Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/168

  [Thoroton's Nottinghamshire (1797), ii. 284; Collins's Peerage, ed. 1779, vii. 128–9; Wood's Fasti (Bliss), ii. 42; Foster's Peerage of the British Empire (1882), p. 106; information kindly supplied by Mr. C. H. Firth.] 

BYRTH, THOMAS, D.D. (1793–1849), scholar and divine, was the son of John Byrth, of Irish descent, who married Mary Hobling, a member of an old Cornish family. He was born at Plymouth Dock (now called Devonport) on 11 Sept. 1793, and received his early education in that town and at Launceston, under Richard Cope, LL.D. For five years (1809–14) he served his apprenticeship to the Cookworthys, well-known chemists and druggists in the west of England, and during that period started, with other young men, the ‘Plymouth Magazine,’ which expired with its sixth number on 19 Nov. 1814. After this he passed some years as a schoolmaster, but in 1818 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Hitherto he had been in sympathy with the Society of Friends, but on 21 Oct. 1819 he was baptised into the church of England at St. Andrew's Church, Plymouth. He took his degrees of B.A. and M.A. in the spring of 1826, and was ordained to the curacy of Diptford, near Totnes, in April 1823, remaining there until 1825. After that he was at Oxford as a tutor, but this occupation ceased in 1827, when he became the incumbent of St. James, Latchford, near Warrington. In 1834 he was appointed to the more important and more lucrative rectory of Wallasey in Cheshire, where he died on Sunday night, 28 Oct. 1849, having preached two sermons that day. Dr. Byrth—he became B.D. on 17 Oct. 1839 and took his degree of D.D. two days later—was an evangelical in religion and a whig in politics. His scholarship was thorough, and he was possessed of poetic taste and antiquarian enthusiasm. He published many sermons and addresses, and was engaged in controversy with the Rev. J. H. Thom on the unitarian interpretation of the New Testament. In 1848 he edited the sermons of the Rev. Thomas Tattershall, D.D., incumbent of St. Augustine's Church, Liverpool, and prefixed to them a memoir of the author. His own ‘Remains,’ with a memoir by the Rev. G. R. Moncreiff, were published in 1851, and a sermon on his death, preached by the Rev. John Tobin in St. John's Church, Liscard, on 4 Nov. 1849, was published in the same year. He married on 19 June 1827 Mary Kingdom, eldest daughter of Dr. Stewart, and after Byrth's death a sum of 4,000l. was collected for the widow and their seven children. She died 20 Feb. 1879, aged 80. The west window in the present Wallasey Church is filled with stained glass in memory of Byrth.

[Memoir by Rev. G. R. Moncreiff; Gent. Mag. (March 1850), p. 324; Ormerod's Cheshire (new ed.), ii. 478.] 

BYSSHE, EDWARD (1615?–1679), Garter king of arms, the eldest son of Edward Bysshe of Burstow, Surrey, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, by Mary, daughter of John Turnor of Ham, in the parish of Bletchingley in the same county, was born at Smallfield, in the parish of Burstow, in or about 1615. His ancestors were lords of the manors of Burstow and Horne, and some of them owners also of the manor of Bysshe, or Bysshe Court, in Surrey. In 1633 he became a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, but before he took a degree he entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar. He was elected M.P. for Bletchingley to the parliament which met at Westminster on 3 Nov. 1640, and afterwards taking the covenant, he was about 1643 made Garter king of arms in the place of Sir John Borough, who had followed the king to Oxford. On 20 Oct. 1646 votes were passed in the House of Commons that Bysshe should be Garter king of arms, and likewise Clarenceux king of arms, that William Ryley should be Norroy king of arms, and that a committee should be appointed to regulate their fees (, Memorials, 229). In 1654 he was chosen burgess for Reigate, Surrey, to serve in ‘the little parliament’ which met at Westminster on 3 Sept. 1654, and he was returned as member for Gatton in the same county to the parliament which assembled on 27 Jan. 1658–9.

After the Restoration he was obliged to quit the office of Garter in favour of Sir Edward Walker, but with difficulty he obtained a patent dated 10 March 1660–1 for the office of Clarenceux king of arms. The latter office was void by the lunacy of Sir William Le Neve, and was given to Bysshe in consideration of his having during the usurpation preserved the library of the College of Arms. The appointment was made in spite of the remonstrances of Sir Edward Walker, who alleged that Bysshe had not only usurped, but maladministered the office of Garter, and that if he were created Clarenceux it would be in his power to confirm the grants of arms previously made by him (Addit. MS. 22883).

He received the honour of knighthood on 20 April 1661 (, Pedigrees of the Knights, 135), and he was elected M.P. for Bletchingley to the parliament which met at Westminster on the 8th of the fol-