nonsuch in 1727 and later a Member of Council and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.[1]

Life

John Lyons succeeded to the 563-acre Lyons Estate in Antigua.[1] He was sworn in as a member of the Council of Antigua in 1782.[1] After the death of their second child, in 1803, John and his wife, Catherine, returned to England and settled at St Austin's, a 190-acre estate in the New Forest, Lymington, Hampshire.[2]

John Lyons died 6 February 1816 in England.[1] A memorial inscription to him exists at Boldre, near Lymington.[1]

Family

Lyons married Catherine Walrond in 1784, daughter of Maine Swete Walrond, 5th Marquis de Vallado.[1] The couple had 15 children: five of the sons entered the service of the East India Company, one entered the British Army, and three entered the Royal Navy.[1][2] Following Catherine's premature death in 1803, John married Elizabeth Robbins (26 November 1767 – 18 October 1820), daughter of William Robbins of Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 17 March 1804.[1]

The following are those children by John's first marriage to Catherine Walrond:[1]

The following are the children of John by his second wife Elizabeth:[1]

  • Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Athill Lyons (1805 - 1881), Indian (Bengal) Army.[1] Married Sophia (d.1840), daughter of Colonel Logie, and, secondly, in 1842, Mary Wall (d.1893).[1]
  • Frances Walrond Lyons, (1806 - 1884).[1]
  • Captain Edward Robbins Lyons, (1807 - 1849), Indian Army.[1]

See also

Sources and further reading
  • Langford Vere, Oliver. History of the Island of Antigua, Vol. 2. Mitchell and Hughes, London, 1894. pp. 213–223.
  • Jenkins, Brian. Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War. McGill-Queen’s Press, 2014.
  • Miller, Robert, ed. (1907). The Lyon Memorial: New York Families Descended from the Immigrant, Thomas Lyon of Rye. Press William Graham Printing Co.
  • Eardley-Wilmot, S. M. Lord Lyons: Life of Vice-Admiral Edmund, Lord Lyons. Sampson Low, Marston and Company,1898.
  • "Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34650. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • "Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34650. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • "Lyons, Richard Bickerton Pemell" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  • O’Byrne, William Richard. A Naval Biographical Dictionary, Lyons, Edmund.

References
  1. Langford Vere, Oliver. History of the Island of Antigua, Vol. 2. Mitchell and Hughes, London, 1894. pp. 214–217.
  2. Jenkins, Brian. Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War. McGill-Queen’s Press, 2014.
  3. Miller, Robert, ed. (1907). The Lyon Memorial: New York Families Descended from the Immigrant, Thomas Lyon of Rye. Press William Graham Printing Co.
  4. Hewitt, Michael (2014). A Most Remarkable Family: A History of the Lyon Family from 1066 to 2014. AuthorHouse.
  5. Rutherford-Edge, Shana. "The Ancient and Noble Seat: The History of the Villages of Overthorpe and Warkworth in Northamptonshire" (PDF). pp. 11–23.
  6. Palmer, Humphrey (Spring 2015). "The Broadsheet, Admiral John Lyons (d. 1872)". No. 14. Friends of Broadwater and Worthing Cemetery. pp. 16–17. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
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