W. S. Lach-Szyrma

Who was W. S. Lach-Szyrma?

Rev. Wladislaw Somerville Lach-Szyrma, M.A., F.R.H.S. was an English curate and author.

Wladislaw Somerville Lach-Szyrma was born in Devonport, a southern district in the English county of Devon. His father was Krystyn Lach Szyrma, a Polish professor of philosophy who abandoned his teaching position at the University of Warsaw and expatriated c. 1830, to escape persecution amidst the November Uprising. Krystyn started a new life in England, and married into the Somerville family of Plymouth. Wladislaw was born on Christmas day, 1841.

After studying the classics in a Literae Humaniores course at Brasenose College, Oxford, Wladislaw accepted a curacy in Pensilva; so began a life of service to the Church of England in Cornwall. In 1869 he took the curacy at St Paul's in Truro, followed in 1871 by another in Carnmenellis. He became ill during a visit to Paris; after a short recovery, he returned to England to find that several newspapers published his obituary. From 1873 until 1890 he served as vicar of St. Peter's Church in the port town of Newlyn.

W. S. Lach-Szyrma was keenly interested in the history of Cornwall; he wrote prolifically about the churches and antiquities there—especially those of the district around Penzance. He was also a pioneering writer of science fiction; he is credited as the first writer to use the word Martian as a noun; this precedent occurs in his 1883 novel, Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds.