LYE, EDWARD (1694–1767), Anglo-Saxon and Gothic scholar, born at Totnes, Devonshire, in 1694 (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. x. 207, 208), was the son of Thomas Lye, vicar of Broadhempston, Devonshire, and a schoolmaster at Totnes, by his wife Catherine (Johnson). He was educated at his father's school; at Crewkerne school, Somerset; and at Hart Hall (Hertford College), Oxford, where he entered 28 March 1713, and graduated B.A. 19 Oct. 1716, M.A. 6 July 1722 (Cat. Oxf. Grad.) He was ordained in 1717, and in 1721 was admitted vicar of Houghton Parva, Northamptonshire (Bridges, Northampton, i. 375), where he began the study of Anglo-Saxon and kindred tongues. In 1743 he published, with additions, the ‘Etymologicum Anglicanum’ of Francis Junius [q.v.] from the manuscript in the Bodleian. To this work, which had occupied him seven years, he prefixed an Anglo-Saxon grammar. In 1750 he published the Gothic version of the gospels, ‘Sacrorum Evangeliorum Versio Gothica,’ &c., Oxford, 4to, with a Latin translation, notes, and a Gothic grammar. On 4 Jan. 1750 he was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He resigned Houghton Parva about 1750 on being presented by the Earl of Northampton to the rectory of Yardley Hastings. He at this time was supporting his mother and his two sisters. About 1737 Lye began to work on an Anglo-Saxon and Gothic dictionary, which he despaired of publishing, until in 1765 he was encouraged by a subscription of 50l. from Archbishop Secker (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ix. 752), and by other subscriptions. About thirty sheets were printed just before Lye's death, and the work was posthumously published, with additions, in 1772 by his friend the Rev. Owen Manning (Chalmers, Biog. Dict. s.v. ‘Manning’) as ‘Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum. Accedunt fragmenta Versionis Ulphilanæ, necnon opuscula quædam Anglo-Saxonica,’ London, 1772, fol.
Lye died, aged 73, on 19 Aug. 1767 (cp. Gent. Mag. 1767, xxxvii. 430), of gout, from which he had long suffered, at Yardley Hastings, where he was buried. He is described as a man of simple and upright character. A good portrait of Lye seated in his study was painted by Miss Reynolds, sister of Sir Joshua, and was engraved by T. Burke, 1784 (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. v. 461, ix. 753). His library was sold in 1773 (ib. iii. 669).
[Manning's Præfatio to Lye's Dictionarium; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. s.v. ‘Lye;’ authorities cited above.]
LYE, LEE, or LEIGH, THOMAS (1621–1684), nonconformist minister, son of Thomas Leigh of Chard in Somerset, was born on 25 March 1621. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, as Leigh, on 4 Nov. 1636, was elected scholar on 6 Oct. 1637, and proceeded B.A. on 25 May 1641. He afterwards migrated to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A., as Lee, in 1646. He was head-master of Bury St. Edmunds school for a short time in 1647, and was incorporated M.A. of Oxford, as Lye, on 8 May 1649. Wood says he was chaplain of Wadham College about the same time, but his name does not appear on the books.
In August 1651, while minister of Chard, he refused to sign the engagement, and was consequently ordered to leave the town, not to come within ten miles of it, and not to preach in any market town in Somerset. He preached a farewell sermon to his parishioners on 24 Aug. 1651. In November, however, the council at Whitehall reversed the order of banishment and silence. In 1654 he was appointed one of the assistants to the commissioners in Somerset for the ejection of scandalous ministers. Towards the end of 1658 he was elected by the congregation to the charge of All Hallows, Lombard Street, London. He was made one of the approvers of ministers, ‘according to the presbyterian way,’ in London on 14 March 1659. After the Restoration, in November 1660, he with other ministers in London made an ‘acknowledgment’ to the king ‘for his Gracious Concessions … concerning Ecclesiastical affairs,’ but he was ejected from All Hallows in August 1662 by the Act of Uniformity. He seems to have collected a congregation at Dyers' Hall, Thames Street, soon afterwards, and to have preached in the independent meeting-house at Clapham.
Lye was very popular as an instructor of children, and was singularly successful in catechising them. Edmund Calamy the younger writes that he was taken by his mother to Dyers' Hall to be catechised by ‘good old Mr. Thomas Lye … she having been herself catechised by him in her younger years’ (Life and Times, i. 73). He probably kept a school at his house in Clapham. He
