Events for December 24

December 24, 1791

Sir Thomas Wyse, politician and diplomat, is born in St John, Co. Waterford

Sir Thomas Wyse KCB (24 December 1791 – 16 April 1862), an Irish politician and diplomat, belonged to a family claiming descent from a Devon squire, Andrew Wyse, who is said to have crossed over to Ireland during the reign of Henry II and obtained lands near Waterford, of which city thirty-three members of the family are said to have been mayors or other municipal officers: one, John Wyse, was Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in the 1490s.

December 24, 1923

Joe Lacey, Irish Hunger Striker died during the 1923 Irish hunger strikes

On 24 December 1923 Joe Lacey (the brother of IRA Officer Dinny Lacey) died at the Curragh Camp (the hunger strike had been called off in November 1923 but Lacey died as a result of his weakened condition)

December 24, 1449

Walter Bower, Scottish chronicler (b. 1385), died

Walter Bower ( c. 1385 – 24 December 1449) was a Scottish canon regular and abbot of Inchcolm Abbey in the Firth of Forth, who is noted as a chronicler of his era. He was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian, in the Kingdom of Scotland.

December 24, 1449

William John Macquorn Rankine, Scottish physicist and engineer, died

William John Macquorn Rankine FRSE FRS (5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on its First Law. He developed the Rankine scale, a Fahrenheit-based equivalent to the Celsius-based Kelvin scale of temperature.