William Bruce Author & Editor

Rev. William Bruce (1757-1841) And Henry Joy (1754-1835) were leading cultural and political figures in late eighteenth-century Belfast, prominent in the Irish Volunteer movement and with many links to the British parliamentary reform cause. While retaining their commitment to substantial Parliamentary reform, Bruce and Joy eventually joined the Belfast yeomanry corps before the outbreak of the 1798 rebellion to resist domestic insurrection and foreign invasion and subsequently also became supporters of the Act of Union. John Bew is completing a PhD in history at Pembroke College, Cambridge.