Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/426

 [q. v.] was his brother. Deaf, near-sighted, ungainly, and deformed, James led a secluded life, brooding over his own schemes for securing the freedom of his country, until 1847, when he sent to Charles Gavan Duffy, editor of the ‘Nation,’ a letter published on 11 Jan., in which he advocated physical force, land confiscation, and a struggle for national independence. He thus secured a place among the contributors to that paper, and wrote a series of letters, which were ‘marvels of passionate, persuasive rhetoric.’ He devised a scheme for a strike against rent, which, in spite of the strong disapproval of Duffy, he induced Mitchell to adopt; and he also endeavoured to form a land league of his own. On 18 Sept. 1847 he summoned a meeting of tenant farmers at Holycross, Tipperary, to found a land league on the footing of a ‘live and thrive’ rent, but his want of practical ability and his fierce self-opinionativeness caused the failure of the meeting. His resolutions were carried, but the association was abortive. He continued to play a prominent part in revolutionary circles until the outbreak of 1848. On 26 May of that year John Mitchell was transported and the ‘United Irishman’ suppressed. Thereupon John Martin arranged for the publication of the ‘Irish Felon,’ successor to the ‘United Irishman.’ The first number was dated 24 June 1848, and to its pages Lalor was the chief contributor. After Martin's arrest in July, Lalor practically edited it. It came to an end on 22 July with its fifth number. On 29 July a proclamation appeared calling on all persons to arrest P. J. Smyth, Lalor, and others. Lalor had been arrested the day before at Ballyhane. He was imprisoned under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, but after he had spent some months in gaol his health became impaired, and he was released. He immediately planned schemes for a new conspiracy and a new insurrection, but died 27 Dec. 1849. ‘Endowed with a will and a persuasiveness of prodigious force,’ says Duffy, ‘of all the men who have preached revolutionary politics in Ireland, this isolated thinker, who had hitherto had no experience either as a writer or as an actor in public affairs, was the most original and intense;’ but his intellectual pride in his own work was so great and his temper so irritable, that he was an impracticable colleague. 

LALOR, JOHN (1814–1856), journalist and author, son of John Lalor, a Roman catholic merchant, was born at Dublin in 1814, and educated at a Roman catholic school at Carlow and at Clongowes College. On 6 June 1831 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1837. After collecting important evidence as an assistant poor-law commissioner, he left Ireland in 1836, and became connected with the daily press in London, first as a parliamentary reporter, and afterwards for five or six years as one of the principal editors of the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ having social and domestic questions wholly under his direction. In 1838 he was admitted a solicitor in Dublin. In 1839 he obtained the prize of one hundred guineas awarded by the Central Society of Education for an essay on ‘The Expediency and Means of Elevating the Profession of the Educator in Society.’ He was brought up as a Roman catholic, but about 1844 he joined the unitarian church, and undertook the editorship of the unitarian weekly paper, ‘The Inquirer.’ He himself contributed vigorous articles on the Factory Bill, Ireland, and on education. His last work for the press was ‘Money and Morals: a Book for the Times,’ 1852, a portion of which was reprinted in 1864 under the title of ‘England among the Nations.’ He died, after much ill-health, at Holly Hill, Hampstead, London, on 27 Jan. 1856, aged 42.

[Inquirer, 9 Feb. 1856, pp. 83–4; Gent. Mag. March 1856, pp. 319–20; information kindly supplied by the Rev. Dr. Stubbs, of Trin. Coll. Dublin.]  LALOR, PETER (1823–1889), colonial legislator, younger brother of James Finton Lalor [q. v.], was born at Tinakill, Queen's County, Ireland, in 1823, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He subsequently became a civil engineer, and shortly after the discovery of gold in Australia he sailed for Melbourne in 1852. Proceeding to Ballarat in 1853, he, with his companions, took up rich claims on the Eureka lead and gravel pits, from which they were hoping to obtain a fortune, when in Nov. 1854 the outbreak of the miners took place. Lalor played a leading part among the insurgents. It had been customary for the diggers to pay a monthly license to the government; but at a meeting on 29 Nov. 1854 it had been decided not to pay any further licenses, and the existing official documents were burnt. Parties of the 12th and 40th regiments, accompanied by police, attacked the miners on 3 Dec. at the Eureka stockade, when twenty-two of the rioters were killed, twelve wounded, and