Sir Francis Hutchinson (d.c.1804) was created a baronet of Ireland in 1782 with remainder to his brother James, and then to his nephew Samuel Synge (1756–1846). The Revd Samuel, Archdeacon of Killaloe, inherited his uncle’s estates in Talbotstown, the Glen of Imaal, County Wicklow, in 1813 and assumed the additional name of Hutchinson by royal licence. The baronetcy ended with the death of Sir Edward Synge Hutchinson in 1906.

The Synge family have been prominent in the Church of Ireland since the seventeenth century. The Revd Sir Samuel Synge Hutchinson’s father, Nicholas (d.1771) was Archdeacon of Dublin, and his grandfather, Edward, was installed as Archbishop of Tuam in 1716. John Millington Synge the dramatist (1871–1909), was a direct descendant of Sir Samuel’s brother, Francis.

The family acquired their estates in county Meath, to which the greater part of this collection relates, through Sir Samuel’s marriage to Dorothy Hatch in 1801. Dorothy had inherited the lands, along with her sister Elizabeth, when their father, Henry Hatch, died intestate in 1797. Elizabeth Hatch (d.1810) married Francis Synge, Sir Samuel’s brother

Archival history
The Hutchinson and Synge Hutchinson family papers are part of the archives of the firm of Franks & Oulton, solicitors, 21 Lower Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, acquired in 1971. The parent collection is being listed on the basis of individual clients, usually landed families.