Daniel Lysons was educated at Bath Grammar School and Oxford, receiving his B.A. in 1782 and his M.A. in 1785. In 1784, having taken orders, he became curate of Mortlake, becoming curate of Putney, Surrey, around 1790. While at Putney, Lysons began his survey of the area around London, in which he was encouraged by Horace Walpole, who appointed him as his chaplain. In 1804 he succeeded to the family living of Rodmarton, where he died in 1834.
Lysons's major work is The Environs of London, being an Historical Account of the Towns, Villages and Hamlets within twelve miles of that Capital (1792-1796). With his brother Samuel, Lysons began Magna Brittania, being a concise Topographical Account of the several Counties of Great Britain (1806-1822), but after the first six volumes, covering the counties from B to D, Samuel died and the project was discontinued. Daniel Lysons also contributed views and illustrations to other works and published several pamphlets on religious and historical subjects.
Samuel Lysons was educated at Bath Grammar School and the Inner Temple, London. He was called to the bar in 1798, choosing the Oxford Circuit, and practiced law until December 1803, when he was appointed Keeper of the Records of the Tower of London. He was director of the F.S.A. from 1798-1809, elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1797, and appointed vice-president and treasurer in 1810. He was appointed to the revived office of antiquary professor in the Royal Academy in 1818. Lysons died at Cirenchester in Gloucestershire in June of 1819.
Lysons engraved all 156 plates for Reliquae Britannico-Romanae (1801-1817), as well as the plates for Views and Antiquities of the County of Gloucestershire (1791) and A Collection of Gloucestershire Antiquities (1803). He published several other works, including "An Account of the Remains of a Roman Villa Discovered at Woodchester in the County of Gloucestershire" (1815).
From the guide to the Lysons family collection, 1789-1964, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
