English: Lanyon memorial, Knockbreda Cemetery, Belfast. Memorial to the celebrated engineer, architect and politician Sir Charles Lanyon, as well as various other members of his family.

Lanyon (1813-88) was born in Eastbourne but moved to Dublin in the 1830s to become a civil engineer for the Irish Board of Works. Moving north, he took up the post of County Surveyor for Antrim, engineering the coast road between Larne and Portrush and the Belfast-Ballymena railway line. He was also responsible for the Belfast-Bangor line in Co. Down, and the Queen's and Ormeau bridges in Belfast. From the mid-1840s onwards he set about constructing some of the most famous landmarks in Belfast architecture. His buildings are too numerous to mention in full but some of the most important and well known are Queen's College (later Queen's University) 395091, Crumlin Road Courthouse and Gaol 520778, the Palm House in Botanic Gardens 363200 and the Union Theological College 395032. In the 1860's he diversified his career, resigning from the County Surveyorship and was elected Mayor of Belfast in 1862. He was also elected President of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland from 1862-63, was a Fellow of the Institute of British Architects and a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers. He was knighted in 1868. Lanyon died at his house, The Abbey, Whiteabbey 324071, on the 31st May 1888. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lanyon and http://www.ulsterhistory.co.uk/charleslanyon.htm for more information on his life.

Other notable members of the family mentioned on the memorial include Captain William Mortimer Lanyon, 1st Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, who was killed on active service on the 5th April 1915 and is buried at Fleurbaix Cemetery, France. Also mentioned is Sir Charles's eldest son John who died and was buried at Orotaba, Tenerife, on the 13th February 1900.