Christopher Temple Emmet

Christopher Temple Emmet (1761 – February 1788) was an Irish barrister and poet.

Not to be confused with C. Temple Emmet.

Early life

Emmet was born at Cork in 1761.[1] He was the eldest son of Elizabeth (née Mason) Emmet (1740–1803) and Robert Emmet, M.D. (1729–1802), a state physician and physician to the viceregal household.[2] Among his siblings were brothers Thomas Addis Emmet, a close friend of Theobald Wolfe Tone, and Robert Emmet.[3] His younger sister was Mary Anne Holmes, the wife of fellow barrister Robert Holmes. The Emmets were financially comfortable, members of the Protestant Ascendancy with a house at St Stephen's Green and a country residence near Milltown.[4]

He entered the University of Dublin in 1775, and obtained a scholarship there in 1778.[5]

Career

He was called to the bar in Ireland in 1781. Emmet attained eminence as an advocate; he possessed a highly poetical imagination, remarkably retentive memory, and a vast amount of acquired knowledge of law, divinity, and literature. Under the chancellorship of Lord Lifford, Emmet was advanced to the rank of King's Counsel in 1787.[3]

Works

Emmet's only known writings are a short poem on the myrtle and other trees, and an allegory of thirty-two stanzas of four lines each, entitled The Decree.[5] The latter was written during the administration of, and inscribed to, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, viceroy of Ireland from 1777 to 1780. In these verses Emmet predicted that England's future eminence would be endangered unless she acted justly towards Ireland by annulling harsh laws, and by removing the enactments prohibiting commerce between the Irish and America, which he styled 'the growing western world.'[3]

Personal life

In 1781, he married his second cousin, Anne Western Shirley Temple,[6] daughter of Harriet (née Shirley) Temple and Robert Temple, an American loyalist who had settled in Ireland.[7]

Emmet died in February 1788, while he was on circuit in the south of Ireland, and his widow died in the following November.[3] After his death, his younger brother Thomas Addis Emmet decided to study law at the Inner Temple in London and was later admitted to the Irish bar in 1790.[8]

References

1. Geoghegan, Patrick M. (2002). Robert Emmet: A Life. McGill-Queen's Press. p. 42. ISBN 9780773525429. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
2. Kilfeather, Siobhán Marie (2005). Dublin: a cultural history. Oxford University Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-19-518201-9. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
3. Wells, Nathan (2004). "Emmet, (Christopher) Temple (1761–1788), barrister". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8795. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
4. Geoghegan, Patrick M (2002). Robert Emmet: a life. Gill & Macmillan. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-7171-3387-1. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
5. Hutchinson, John (2003). A Catalogue of Notable Middle Templars: With Brief Biographical Notices. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. p. 85. ISBN 9781584773238. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
6. Reynolds, John J. (1903). Footprints of Emmet. M. H. Gill. p. 7. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
7. Emmet, Thomas Addis (1898). A Memoir of John Patten Emmet, M. D.: Formerly Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica in the University of Virginia, with a Brief Outline of the Emmet Family History. Bradstreet Press. p. 63. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
8. Vile, John R. (2001). Great American Lawyers: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 246. ISBN 9781576072028. Retrieved 4 September 2019.

See also

• List of Bishop's College School alumni