DEARMAN & MOLLETT

I see, now that I guessed completely wrong with respect to the appearance of Thomas Merrick.  The portrait I chose is of Edwin Drinker Cope by C. A. Worrall.  Cope was an American paleontologist, not a solicitor as our Thomas was, so a rather more glamorous profession perhaps.  And I think the Americanism of the painted portrait is probably rather too obvious.  I don’t think the real Thomas looks quite as benign - but then people rarely do in those stiff Victorian studio portraits.  Thanks to Tom Merrick for the wonderful photograph.

I am not going to write a ‘story’ of Thomas, because I frankly know just about nothing about him.  Maybe one day I shall know more.  For now here are the facts as I know them.

Born around 1827 in the city of Cork, according to the 1901 census.  His father was Thomas and mother Elizabeth (Eliza) Warren of Castle Warren - Warren being a name that is often used as a middle name when naming children in the Merrick family.  At some point he qualified as a solicitor and moved to Dublin where he seems to have spent the rest of his life.  He married Mary Anne Lyster of one of Ireland’s notable families at St. Nicholas Church in Cork.  They had eleven children at least, only two of them girls, the last of the children being born in 1874.  I do not know either, when his wife died, but he was still alive and living in Dublin with his older daughter and two of his sons in 1901.  I do not know when he died, although in the 1911 census his son Thomas, still living in the same house, states that the Head of the household (Thomas senior?) is away from home.  He was Church of Ireland of course not Roman Catholic.

I’m sure he would be an interesting man to know more about but so far we have not been able to discover more.