Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eyre, Charles

793170Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 18 — Eyre, Charles1889Francis Watt

EYRE, CHARLES (1784–1864), miscellaneous writer, born in 1784, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1807. He afterwards took orders, but finally attached himself to the unitarians. He took considerable interest in the movement that led to the Reform Bill of 1812, and was for some time proprietor of three liberal newspapers printed at Colchester. Afterwards he managed a large farm, but resolved to part with it at the solicitation of some members of his family. Before he had signed the transfer he committed suicide by hanging at his residence, Upper Park, Dedham, Essex, on 28 Sept. 1804. The coroner's jury found that he was temporarily insane.

Eyre wrote: 'A Letter addressed to the Dukes of Norfolk and Grafton,' on the Reform Bill, Ipswich, 1831. 'An Illustration of the Epistles of St. Paul, including an entirely new translation,' 2 vols. 1832. 'Remarks on perusing the Rev. P. E. Bidler's Letter to the Unitarians of Ipswich,' &c. 2nd ed. 1836. 'The Fall of Adam,' 1852, from Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (an amended edition of Milton's epic, in which 'frequent variations, both in incident and language, will be detected, and in some cases correction or supposed improvement').

[References in Works; Gent. Mag. November and December 1864; Essex Standard and Eastern Counties Advertiser, 5 Oct. 1854; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

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