Lynn, William Henry (1829-1915) : Lynn, William Henry - Architect. ... Master, Sir Charles Lanyon (1846-49). Partner of Lanyon (1860-72) and of John Lanyon (1864-72). Their "practice ... was one of the most extensive in Ireland and certainly the most varied. It included domestic, ecclesiastical and public works all over the country". Lynn was "a great competition man". In 1875 he visited Quebec at the invitation of the Governor-General, Lord Dufferin (whose estate was Clandeboye, not far from Belfast), 'to advise on public improvements.'" He gave Dufferin "plans for the embellishment of Quebec...with...a continuous line of promenade along the walls and outside of the citadel; and new city gates...(as well as) the extension of Durham-terrace". He had a part, then, in the planning of these gates and of the Dufferin Terrace.
Lynn is best known as an architect ... and as the designer of many mansions, churches and public buildings. In an active career ... he designed buildings as wide apart in time and space and style as the Londonderry Monument on Scrabo Hill, County Down, Belfast Castle, the Chateau St. Louis at Quebec, St. Andrew's Church in Dublin, St. Patrick's Church with the round tower at Jordanstown, Government Buildings at Sydney in New South Wales, the Town Hall at Barrow-in-Furness, and Queen's University Library, Royal Avenue Public Library, the Bank Buildings, Campbell College, and the Harbour Offices, all in Belfast. He, indeed, gave Irish architecture a greater prestige abroad ... But Lynn's architectural success derived no more from his skill as a designer than from his ability as a watercolourist.
Born in St. John's Point, Co. Down ... Lynn was brought up at Bannow in Co. Wexford where he had ample opportunity to develop his native skill at drawing landscape and ruins. His youth coincided with the moment when 18th century romanticism for the past was giving way to that serious analysis of the mediaeval world which gave birth to the gothic revival. It was also the time when watercolour painting was becoming most popular. The Society of Painters in Watercolours had been instituted in 1804 (and became 'Royal' in 1882). The medium had great advantages; its equipment was uncomplicated and conveniently small and portable; and the range of its attainments was wide...
It was this general familiarity which laid the way open for the medium's exploitation by architects, particularly those like Lynn with natural painting ability. Its fine detail was ideal for the portrayal of proposed buildings ... Equally important were the glowing sunlit settings or the dramatic skies to which watercolour so readily lends itself. With these the architect could woo clients, competition judges and building committees, setting off his design to its fullest advantage, and where necessary disguising its weaknesess.
Lynn's career is easily outlined. Apprenticed to Charles Lanyon in 1846, he had become his partner by 1854 when still only twenty-four ... Before the two parted company in 1872, the firm had notched up a formidable score of competition sucesses both at home and far afield. After Lynn emerged from beneath the Lanyon umberella, the success continued, and as late as 1910 at the age of eight-two he defeated fifty-seven other entrants in a competition for the extension of the Queen's College, Belfast. The work was completed just a few months before Lynn's death on the 12th September, 1915.
Unlike his younger brother, the sculptor Samuel Ferres Lynn (1836-1876) ... W.H. was serious, scholarly and reticent. He was never married, and in later years lived in relative obscurity, absorbed with his designs, a much respected member of the profession but little known outside it. Except to take part in the annual sketching tours of the Architectural Association, he rarely left Belfast ... he became an ARHA in 1864, and a full Academician in 1872. Most notable of his international achievements was the award of the gold medal for architectural drawing at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867.
The Ulster Museum's excellent collection of Lynn's drawings derives from the many works donated for an exhibition devoted to his work held in 1916, the year after his death ... (Notes 'William Henry Lynn' by Hugh Dixon in Irish Georgian Society Bulletin, XVII, 1-2, Jan-June 1974.)
