John Lalor (journalist)

John Lalor (1814–1856), journalist and author.

Lalor, son of John Lalor, a Roman Catholic merchant, was born at Dublin in 1814, and educated at a Roman Catholic school at Carlow and at Clongowes College. On 6 June 1831 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1837. After collecting important evidence as an assistant poor-law commissioner, he left Ireland in 1836, and became connected with the daily press in London, first as a parliamentary reporter, and afterwards for five or six years as one of the principal editors of the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ having social and domestic questions wholly under his direction. In 1838 he was admitted a solicitor in Dublin.

In 1839 he obtained the prize of one hundred guineas awarded by the Central Society of Education for an essay on ‘The Expediency and Means of Elevating the Profession of the Educator in Society.’

He was brought up as a Roman Catholic, but about 1844 he joined the Unitarian church, and undertook the editorship of the Unitarian weekly paper, ‘The Inquirer.’ He himself contributed vigorous articles on the Factory Bill, Ireland, and on education. His last work for the press was ‘Money and Morals: a Book for the Times,’ 1852, a portion of which was reprinted in 1864 under the title of ‘England among the Nations.’

He died, after much ill-health, at Holly Hill, Hampstead, London, on 27 Jan. 1856, aged 42.

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