# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lindesay, Thomas

​LINDESAY, THOMAS (1656–1724), archbishop of Armagh, son of John Lindesay, vicar of Blandford in Dorset, and reputed to be the last representative of the Lindsays of Kinnettles, was born at Blandford in 1656, and was educated probably at Blandford grammar school, where William Wake, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, was his schoolfellow. He was admitted a commoner of Wadham College, Oxford, on 12 July 1672; became a scholar in 1673, and fellow in 1679; graduating B.A. in 1676, M.A. 1678, B.D. and D.D. 1693. He was rector of Woolwich from 1692 to 1695, but in June 1693 went to Ireland as chaplain to Lord Capel of Tewkesbury, one of the lords justices of that kingdom. Here he was promoted by the crown (the see of Dublin being vacant) to the deanery of St. Patrick's, Dublin, 6 Feb. 1693, and on 2 March 1695 he was consecrated bishop of Killaloe, was translated to Raphoe in May 1713, and to the archbishopric of Armagh (as successor to Narcissus Marsh [q. v.]) in January of the next year. Lindesay was a benefactor to his cathedral of Armagh, to which he gave an estate for the maintenance of the choir. His private charity was very great. Swift was among his friends. He died unmarried in Dublin, 13 July 1724, and was buried in the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral. Hearne describes Lindesay as a man of good parts, but little or no learning, and ‘of loose life but ready wit’ (Coll., Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 187, ii. 49). A portrait was in the palace at Armagh. A sermon preached ‘before the Anniversary Meeting of the Dorsetshire Gentlemen in the Church of St. Mary Le Bow, London, on 1 Nov. 1691,’ was published (London, 1692).
[Gardiner's Wadham College, p. 296; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, s.n. ‘Lyndesay;’ Monck Mason's St. Patrick's Cath. Dubl. bk. ii. pp. 213 seq.; Cotton's Fasti Eccl. Hib. iii. 23; Mant's Church of Ireland, ii. 299 sq.; Lindsay's Lives of the Lindsays, ii. 283–4.]
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LINDEWOOD, WILLIAM (d. 1446), civilian. [See Lyndewood.]
LINDLEY, JOHN (1799–1865), botanist and horticulturist, was born at Catton, near Norwich, 5 Feb. 1799. His father, George Lindley, an able but unsuccessful nurseryman, was the descendant of a good Yorkshire family. He was the author of ‘A Guide to Orchard and Kitchen Gardens,’ of which his son issued an edition in 1831. Lindley was sent to Norwich grammar school, then under Dr. Valpy, where he had been preceded by Sir William Jackson Hooker [q. v.] As a boy he was known for his love of plants and the study of antiquities, and on leaving school at sixteen he was at once sent to Belgium as agent for a London seed merchant. On his return he energetically devoted himself to the study of botany, Hooker, then living at Halesworth, being his first scientific acquaintance. At Halesworth Lindley wrote his first work, ‘Observations on the Structure of Fruits,’ translated from L. C. M. Richard's ‘Analyse du Fruit.’ This he accomplished at a sitting, working for three days and two nights continuously. It was published in 1819. His father having suffered reverses in business, Lindley made himself responsible for his debts, and after being introduced by Hooker to Sir Joseph Banks, he came to London as assistant librarian to the latter. His ‘Rosarum Monographia,’ with plates drawn by himself, which was published in 1820, so pleased Charles Lyell of Kinnordy [q. v.], to whom it was dedicated, that he sent Lindley 100l., with which he purchased a microscope and a small herbarium. Banks introduced him to Cattley, who was then wanting an editor for the folio volume of plates of flowers published in 1821 as ‘Collectanea Botanica.’ In 1820 Lindley was elected a fellow of both the Linnean and Geological Societies. In the next year he issued his monograph of the genus Digitalis, illustrated partly by himself and partly by Ferdinand Bauer, and contributed his ‘Observations on Pomaceæ’ to the ‘Transactions of the Linnean Society.’ He also seems to have edited at the same time the anonymous volume of Chinese drawings from Cattley's library (1821).
In 1822 he was appointed garden assistant secretary to the Horticultural Society, becoming sole assistant secretary, with duties both in the gardens at Chiswick and in the office in Regent Street, in 1826; and on the resignation of the secretaryship by Sabine in 1830, during a period of financial disaster, it was Lindley, in conjunction with George Bentham [q. v.], who organised at the gardens the very successful series of exhibitions of flowers and fruit, the first flower-shows in the country. On Bentham's resignation in 1841 Lindley, with the title of vice-secretary, did practically the whole work of the society until 1858, when he became a member of council and honorary secretary, posts which he felt obliged to resign at the time of the International Exhibition of 1862.