Author: Hales, William
Biography:
HALES, William (1747-1831: ODNB)
He was born at Cork to Samuel Hales, curate at St. Finbar’s Cathedral in Cork, and his wife Helena Hingston. He was educated first at home and then by his maternal uncle, the Rev. James Hingston, in Cloyne, Co. Cork. At Trinity College Dublin he excelled in both sciences and classics, earned his BA in 1768 and, despite his youth, was appointed a fellow. Several publications followed: Sonorum Doctrina (1778), De Motibus Planetarum (1782), and a mathematical work, Analysis of Equations (1784). In 1788 he resigned his fellowship and moved to the then remote parish of Killeshandra, Co. Cavan. He devoted himself to his parishioners and to writing his New Analysis of Chronology; in Which an Attempt is Made to Explain the History and Antiquities of the Primitive Nations of the World, issued by subscription in three parts (1809-12). In 1791 he married Mary Whitty, daughter of an archdeacon; they had two sons and two daughters. In the preface to Irish Pursuits of Literature he excused publishing delays caused by the 1798 Rebellion which “stained the Annals of Ireland with Treason, Rebellion and War.” In 1801 he became very ill after helping a beggar woman who was infected with typhus; his eventual recovery served to increase his religious fervour. His wife died in 1828 and Hales seems to have suffered from depression or dementia towards the end of his life. (ODNB 10 Mar. 2021; British Magazine 1 [1832] 321-28, 432-39; J. W. Stubbs, The History of the University of Dublin [1889]) SR