William Webb Follett Synge (25 August 1826 – 29 May 1891) was a British diplomat and author, known for his contributions to The Standard, Punch and the Saturday Review.
Contents
Biography
William Synge was born in 1826 to the Rev. Robert Synge, M.A. (d. 1862), by his first wife, Anne (d. 1844), daughter of William Webb Follett. After being educated almost entirely abroad, he joined the Foreign Office on 26 June 1846.
He served in the British legation at Washington from 15 September 1851 to 1 July 1853, during the presidency of Millard Fillmore. Whilst there he married, on 27 January 1853, Henrietta Mary, youngest daughter of Robert Dewar Wainwright, colonel in the United States army.
Returning to the UK, he began his literary career in his leisure time, writing in a journal called The Press. His contributions to Punch began during the Crimean War (1853–56), and include a well-received poem, Sursum Corda (Lift up your Hearts - Punch, November 1854) which reflected on the bloody Battle of the Alma (20 September 1854).
On 26 July 1856 he was appointed secretary to Sir William Gore Ouseley’s special mission to Central America, which sought to resolve Britain's interests in Central America, particularly the Bay Islands off Honduras, the Mosquito Coast and Greytown, and during his absence on that mission obtained the rank of assistant clerk at the Foreign Office on 7 December 1857. While with Ouseley, in 1859, he met Anthony Trollope, who describes Synge as 'a very prince of good fellows ... as pleasant a companion as a man would wish to meet', albeit perhaps disapproving of Synge's Tory politics.