Arthur Alfred Lynch

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Arthur Alfred Lynch ( October 16, 1861 in Smythesdale near Ballarat , Victoria , Australia - March 25, 1934 in Paddington , London , England) was an Australian-born Irishman, engineer , doctor , mathematician , journalist , writer , poet , soldier , freedom fighter for Ireland and member of the House of Commons .

Life

Australian years

The fourth of fourteen children of John Lynch, a Catholic Irish surveyor and founder of the Ballarat College of Mining, Arthur Alfred attended Grenville College, Ballarat, then the University of Melbourne , where he received his BA ( civil engineering ) in 1885 and an MA in 1887 ( logic and mental and moral philosophy ) as well as a diploma ( certificate ) as an engineer and also worked for a short time as an engineer before continuing his studies at the University of Berlin in 1888 .

European and Irish years

In 1888/89 he studied physics , physiology and psychology in Berlin , where he was particularly impressed by Hermann von Helmholtz . In 1889 he went to London and worked as a journalist. In 1892 he ran for the British Parliament for Galway because of his Irish origin , but was not elected. In 1898 he went to Paris as a correspondent for the Daily Mail .

In the Boer War

When the Second Boer War broke out in 1899, he went to South Africa as a war correspondent , met the Boer leader Louis Botha , who inspired him so much that he set up his own Irish brigade on the side of the Boers because the peoples oppressed by the British had to stick together. He was made a colonel . His commitment as a journalistic propagandist for the Boer cause was more important than his actual war deployment.

Years as a politician

After two years in the Boer War, he went to the USA, from where he returned to Paris after a short time. From here he ran again in absentia in November 1901 for Galway Borough and was elected MP after he had proven himself in the struggle for freedom against Great Britain. On the way to London Lynch was arrested and initially imprisoned for eight months for his pro-Boer activities. Eventually he was tried for high treason and sentenced to death by hanging on January 23, 1903 by three judges . The sentence was immediately commuted to life imprisonment and after a year he was paroled by the new government under Balfour and pardoned in July 1907 by intervention of the king . Lynch now studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital , Paddington, London, and graduated from the University of London (MRCS, LRCP, 1908). He did not (yet) practice, but ran again for the House of Commons in Westminster and was elected MP from West Clare , Ireland, in 1909 . At the same time he found the time in Paris to do his degree as an electrical engineer. Lynch spoke and wrote in addition to English, French and German.

Munster Battalion

In the First World War, he first helped as a liaison officer between the British and French troops, before he put a battalion (10th Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers ) on the side of Great Britain, he was now a colonel in the service of the king and was close to Lord Northcliffe . In 1918 he ran again for parliament, this time for the Labor Party , but was not elected. Now he settled as a doctor in Haverstock Hill , a northern part of London.

Publications

Lynch wrote a large number of books and newspaper and magazine articles, he wrote poetry (in the manner of Lord Byron ), tried to refute Albert Einstein's theory of relativity . His works on psychology and ethics were highly praised. Pierre de Coubertin adopted Lynch's theory and enthusiasm for Religio Athletae as the philosophical basis of his Olympism . His most important publications:

  • Modern Authors (1891)
  • Approaches the Poor Scholar's Quest of a Mecca (1892)
  • A Koran of Love (1894)
  • Our Poets (1894)
  • Religio Athletae (1895)
  • Human Documents (1896)
  • Prince Azreel (1911)
  • Psychology; A New System (two vol .; 1912)
  • Purpose and Evolution (1913)
  • Sonnets of the Banner and the Star (1914)
  • Ireland: Vital Hour (1915)
  • Poppy Meadows, Roman Philosophique (1915)
  • La Nouvelle Ethique (1917)
  • L'Evolution dons ses Rapports avec l'ethique (1917)
  • Moments of Genius (1919)
  • The Immortal Caravel (1920)
  • Moods of Life (1921)
  • O'Rourke the Great (1921)
  • Ethics, an Exposition of Principles (1922)
  • Principles of Psychology (1923)
  • Seraph Wings (1923)
  • My Life Story (1924)
  • Science, Leading and Misleading (1927)
  • The Rosy Fingers (1929)
  • The Case Against Einstein (1932)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Lynch: The Story of the Eureka Stockade: Epic Days of the Early Fifties at Ballarat , (1895). Reprint: 1947 and 1999 by Ballarat Heritage Services, Ballarat.
  2. ↑ Craig Wilcox (2002): Australia's Boer War: The War in South Africa, 1899-1902 , Oxford
  3. ↑ Wilcox, Craig (2002) Chapter 13: 'Interloper Arthur Lynch, Irish Australian Boer', in Australia's Boer War: The War in South Africa, 1899-1902 Oxford, pp. 262-268
  4. ↑ Geoffrey Serle: 'Lynch, Arthur Alfred (1861-1934)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, MUP, 1986, pp. 176-177.
  5. ^ Arnd Krüger : The Origins of Pierre de Coubertin's Religio Athletae. Olympika 2 (1993), pp. 91-102; http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/Olympika/Olympika_1993/olympika0201g.pdf
personal data
SURNAME Lynch, Arthur Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lynch, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australo-Irish writer, politician, doctor, colonel in the Boer War, member of the British House of Commons (for Ireland)
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Smythesdale near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1934
Place of death London