the world, together with a width of general culture and a steadiness of purpose. In 1844 Conolly ceased to reside in the Hanwell Asylum, but retained medical control as visiting physician till 1852, when his connection with the institution practically ceased, though he was still consultant. At this time he lived in the village of Hanwell, where he owned a private asylum. He had a very large consulting practice in cases of mental disease. His best works belong to the later period of his life: ‘On the Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums,’ 1847 (the most valuable and characteristic production of his pen); ‘The Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Restraints,’ 1856; a short ‘Essay on Hamlet,’ 1863; and ‘Clinical Lectures’ delivered at Hanwell and printed in the ‘Lancet,’ 1845–6. The style of his later books is always easy and sometimes highly eloquent. His earlier writing is apt to be turgid. Only by practice did he attain the polish which characterises his mature work. His laboured memoir of Dr. Darwall, though published when he was forty years old, can at best be called promising. Among the many honours which he received two may be specially mentioned. When the British Medical Association met at Oxford the university bestowed upon Conolly the honorary degree of D.C.L. On the occasion of his resignation of the post of visiting physician to the Middlesex Asylum, a great public testimonial was conferred upon him, in the shape of ‘a handsome piece of plate emblematic of the work in which he had been so long engaged, and a portrait of himself by Sir Watson Gordon.’ The presentation was made amid imposing ceremony by Lord Shaftesbury, chairman of the Lunacy Commission.
Throughout life Conolly's health was never robust. During the years of his greatest activity he was tormented by a chronic cutaneous affection. He suffered much from rheumatic fever, which left traces of heart disease. In 1862 he lost a favourite grandchild, and being always a man of the warmest family affections, he spent an hour the day before the funeral weeping over the child's coffin. Next night he was seized with convulsions, which were followed by paralysis of the right side; he partially recovered, but had repeated similar attacks. After a severe recurrence of such seizures he died in his house at Hanwell on 5 March 1866.
[Sir James Clark's Memoir of Conolly; Maudsley's Memoir in Journal of Mental Science; obituary notices in Lancet (by Conolly's son-in-law, Dr. Harrington Tuke), and in Brit. Med. Journal; various works of Conolly; also Dr. Hack Tuke's Hist. of the Insane in the British Isles.]
CONOLLY, THOMAS (1738–1803), Irish politician, only son of William Conolly, first M.P. for Ballyshannon, by Lady Anne Wentworth, eldest daughter of Thomas Wentworth, first earl of Stratford of the second creation, was born in 1738. The fortunes of the Conolly family in Ireland had been founded by William Conolly (d. 1729) [q. v.], who was uncle to Thomas Conolly's father, and made his nephew heir to his property. Conolly's father died in 1760, leaving, besides his only son, four daughters, the Countess of Rosse, the Viscountess Howe, the Countess of Buckinghamshire, whose daughter married Lord Castlereagh, and Anne Byng, whose son eventually succeeded to the Stnifford estates, and whose grandson, Field-marshal Sir John Byng [q. v.], was made first Earl of Strafford of the third creation. In 1758 Thomas Conolly married Lady Louisn Lennox, third daughter of Charles, second duke of Richmond, and in 1759 he was elected M.P. for Malmesbury in the English House of Commons, and in 1761 for Londonderry county in the Irish House of Commons, which latter seat he held until the union. He showed no great abilities in either house, but from his wealth and connections he possessed very great influence in Ireland, where he held various offices, such as lord of the treasury, commissioner of trade, and lord-lieutenant of the county of Londonderry, and where he was sworn of the privy council in 1784. After sitting for Malmesbury until 1768, and for Chichester, through the influence of his father-in-law, from 1768 to 1784, in the English House of Commons, he gave up his seat in that house, and took up his residence permanently at Castletown. In 1788 he was one of the leaders in the revolt of the Irish House of Commons against the English ministry, and was one of the members deputed to offer the Prince of Wales the regency without any restrictions whatever. This independence lost him his seat at the board of trade, but his influence remained so great, that he was one of the ten chief persons in Ireland to whom Cornwall is broached the first idea of a legislative union with England in 1798. Cornwallis, in his despatch of 27 Nov. 1798, writes that he had consulted seven leading peers, the attorney- and solicitor-general, and Conolly on the subject, and says that 'Mr. Conolly had always been a decided friend to an union, and was ready to give it his best assistance' (Cornwallis Correspondence ii. 450). Conolly threw himself warmly into the debates on the question, doubtless under the influence of Castlereagh, who had married his niece Lady Amelia Hobart, and several times spoke in favour of the measure, which,
