Edward Smyth (bishop)
Irish Protestant bishop of Down and Connor

Edward Smyth or Smith (1665–1720) was an Irish Protestant churchman, the bishop of Down and Connor from 1699.
Life
Born at Lisburn in County Antrim in 1665, he was the son of James Smyth of Mountown, County Down, by his wife Francisca, daughter of Edward Dowdall of Mountown. He was elected a Scholar of Trinity College Dublin in 1678, and graduated B.A. in 1681. In 1684 he proceeded M.A. and was elected a fellow. He later obtained the degrees of LL.B. in 1687, B.D. in 1694, and D.D. in 1696. In 1689, when Dublin was in the possession of James II, he fled to England, where he was recommended to the Smyrna Company, and made chaplain to the factory at Smyrna.
Smyth returned to England in 1693 with a fortune, and was appointed chaplain to William III, whom he attended for four years during the war in the Low Countries. On 3 March 1696, he was made dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. In 1697 he became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin, and on 2 April 1699 he was consecrated bishop of Down and Connor. In 1701 he was made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Edward Smyth (bishop)” as irish Protestant bishop of Down and Connor. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 1, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q15994754. VIAF identifies the subject as 32774021. The Library of Congress control number is no90027143. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1665, 1720, 1699 and 1678.
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