Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Surveyor to Dublin Corporation, 1782-1795. Samuel Byron was admitted to the Dublin Society's school of landscape and ornament in 1768 and to the school of drawing in architecture in 1773, winning a prize the following year.(1) He then served an apprenticeship with BERNARD SCAL BERNARD SCAL É at Mangrove, Essex.(2) In 1779 he returned to Dublin, where he took up residence at 123 Lower Abbey Street, the house in which Scalé had formerly lived.(3) In 1779 he moved to 13 Eustace Street;(4) this was the address from which he showed five works in the Society of Artists in Ireland exhibition in 1780(5) and at which he remained until 1787, when he married Elizabeth Church of Peter Street and moved to 122 St Stephen's Green.(6) He is presumably the 'Samuel Biron' who was admitted a freeman of the Corporation of Dublin in 1780 as a member of the Guild of Stationers.(7) On 18 October 1782 he was appointed city surveyor in succession to THOMAS MATTHEWS THOMAS MATTHEWS , but whereas previous surveyors had held the post for life or until retirement, Byron's appointment was made renewable annually.(8) In August 1783 he presented the Lord Mayor with his survey of Stephen's Green, praised in Faulkner's Dublin Journal of 21 August 1783, as 'the most singular as well as beautiful Production of this Kind that can well be imagined…by a Pencil unknown before in this line'. He held the post of city surveyor until his death, which took place in 1795 at Downpatrick, Co. Down.(9) He was succeeded by DAVID BURLEIGH WORTHINGTON.  DAVID BURLEIGH WORTHINGTON.

Addresses: 123 Lower Abbey Street, 1779-1780;(10) 13 Eustace Street, 1780(11)-1787; 122 St Stephen's Green, 1787(12) until death.(13)

See WORKS.



References

For an account of Byron's life and work see J.H. Andrews, Plantation Acres ((1985), 276-7. For references to Byron in the Dublin Assembly Rolls see Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin Vol 13 (1907), 297,340,356,388-9,450,505,508-9; Vol. 14 (1909), 40,87,136,177,226-7,297,340,378,429.

(1) Gitta Willemson, The Dublin Society Drawing Schools 1746-1876 (2000), 13.
(2) Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 28-1 May 1781.
(3) Faulkner's Dublin Journal 29 May-1 Jun 1779.
(4) Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 4-7 Mar 1779.
(5) Nos. 171-175; these were 'A bird's-eye perspective plan of Trinity College park and gardens', 'His Majesty's park, The Phoenix', 'Belan, the Seat of the Earl of Aldborough', 'The seat of Robert Clements, Esq. in the Phoenix Park' and 'Forthfield, the seat of Barry Yelverton Esq.'.
(6) Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 25-27 Sep 1787. He married Elizabeth Church at St St Paul's Church, Dublin, on 27 Sep 1787 (www.familysearch.org).
(7) 'An alphabetical list of the Freemen of the City of Dublin, 1774-1824', The Irish Ancestor XV (1983), Nos. 1 & 2.
(8) Mary Clarke, The Book of Maps of the Dublin City Surveyors 1695-1827 (Dublin Corporation, 1983), xiv.
(9) Faulkner's Dublin Journal 8 Sep 1795.
(10) See note 2, above.
(11) Faulkner's Dublin Journal 4-7 Mar 1780.
(12) Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 25-27 Sep 1787.
(13) According to Georgian Society Records (1909-13), II, 109, Rose Egan took this house from Byron's widow, Elizabeth, in 1795.


1 work entries listed in chronological order for BYRON, SAMUEL


Sort by date | Sort alphabetically


Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, CITY MARSHALSEA
Date: 1794
Nature: Submits plans for same but those of John Trail preferred.
Refs: CARD 14, 346-7; Thomas King Moylan, 'The Little Green', Dublin Historical Record 8 (Jun-Aug 1946), 91