Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dillon-Lee, Henry Augustus
DILLON-LEE, HENRY AUGUSTUS, thirteenth Viscount Dillon (1777–1832), writer, eldest son of Charles, twelfth viscount Dillon, K.P., by the Hon. Henrietta-Maria Phipps, only daughter of Constantine, first lord Mulgrave, was born at Brussels on 28 Oct. 1777. On 1 Oct. 1794 he obtained the rank of colonel in the Irish brigade, and on a vacancy occurring in 1799 he was returned to parliament for the borough of Harwich. At the last general election of 1802 he was chosen one of the knights for the county of Mayo, and was re-elected in 1806, 1807, and 1812, and continued a member of the House of Commons till 9 Nov. 1813, when he succeeded to his father's title. He became colonel of the Duke of York's Irish regiment (101st foot) in August 1806.
Dillon inherited through his grandmother, Lady Charlotte Lee, daughter of the second of the extinct Earls of Lichfield, the estate of Dytchley, with its beautiful hall built on the site of the mansion once occupied by Sir Henry Lee of Dytchley. He married in 1807 Henrietta Browne, sister of the first Lord Oranmore, by whom he had five sons and two daughters. He died, after much suffering, on 24 July 1832, at Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, London. Dillon published the following works:
- ‘A Short View of the Catholic Question,’ 1801, a pamphlet advocating the catholic claims.
- ‘A Letter to the Noblemen and Gentlemen who composed the Deputation of the Catholics of Ireland,’ 1805.
- ‘A Commentary on the Military Establishments and Defence of the British Empire,’ 2 vols. 8vo, 1811–12.
- An edition of ‘The Tactics of Ælian,’ with notes, 4to, 1814.
- ‘A Commentary on the Policy of Nations,’ London, 2 vols. 8vo, 1814.
- ‘A Discourse upon the Theory of Legitimate Government,’ London, 12mo, 1817.
- ‘Rosaline de Vere, a Romance,’ 2 vols. post 8vo.
- ‘The Life and Opinions of Sir Richard Maltravers, an English Gentleman of the 17th Century,’ London, 1822, 2 vols. 8vo, a fiction in which the author endeavoured to show the difference of manners at the time in which he lived and those of which he wrote, a comparison not very flattering to the Georgian era.
- ‘Eccelino da Romano,’ a poem, 1828, 2 vols. 8vo.
[Lodge's Genealogical Peerage; Gent. Mag. 1832, vol. cii. pt. ii. p. 175; notice on fly-leaf of Life and Opinions of Sir Richard Maltravers; Allibone's Dict. of English Literature.]