Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Glynne, Stephen Richard
GLYNNE, Sir STEPHEN RICHARD (1807–1874), M.P. and antiquary, was eldest son of Sir Stephen Richard Glynne, eighth baronet, of Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, who was created D.C.L. at Oxford on July 1810, and died at Nice, 5 March 1815. His mother was Mary, daughter of Richard Neville, second Lord Braybrooke. The father was descended in direct line from the judge under the commonwealth, Sir John Glynne [q. v.], whose son William (d. 1690) was created a baronet 20 May 1661. Sir Stephen, born in 1807, succeeded as ninth baronet in 1815, and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (B.A. 1828, M.A. 1831). From 1832 to 1837 he sat as a liberal in the House of Commons as M.P. for Flint Burghs, and from 1837 to 1847 as M.P. for Flintshire. He was for many years lord-lieutenant of the same county, where the family estates lay. He died suddenly in London, 17 June 1874. He was not married, and on his death the baronetcy became extinct. His elder sister, Catherine, was married (25 July 1839) to Mr. (afterwards the Right Hon.) W. E. Gladstone, and the Hawarden estate with the castle is now owned by their eldest son, Mr. W. H. Gladstone.
Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Glynne's brother-in-law, describes him as 'a man of singular refinement and of remarkable modesty.' 'His memory,' Mr. Gladstone adds, 'was on the whole decidedly the most remarkable known to me of the generation and country.' He was a learned antiquary and interested himself especially in the architectural history of churches, 'of which,' writes Mr. Gladstone, 'his knowledge was such as to be probably without example for extent and accuracy.' In the course of his life he personally surveyed and made notes on the architectural details of 5,530 English churches. His manuscripts are still extant at Hawarden Castle. His nephew and successor, Mr. W. H. Gladstone, published in 1877 his notes concerning Kent, which dealt with nearly three hundred churches.
[Letter to the writer from the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Burke's Baronetage, 1874; Glynne's Churches of Kent, with preface by Mr. W. H. Gladstone, 1877.]