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Author: Halloran, Laurence Hynes

Biography:

HALLORAN, Laurence Hynes, pseudonyms L. Blakeney, Philo-Nauticus (1765-1831)

He had a varied and colourful career of which only an outline can be given; details may be found in the national biographies of Ireland, Britain, South Africa, and Australia, the most accurate being ADB. He was born a Roman Catholic (O'Halloran) in Co. Meath, Ireland. The names of his parents are not known but he was orphaned early and placed under the guardianship of an uncle, Judge William Gregory, and educated in England. In 1781 he joined the Navy which he left after being charged but acquitted in the killing of another sailor. At some point, possibly as late as 1792, he renounced Catholicism. On 30 Jun. 1784 he married (as Lawrence Hynes Hallaran) Mary Boutcher at the Anglican church of St. John, Exeter; with her he had six children. He became a schoolmaster at Alphington, near Exeter, but was declared insolvent in 1796, whereupon he rejoined the navy as a chaplain. In that role he served both at sea and in South Africa, where he also taught school, but he fell foul of the military and civilian governors of the colony and was banished. By this time he was living with Lydia Anne Hall, the illegitimate daughter of his sister, as husband and wife; they had twelve children. Back in England he attempted to pass as an Anglican clergyman although he had never been ordained. (ADB supports his claim that he held the degree of DD--an honorary one from the Marischal College in Aberdeen--but no record has been found.) In 1818 he was convicted of forgery at the Old Bailey and in 1819 transported to Australia where, however, he established a successful school. After the death of Lydia Anne in 1823 he (probably bigamously) married Elizabeth Turnbull with whom he had three children, including one son who also wrote verse. Ambition, debt, and a propensity to libel led to quarrels with erstwhile supporters. He died at Sydney on 8 Mar. 1831 of what sounds like a heart attack, following a severe illness. The obituary in the Sydney Monitor calls him "The Rev. Dr. Halloran . . . a man of great virtues and great faults." His widow remarried and lived until 1854. (ADB 13 Jan. 2022; ODNB 13 Jan. 2022; findmypast.com 13 Jan. 2022; DIB 13 Jan. 2022; Sydney Monitor 8 Mar. 1831)

 

 

 

Other Names:

  • Laurence Halloran
  • Lawrence Halloran
 

Books written (10):

Exeter: [no publisher: printed by Trewman], 1791
London: Printed for the author; sold by Debrett, 1796
London: Printed for the author, and sold for the benefit of his numerous young family, by Whitmore and Fenn, 1818