Laurence Hynes Halloran

Laurence Hynes Halloran (29 December 1765 – 8 March 1831) was a poet, unordained clergyman and felon who became a pioneer schoolteacher, journalist, and bigamist in Australia, founder of the Sydney Public Free Grammar School.

Halloran was born in County Meath, Ireland and was orphaned while young. He was placed in the care of an uncle, Judge William Gregory, and educated at Christ's Hospital. He entered the navy in 1781 but was gaoled two years later for stabbing and killing a fellow midshipman. He came into notice by the publication of two volumes of verse, Odes, Poems and Translations (1790), and Poems on Various Occasions (1791), and probably about this period became master of Alphington Academy near Exeter; one of his pupils was Robert Gifford, 1st Baron Gifford (born 1779). Claiming falsely to have been ordained by Thomas O'Beirne, Bishop of Ossory, Halloran afterwards became a chaplain in the navy, and in 1805 was on the Britannia at the Battle of Trafalgar. The following year, he was posing as a clergyman in Bathref name=Comerford/> In 1807 he was at the Cape of Good Hope as a chaplain to the forces. In 1811, now also heolding a school principal's position, he interfered in a duel between two officers and was removed to Simon's Town. He then resigned his position as chaplain and published a satire Cap-abilities or South African Characteristics. Proceedings were taken against him and he was sentenced to be banished from the colony. It was subsequently necessary for the governor of the colony to declare valid those marriages conducted by Halloran during his time there. Returning to England in 1811, he resumed his pose as a clergyman under half a dozen aliases in a variety of English parishes, also teaching and writing poetry. In November 1818 he was charged with forging a tenpenny frank, was found guilty, and was sentenced to seven years penal transportation to Australia.

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