Henry Echlin

Sir Henry Echlin, 1st Baronet (1652–1725) was an Irish barrister, judge, and bibliophile. He was the first of the Echlin Baronets of Clonagh, County Kildare.

Early life

He was born at Ardquin, County Down, the second son of Robert Echlin. The Echlin family had come to Ireland from Fife, Scotland, in the early seventeenth century. He was the great-grandson of Robert Echlin, who was Bishop of Down and Connor from 1612 to 1635. His mother was Mary Leslie, daughter of Henry Leslie, Bishop of Meath (died 1661) and his wife Jane Swinton; the Leslies were originally another Fife family. His father died when his children were still very young, and he seems to have left his family in some financial difficulty, although their position improved when his widow remarried Robert Ward of Killagh, County Down, who was a man of sufficient social standing to be created a baronet in 1682.

Henry's eldest brother John Echlin seems to have been a man of some substance: John's son Charles Echlin was an MP, and his daughter Rose was a grandmother of the first Earl of Bandon. Henry's younger brother was Lieutenant-General Robert Echlin (c.1657-c.1723), commander of the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, and later a prominent Jacobite, who died in exile in France.

He gained useful experience in the legal system by working in the courts as a clerk while still in his teens, no doubt to supplement his income. At the same time, he attended Trinity College Dublin; he matriculated in 1667, became Scholar in 1668, and took his Master of Arts degree in 1703. He practised for some time as an attorney, then entered Lincoln's Inn in 1672 and the King's Inns in 1677. Since he was just over thirty and had only been in practice at the Irish Bar for six years, his appointment caused some surprise. are yet in any great practice.'' and were in temporary disgrace (one, Anthony Upton, later committed suicide), but Echlin's reputation did not suffer permanently. Ball says that his loyalty to the House of Hanover was never seriously in question, although suspicions about his loyalty would have been natural enough from 1715 onwards, when his brother, General Robert Echlin, embittered by what he saw as the Crown's failure to reward him for his long and faithful service, fled to France and became a prominent Jacobite. The brothers do not seem to have been close, and there is no evidence that Henry, despite his increasing wealth, ever helped his brother financially.

In 1721, Henry was made a baronet. He died in 1725.

Family

He married Agnes, daughter of the Reverend William Mussen, and they had three sons and a daughter. Robert, the eldest son, died long before his father in 1706. He had married Penelope Eustace, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Maurice Eustace of Harristown, County Kildare, and the title passed on Henry's death to Robert's son, Sir Robert Echlin, 2nd Baronet The younger Robert's wife Elizabeth, Lady Echlin (née Bellingham), was a well-known writer in her day.