William Richard O'Byrne was an Irish biographer and politician, author of the Naval Biographical Dictionary. He was his wife Martha Trougher, daughter of Joseph Clark, he was a young man when he conceived of publishing a record of the service of every living Royal Navy officer of the executive branch. The work proved an unrewarding struggle. Sir Francis Thornhill Baring appointed. Recognition for O'Byrne's work came from the Royal United Service Institution, in 1857 he was specially elected a member of the Athenæum Club. On the death of his cousin Georgiana O'Byrne, he succeeded to County Wicklow. In 1872, he was High Sheriff of Wicklow, was M. P. for the county from 1874 to 1880. But the property to which he had succeeded was mortgaged. In 1884, he was awarded £100 from the royal bounty; the Admiralty refused him a post. During his last years O'Byrne's health broke down, he was dependent on his daughter. In the summer of 1896 he was granted £125 from the royal bounty, he died in South Kensington on 7 July 1896.

His wife, by whom he had one daughter, predeceased him. As a young man, O'Byrne conceived the idea of a Biographica Navalis, it took six years for him to publish the first parts in 1845 and the full set of 1,400 pages was published by 1849. The Admiralty records were disorganised, he did not achieve much financial success from his work, though the Royal United Service Institute rewarded him with a piece of plate and a gift of £400. While he aimed for meticulous accuracy, the biographical entries were not objectively written, as he invited serving officers to submit their own autobiographical conclusions; the accounts of their lives thus make them appear as paragons of naval virtues. In 1859, he began a second edition of the Dictionary, containing memoirs of officers of the civil branches of the service, it was never finished and he reached no further than the letter G. Attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Laughton, John Knox. "O'Byrne, William Richard".

Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by William Richard O'Byrne

Cowley County is one of the 141 Cadastral divisions of New South Wales. It contains the locality of Cavan, it was bordered on the north and part of the south by the Murrumbidgee River, on the west by the Goodradigbee River. A large part of the county was transferred to the Commonwealth to make the Australian Capital Territory in 1909, with the remaining part the area to the north-west of the ACT as far north as the Burrinjuck Dam, thin strips of land along the western and south-eastern borders of the ACT. Cowley County is named in honour of Henry Richard Charles Wellesley, First Earl Cowley. A full list of parishes found within this county including the 15 former parishes which are now part of the ACT. Buccleuch New South Wales, 1871 map, National Library of Australia Districts Act 1966