Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lynch, Henry Blosse
LYNCH, HENRY BLOSSE (1807–1873), Mesopotamian explorer, born 24 Nov. 1807, was third of the eleven sons of Major Henry Blois Lynch of Partry House, Ballinrobe, co. Mayo, and was brother of Thomas Kerr Lynch [q. v.] and of Patrick Edward Lynch [q. v.] The father, at one time of the 27th foot, distinguished himself at the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo when serving in the Portuguese army under Marshal Beresford; he married Eliza, daughter of Robert Finniss of Hythe, Kent, and died in 1843. Two other sons, besides the three noticed separately, served in India. Richard Blosse Lynch, lieutenant in the 21st Bengal native infantry, was lost in the steamer Tigris in 1836 when serving with the first Euphrates expedition; and Michael Lynch, lieutenant in the Indian navy, died at Diarbekir in 1840 when employed on the second Euphrates expedition.
Henry Blosse joined the late Indian navy as a volunteer, under the name of Henry Lynch, in 1823, and was rated as midshipman on 27 March the same year. He was employed for several years on the survey of the Persian Gulf. He appears to have had a talent for languages, and neither the depressing climate of the gulf nor the miseries of the wretched little survey-brigs deterred him from a close study of Persian and Arabic. On his promotion to lieutenant in 1829 he was appointed Persian and Arabic interpreter to the gulf squadron, a post he held until 1832. During that time he was repeatedly employed in negotiations with the sheiks of the Arab tribes of the gulf. He obtained leave from India in 1832; was shipwrecked in the H. E. I. C. brig Nautilus in the Red Sea, and, after leaving his shipmates, crossed the Nubian desert north of Abyssinia, descended the Nile to Egypt, and thence shipped home. In 1834, owing to his great local knowledge and general abilities, he was selected as second in command of the expedition under Colonel Francis Rawdon Chesney [q. v.], despatched to explore the Euphrates route to India. Preceding it, Lynch made preparations for the landing of the expedition in the Bay of Antioch, after which he chose a site near Bir or Birejek, on the Euphrates, for slips, in which the two steam-vessels sent out from England in pieces were to be put together. After this he was constantly employed in negotiations with neighbouring sheiks, often a task of great delicacy, in which he displayed much tact and judgment. When the two steamers were launched, Lynch received command of the Tigris, and the survey of the river Euphrates was successfully carried down for a distance of over five hundred miles. On 21 May 1836 the Tigris foundered in a furious hurricane, with the loss of twenty lives, among the latter being Lynch's brother, Richard Blosse. The surviving steamer, the Euphrates, was then laid up for a time at Bushire. After Chesney's return to England in 1837, Lynch was given command of the expedition, and with characteristic energy ascended the Tigris to a higher point than had ever before been reached. ‘He traversed the course of the Tigris from its source in Armenia to Baghdad, fixing the chief position by astronomical observations, and others by cross-bearings. He then connected Nineveh, Baghdad, Babylon, and Ctesiphon by triangulation, and completed the Tigris map in 1839’ (Clements Markham).
Lynch was promoted to commander 1 July 1839. The court of directors of the East India Company, anticipating important results from the navigation of the rivers of Mesopotamia, sent out that year, round the Cape, in pieces, under charge of Lieutenant Michael Lynch, three river-steamers of special construction, built by Laird & McGregor. These were put together at Bussorah, and in 1840 four steamers flying British colours were afloat under the walls of Baghdad, with which Henry Blosse Lynch kept up regular communication with Bussorah. During Lynch's temporary absence in 1841, his successor, Lieutenant Dugald Campbell, with Lieutenant Felix Jones, both of the Indian navy, accomplished the ascent of the river Euphrates as far as Beles, which was considered a very remarkable feat (see Morning Chronicle, 10 Aug. 1841). Lynch resumed command at Beles in the autumn of the same year, when a base-line for the Mesopotamian survey was measured on the plain between Beles and Jiber, and connected by chronometric measurements with the Mediterranean. Lynch proceeded to Baghdad, and remained there in charge of the postal service across Syria between Baghdad and Damascus until late in 1842, during which time ‘he continued actively engaged in extending our geographical knowledge, and promoting commercial intercourse between India and Europe by this route’ (Sir Henry Rawlinson). He commanded a flotilla off the mouth of the Indus in 1843, keeping open communication with Sir Charles James Napier's army in Scinde. From that time until 1851 Lynch was employed as assistant to the superintendent of the Indian Navy, and a member of the Oriental Examination Committee at Bombay, where he was remembered as a very active member of the Bombay Geographical Society, and founder of the Indian Navy Club, once famous for its cuisine and its hospitality to the other services. He became captain 13 Sept. 1847, and was appointed master attendant in Bombay dockyard in 1849. In 1851–3, as commodore, he commanded a small squadron of vessels of the Indian navy, which rendered distinguished services with the royal navy during the second Burmese war, at the conclusion of which he was made C.B. He returned home, and on 13 April 1856 finally retired from the service.
Lynch established himself in Paris, where he was a well-known and very popular member of the English colony. At the conclusion of the Persian war of 1856–7, Lynch was delegated by Lord Palmerston to conduct the negotiations with the Persian plenipotentiary, which resulted in the treaty of Paris of 4 March 1857. The shah, in recognition of his services, nominated him to the highest class of the Lion and Sun, which order he first received in 1837. Lynch was author of the following short papers: ‘Note on a Survey of the Tigris’ (Geog. Soc. Journal, 1839, pp. 441–2); ‘Note on part of the Tigris between Baghdad and Samarrah’ (ib. pp. 471–6). Lynch's researches must not be confused with those of Captain William Francis Lynch, United States navy, whose surveys of the Jordan and Dead Sea were made a few years later, and are also noticed in the ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.’ Sir Henry Rawlinson described Henry Blosse Lynch ‘as an accurate and daring observer of the school of Ormsby, Wellsted, and Wyburd, but even more gifted than they as a scholar and linguist, and in having those rare qualities of geniality, tact, and temper, which command the respect of the wildest, and win the confidence of less barbarous Orientals’ (Presidential Address, Roy. Geogr. Soc., 1873). He died at his residence in the Rue Royal, Faubourg St. Honoré, Paris, 14 April 1873, aged 66. Lynch married a daughter of Colonel Taylor, at one time political resident at Baghdad.
[Information supplied by the India Office; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1886 ed., under ‘Lynch of Partry;’ Chesney's Euphrates Expedition; Layard's Nineveh; Clements Markham's Indian Surveys; Low's Hist. Indian Navy; Roy. Soc. Cat. Scientific Papers, 1851; Presidential Address, R. Geogr. Soc. London, 1873, Journal, vol. xliii. p. clxviii; obituary notice in Galignani's Messenger, 19 April 1873.]