Anderson, John
Anderson, John (1815–1905), woollen merchant, geologist, bibliographer, and local politician, was born 8 July 1815 near Coleraine, Co. Londonderry. After moving to Belfast he entered (1840) the woollen business in Donegall St. founded by James Young in 1795. Anderson's eminence…...
Baillie, William
Baillie, William (1723–1810), printmaker and art dealer, was born 11 June 1723 at Kilbride, Co. Carlow, the second son of the upholsterer Robert Baillie of Celbridge, Co. Kildare, and his wife Susanna (née Antrobus). After his education at Dr…...
Barr, Andrew (Andy)
Barr, Andrew (Andy) (1913–2003), trade unionist and communist, was born 23 September 1913 at 29 Cluan Place, off Mountpottinger Road, Ballymacarrett, Belfast, second child among two sons and five daughters (two other children died in infancy) of Andrew Barr (d. 1986, aged 98), a…...
Barrington, Samuel
Barrington, Samuel (d. 1693), clockmaker, may have been a son of Francis Barrington, a Cromwellian settler, who died in Limerick in 1683. He was flourishing in Dublin from 1665 to 1674 and had a contract for the maintenance of the Tholsel clock. He moved to Galway and then (1691…...
Blease, William John ('Billy')
Blease, William John ('Billy') (1914–2008), Baron Blease of Cromac, trade unionist and politician, was born 28 May 1914 in Gosford Street, off the Ormeau Road, Belfast, eldest of three sons and one daughter of William John Blease (1886–1954), restaurant chef and trade-union activist,…...
Booth, Eva Selina Gore-
Booth, Eva Selina Gore- (1870–1926), poet, mystic, trade unionist and suffragist, was born on 22 May 1870 at Lissadell, Co. Sligo, the second of three daughters (and two sons) of Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th baronet and Arctic explorer, and his wife, Georgina (née Hill) of Tickhill castle…...
Bouhéreau, Élie (Elias)
Bouhéreau, Élie (Elias) (1643–1719), huguenot bibliophile, librarian, cleric, diarist, and administrator, was born 5 May 1643 at La Rochelle, France, son of Élie Bouhéreau, pastor of Fontenay, and Blandine Bouhéreau (née Richard). The family was of the upper middle class. He was…...
Bourke, Dermot Robert Wyndham-
Bourke, Dermot Robert Wyndham- (1851–1927), 7th earl of Mayo , landowner, politician, and patron of the arts, was born 2 July 1851, the son of Richard Southwell Bourke (qv), 6th earl of Mayo in the peerage of Ireland, and his…...
Bowman, Alexander
Bowman, Alexander (1855–1924), trade unionist, was born 16 March 1855 at Dromara, Co. Down, eldest child among three sons and two daughters of William McKeown, farmer and weaver, and his wife Elizabeth (née Rodgers). McKeown was a catholic; Rodgers, a presbyterian, had been previously…...
Boyd, Thomas William (‘Tom’)
Boyd, Thomas William (‘Tom’) (1903–91), socialist and trade unionist, was born 13 April 1903 in Woodstock Road, east Belfast, one of nine children of James Boyd, shipyard clerk, and Mary Boyd (née McCully), both originally from Co. Down. He left Ravenscroft national school,…...
Bradshaw, Henry
Bradshaw, Henry (1831–86), bibliophile, librarian, and scholar, was born 2 February 1831 at 2 Artillery Place, Finsbury Square, London, third son of Joseph Hoare Bradshaw (d. 1845), a native of Mile Cross, near Newtownards, Co. Down, and a partner in the city banking firm of Barnett…...
Brady, Maziere
Brady, Maziere (1796–1871), lord chancellor of Ireland and patron of the arts, was born 20 July 1796 in Dublin, second of three sons of Francis Tempest Brady (1763–1821) of Willow Park, Booterstown, Co. Dublin, manufacturer of gold and silver thread, and Martha Brady (née Hodgson…...
Burn, Thomas Henry
Burn, Thomas Henry (1875–1949), trade unionist and politician, was born in Belfast, son of Thomas Henry Burn. Little is known of his family life but he was educated at Belfast National School and subsequently trained as a lithographic printer. The Ulster Unionist Labour…...
Butler (Thompson), Elizabeth
Butler (Thompson), Elizabeth (1846–1933), Lady Butler , military painter, was born 3 November 1846 at the Villa Claremont, near Lausanne, Switzerland, the elder daughter of Thomas James Thompson and Christiana Thompson (née Weller). The Thompsons were cosmopolitan in outlook,…...
Carney, Sir Richard
Carney, Sir Richard (d. 1692?), herald and painter, is said by Strickland to have been the son of Edward Carney, a Dublin tailor, and to have been appointed a herald in 1652 and principal herald of arms in Ireland in 1655. He was certainly the Richard Carney who was appointed…...
Cavan, Harry (Henry Hartrick)
Cavan, Harry (Henry Hartrick) (1916–2000), football administrator and trade union official, was born on 19 May 1916 in Mary Street, Newtownards, Co. Down, the eldest child of Walter Cavan, a motor body maker, and his wife Clara (née Quinn). Educated locally, he left school at 14 to…...
Collis, Peter
Collis, Peter (1929–2012), artist, was born in London on 16 November 1929, the son of Herbert Collis, an architect, and Phyllis Collis (née Clark). Growing up in Guildford, Surrey, and later at Esher, Surrey, he received a formal academic training in oil painting at Epsom College (…...
Conolly, Thurloe
Conolly, Thurloe (1918–2016), artist, was born in Cork city on 21 July 1918, the younger of two sons to William Joseph Conolly, a structural engineer, and his wife Constance Elizabeth Conolly (née Jeffares). According to family lore, the Conollys were descended from the eighteenth-…...
Cotton, Henry
Cotton, Henry (1789–1879), theologian and bibliographer, was born in Bucks., England, son of the Rev. William C. Cotton of Chichley, Berks., educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1811; MA…...
Craig, James Humbert
Craig, James Humbert (1877–1944), landscape painter, was born 12 July 1877 at 16 Brougham St., Belfast, second of five children and the only son of Alexander Craig, wholesale merchant, and his wife Marie Metezzen, a Swiss national, who had married in Belfast in 1874. Soon after…...
Crookshank, Anne Olivia
Crookshank, Anne Olivia (1927–2016), art historian, was born in Whiteabbey, Co. Antrim, on 3 January 1927, the second of three daughters to Henry Crookshank, a geographical surveyor, and his wife Eileen ‘Kitty’ Crookshank (née Somerville-Large). For the first five years of her life Anne…...
Curran, Amelia
Curran, Amelia (1775–1847), artist, was born in Redmond's Hill, Dublin, eldest child of John Philpot Curran (qv), orator, lawyer, and parliamentarian, and Sarah Curran (née Creagh), both of Newmarket, Co. Cork. Her artistic…...
Currey, Frances Wilmot (‘Fanny’)
Currey, Frances Wilmot (‘Fanny’) (1848–1917), artist and horticulturalist, was born 30 May 1848 at Lismore castle, Co. Waterford, the daughter of Francis Edmund Currey and his wife, Anna. Her father, who for many years was land agent to the dukes of Devonshire, was also an early…...
Dawson, George William Percy
Dawson, George William Percy (1927–2004), geneticist, art lover and philanthropist, was born 7 August 1927 in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, England, the only child of Percy John Fritz Stanley Dawson, fishmonger, and his wife Edith Helen (née Fildes). Education He was…...
Delany, Mary
Delany, Mary (1700–88), artist, was born 14 May 1700 in Coulston, Wiltshire, England, elder daughter and second among four children of Col. Bernard Granville and his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Martin Westcomb, former consul at Cadiz. Her father, the younger brother of George…...