The great humanist historian of eighteenth-century Ireland.

William is a descendant of the (Leckies = Lecky = Leche) or Leitchs, of the Scottish town of Leckie, in Stirlingshire, which descend from the Leches of the Isle of Bute, and before that from Carden.

He was educated at Kingstown, Armagh, at Cheltenham College, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated BA in 1859 and MA in 1863

His university honours included the degree of LL.D. from Dublin, St Andrews and Glasgow, the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford and the degree of Litt.D. from Cambridge. In 1894 he was elected corresponding member of the Institute of France.

Forename: William Edward Hartpole Surname: Lecky Degree Information: LLD (1895) Countries of Association: Ireland

Further information from the University records:

Addison 1727-1897 reads: Historian and Philospher; born at Newton Park, near Dublin, 26th March, 1838; BA, T.C.D., 1859; MA 1863; MP for Dublin University, 1895; P.C. 1897.

Carlow landlord, writer and political commentator, Lecky achieved fame in his lifetime as the author of monumental works of Irish, English and European history, and saw himself as heir to the great tradition of colonial nationalism vested in Swift, Burke and Grattan.

A classic Victorian intellectual, he championed rationalism, loathed bigotry and was an admirer of Daniel O’Connell. In later life he became a ‘revisionist’ of his own earlier work, opposing Parnell and adopting a position of liberal unionism. He represented his alma mater Trinity College, Dublin, from 1895 to his death, campaigning vigorously against Home Rule.

The author of the "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe"

William Edward Hartpole Lecky, (born March 26, 1838, Newtown Park, near Dublin, Ire.—died Oct. 22, 1903, London, Eng.), Irish historian of rationalism and European morals whose study of Georgian England became a classic.

Lecky was educated at Kingstown, Armagh, at Cheltenham, and at Trinity College, Dublin. His early works, Religious Tendencies of the Age (1860) and Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (1861), published anonymously, were the products of his eclectic reading while a student and had small success.

He had been influenced by the theologian Richard Whately and the historian Henry Thomas Buckle; and his next book, the History of Rationalism (1865), while owing something to them, was welcomed by readers made familiar with evolutionary theory by Charles Darwin and the geologist Sir Charles Lyell.

Lecky offered a broadly ranging narrative, showing the emergence of modern scientific thought and rational inquiry since the Middle Ages. The impression made by the considerable learning of this work was deepened by the appearance of its companion study, the two-volume History of European Morals (1869), which explored themes initiated in the former work—the declining sense of the miraculous, the aesthetic expressions of religious belief, and the complex relationship of society and morality.

Pervading it was a desire to show the “natural causes” underlying the prevalence of certain theological and moral beliefs.

In 1871 he married Elizabeth van Dedem, lady-in-waiting to Queen Sophia of the Netherlands; but, while this involved him in social duties, it did not interrupt research upon his History of England in the Eighteenth Century, which appeared in 8 volumes (12 in the 1892 edition) from 1878 to 1890 to considerable praise.

Lecky’s claim to impartiality was not inconsistent with a desire to refute the very different views expressed by James Anthony Froude, particularly evident in the sections dealing with Ireland.

In 1892 Lecky declined the chair of modern history at the University of Oxford and entered politics, being elected in 1895 as a Liberal Unionist to represent Dublin University.

His political philosophy is best represented by Democracy and Liberty (1896). He feared the advent of socialism as retrogressive and prophesied a new despotism of the state founded on nationalism and a mass franchise. In Parliament he supported ameliorative measures for Ireland but opposed Home Rule.

He was made a privy councillor in 1897 and in 1902 received the Order of Merit.

The Lecky Chair of History at Trinity College, Dublin, was endowed by his widow in 1913.

Works:

A History of England during the Eighteenth Century, Vols. i. and ii. of which appeared in 1878, Vols. v. and vi in 1887,and Vols. vii. and viii., which completed the work, in 1890

In 1860, Lecky published anonymously a small book entitled The Religious Tendencies of the Age.

A volume of Poems (1891) was less successful. In 1896, he published two volumes entitled Democracy and Liberty, in which he considered modern democracy.

In The Map of Life (1899) Lecky discussed in a popular style ethical problems of everyday life. In 1903 he published a revised and enlarged edition of Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, in two volumes, with the essay on Swift omitted and that on O'Connell was expanded into a complete biography.

Edward Lecky, the famous scholar, historian, and unionist member of parliament for Dublin University, died at the age of 65. Death was due to heart disease.

[1] Picture: Lecky, William Edward Hartpole William Edward Hartpole Lecky, statue at the University of Dublin, Ire. © 2008, Pilise Gábor