STUART, William, journalist, born in Galway, Ireland, 7 July, 1821; died in New York city, 27 December, 1886. His real name was Edmund O'Flaherty. He was educated at Eton college, and soon after being graduated became interested in Irish politics. He was elected to parliament, and identified himself with a group that opposed the ecclesiastical-titles bill, but made terms with Lord Aberdeen's coalition ministry in 1852, Edmund O'Flaherty receiving the appointment of commissioner of the income tax. Two years later, becoming pecuniarily embarrassed by election expenses and losses on the turf, he attempted to raise money by a fraud, and fled to Paris to avoid prosecution, and thence to New York city. Taking the name of his mother's family, he wrote newspaper articles for a livelihood, and gained a reputation as a dramatic critic by caustic strictures in the New York "Tribune" on Edwin Forrest's style of acting, enhancing the popular interest in his criticisms by sarcastic replies that he wrote for the " Evening Express." He became a theatrical manager in Washington and Philadelphia, and then the lessee of the Winter Garden theatre in New York city, where Edwin Booth gained his first success as Hamlet and Dion Boucicault and Agnes Robert-son were introduced to the public in the " Octoroon," which had to be taken off the stage on account of the political feeling that it excited. After the burning of the Winter Garden in 1867, he was associated with Lester Wallack, and in 1869 returned to the profession of journalism. Stuart was a connoisseur in gastronomy, and in the clubs of New York and elsewhere he entertained many notable people of both continents.