Author: LYLE, Thomas
Biography:
LYLE, Thomas (c. 1792-1859: ancestry.co.uk)
No birth or baptism records have been located but his date and place of birth is given as 10 Sept. 1792 in Paisley, Scotland, in several sources. The 1851 Census gives a birth year of 1794. His parents were Robert Lyle (1763-93), a weaver, and Mary Cochrane (d 1797); they had married in Paisley on 6 Sept. 1788. Although his parents died when he was very young he was well-educated at the Paisley grammar school and studied medicine at the University of Glasgow. He was licensed as a surgeon in 1816 and practiced first in Glasgow before moving to Airth, near Falkirk in Stirlingshire, probably in about 1828. He married Margaret Cochrane (possibly a cousin) on 30 May 1821 in Glasgow; they had three sons and three daughters. Lyle returned to Glasgow in 1853 during the cholera outbreak and he died there of typhus on 18 Apr. 1859. His wife had predeceased him in 1852 and both were buried in Castlehead churchyard in Paisley. Lyle seems never to have been very successful in building up a medical practice but he was a keen botanist and ballad collector who also wrote original verse. A revised version of his “Kelvin Grove” is included in Ancient Ballads and Songs; it was first published in The Harp of Renfrewshire (1819) and for many years was wrongly attributed to John Sim who had assisted William Motherwell (q.v.) in editing that book. Ancient Ballads also includes poems by Sir William Mure (1594-1657) with notes by John Fullarton (q.v.). (ancestry.co.uk 10 Apr. 2026; ODNB 10 Apr. 2026; findmypast.co.uk 10 Apr. 2026; PP) SR