Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lyon, John (1734-1817)
LYON, JOHN (1734–1817), historian of Dover, was born at St. Nicholas in the Isle of Thanet, on 1 Sept. 1734. He was in early life master of a school at Margate, Kent, which he relinquished in 1770 to take holy orders. In 1772 he was elected by the parishioners to the perpetual curacy of St. Mary's, Dover. His studies were chiefly electricity and antiquities. He died on 30 June 1817, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Nicholas, Thanet. On his tombstone he is described as B.A. and F.L.S. His manuscripts and correspondence were destroyed by his executors in compliance with his request. His collection of books, shells, insects, and minerals were sold by auction in November 1817.
Lyon's principal work is a ‘History of the Town and Port of Dover and of Dover Castle, with a short Account of the Cinque Ports,’ 2 vols. 4to, Dover, 1813–14 (cf. Lowndes, Bibl. Man. 1243).
In 1775 he communicated to the Society of Antiquaries a ‘Description of a Roman Bath discovered at Dover’ (Archæologia, v. 325–34); in 1785, in a letter to John Nichols, the ‘History and Antiquities of Saint Radigund's, or Bradsole Abbey, near Dover,’ which was printed as No. xliv. of the ‘Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica;’ in 1786 to the Royal Society some notices ‘Of a Subsidence of the Ground near Folkstone, on the Coast of Kent’ (Phil. Trans., Abridgment, xvi. 91); and in 1792 to the Society of Antiquaries ‘Observations on the Situation of the antient Portus Iccius’ (Archæologia, x. 1–16). In Nichols's ‘Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth’ will be found some account of William Tothall, F.S.A., which Lyon communicated to Andrew Coltee Ducarel [q. v.]
Lyon wrote also: 1. ‘Experiments and Observations, made with a view to point out the Errors of the present received Theory of Electricity,’ &c., 4to, London, 1780. 2. ‘Further Proofs that Glass is permeable by the Electric Effluvia, and that the Electric Particles are possessed of a Polar Virtue, with Remarks on the Monthly Reviewer's Animadversions on a late work intituled “Experiments,”’ &c., 4to, London, 1781. 3. ‘Remarks on the leading Proofs offered in favour of the Franklinian System of Electricity, with Experiments to shew the direction of the Electric Effluvia, visibly passing from what has been termed Negatively Electrified Bodies,’ 8vo, London, 1791. 4. ‘An Account of several new and interesting Phænomena discovered in examining the Bodies of a Man and four Horses killed by Lightning near Dover,’ 8vo, London, 1796.
[Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. v. 820–32; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]