Robert Lynn (Northern Ireland politician)

Sir Robert John Lynn (31 January 1873 – 5 August 1945)[1] was a British Ulster Unionist Party politician. In March 1924[2] he was knighted.[3]

Lynn in 1923

Parliamentary career

He was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Belfast Woodvale from 1918 general election to 1922,[4] and when that constituency was abolished for the 1922 general election he was returned for Belfast West, holding the seat until he stood down at the 1929 general election.[5]

At the 1921 Northern Irish general election Lynn was elected as a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for Belfast West,[2] holding that seat until it was abolished for the 1929 Northern Irish general election. He was elected for the new North Antrim constituency, and held that seat until 1945. From 1937 to 1944 he was Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland House of Commons.

Journalistic career

Lynn was the editor of the Northern Whig newspaper.[4][6] He was a leading contributor to educational debates in Northern Ireland though his impartiality is in question, especially following a comment in the Northern Irish House of Commons that Irish language instruction was not worth spending money on.[7] Lynn at first attacked the 1923 education bill for stripping Protestant schools of their denominational character.[8] However, Lord Londonderry—the Education Minister at the time—persuaded him to support the measure making the latter one of the few public proponents of what amounted to nondenominational schooling.[9]

In 1902, the Education Act had been withheld from Ireland at the insistence of Roman Catholic bishops, the result of which was that education reform in Northern Ireland lagged behind that of the rest of the country by 1920. Lynn was asked by the Northern Irish government to look into reforms in education in 1921 and he set up what became known as the Lynn Committee. However, Roman Catholics refused to serve on or cooperate with the committee. Much guidance was therefore required of Roman Catholic Unionist, A. N. Bonaparte Wyse (who later became Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Education in Northern Ireland).[10]

While Roman Catholic representatives boycotted the committee, Lynn recommended government funding for a separate Roman Catholic education system in Northern Ireland. When the Lynn Committee published its report in 1923, its recommendations were adopted and made law by the Education Bill (NI) of 1923.

On the difficulties of their dealings with the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the Lynn Committee said this in their report:

"We hope that, notwithstanding the disadvantage at which we were placed by this action, it will be found that Roman Catholic interests have not suffered. We have throughout been careful to keep in mind and to make allowance for the particular points of view of Roman Catholics in regard to education so far as is known to us, and it has been our desire to refrain as far as we could from recommending any course which might be thought to be contrary to their wishes."

— Lynn Committee report, 1923

The Bill was bitterly assailed[11] by both Catholic and Protestant clerics and was subsequently amended so that its original intent disappeared.[12][13]

References

1. "The Voter's Self Defense System". Vote Smart. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
2. "Supplement to London Gazette, 8 February 1924". p. 1262. Retrieved 26 December 2007.
3. "London Gazette, 4th March 1924". p. 1922. Retrieved 26 December 2007.
4. Leigh Rayment. "Historical list of MPs: W, part 5". Leigh Rayment's Peerage pages. Archived from the original on 31 December 2010. Retrieved 26 December 2007.
5. Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 654. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
6. De Valera, Éamon; Maxwell, John Grenfell; Lynn, Robert John (18 October 2017), Robert John Lynn writing to Maxwell, Éamon De Valera, Helen (Archivist) Hewson, Kate Manning, Deirdre McMahon, retrieved 23 February 2015
7. Akenson, Donald (1973). Education and Enmity. Queen's University, Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies. p. 51.
8. "Lynn Committee and the 1923 law". qub.ac.uk. Queen's University Belfast.
9. Archives, The National. "The Discovery Service". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
10. Morrison, John (1993). The Ulster Cover-Up.
11. "Lord Londonderry & Education Reform in 1920s Northern Ireland". History Ireland. 11 February 2013. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
12. N.C. Fleming, 'The first government of Northern Ireland, education reform and the failure of anti-populist unionism, 1921–1925', Twentieth Century British History, vol. 18, no. 2 (2007), pp. 146–169
13. "Legislation.gov.uk". www.legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 2 June 2020.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robert Lynn
• "Lynn, Robert John" . Thoms Irish Whos Who . Dublin: Alexander Thom and Son Ltd. 1923. p. 142  – via Wikisource.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Belfast Woodvale 1918–1922	constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Belfast West 1922–1929	Succeeded by William Edward David Allen
Parliament of Northern Ireland
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Belfast West 1921–1929 With: Joseph Devlin Thomas Henry Burn to 1925 William J. Twaddell to 1923 Philip James Woods from 1923 William McMullen from 1925	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for North Antrim 1929–1945	Succeeded by William McCleery
Political offices
Preceded by John Clarke Davison	Chairman of Ways and Means and Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland House of Commons 1937–1945	Succeeded by Howard Stevenson