William John Fitzpatrick

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This article incorporates text from the entry William John Fitzpatrick in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

William John Fitzpatrick (b. in Dublin, Ireland, 31 Aug., 1830; d. there 24 Dec., 1895) was a historian. The son of a rich merchant, he had ample means to indulge his taste for biography, and especially for seeking out what was hitherto unknown and not always desirable to publish about great men. Educated partly at a Protestant school, partly at Clongowes Wood College, he took early to writing and in 1855 published his first work, The Life, Times and Correspondence of Lord Cloncurry. The same year he wrote a series of letters to Notes and Queries charging Sir Walter Scott with plagiarism in his Waverley novels, and attributing the chief credit of having written these novels to Sir Walter's brother Thomas. The latter was dead, but his daughters repudiated Fitzpatrick's advocacy and their father's supposed claims, and the matter ended there.

In 1859 Fitzpatrick published The Friends, Foes and Adventures of Lady Morgan. From that date to his death, he wrote constantly. Notable examples are The Sham Squire (1866), Ireland before the Union (1867), The Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell (1888), and Secret Service under Pitt (1892). Fitzpatrick also wrote works dealing with Archbishop Richard Whately, Charles Lever, Rev. Dr. Lanigan, Father Tom Burke O.P., and Father James Healy of Bray. In 1876 he was appointed professor of history by the Hibernian Academy of Arts. Fitzpatrick's painstaking research as well as his spirit of fair play are specially to be commended and have earned words of praise from two men differing in many other things - Lecky and Gladstone.