WYNDHAM-QUIN, Edwin Richard Windham, visct. Adare (1812-1871), of Dunraven Castle, Glamorgan and 76 Eaton Square, London

An ‘accomplished and upright, though retiring member’2Morning Chronicle, 30 Jan. 1851., viscount Adare, as he was known during his time as Glamorgan’s Conservative MP, was heir to ‘one of the wealthiest men in Ireland’, the 2nd earl of Dunraven.3M. Potter, ‘William Monsell, first baron Emly of Tervoe’, The Old Limerick Journal, 32 (1995), 58. His great-grandfather and grandfather had both sat in the Irish Parliament, the latter being rewarded with a peerage for his support of the Union.4HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 1. In addition to his father’s estates, centred on Adare, county Limerick, Adare was, through his mother, heir to the Wyndham estates in Glamorgan, with Dunraven Castle near Bridgend being the family seat in Wales.5As of 1883, the Dunraven estates (then held by the fourth earl) amounted to 14,298 acres in Limerick, with smaller holdings in co. Clare and co. Kerry, and 23,751 acres in Glamorgan: J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn., 1883), 144. Born in London, he took his B.A. at Trinity College, Dublin in 1833, and studied astronomy for three years under Sir William Rowan Hamilton at the Dublin observatory.6G. Le G. Norgate, rev. M. Herity, ‘Quin, Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. Plans to construct an observatory at Adare were abandoned when his passion for the subject damaged his eyesight.7D. Murphy, ‘Quin, Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-’, Dictionary of Irish Biography [http://dib.cambridge.org]. He did, however, retain his interest in the subject, being appointed in 1849 to a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science which considered the best means of promoting the observation of luminous meteors and auroras: Daily News, 20 Sept. 1849. Remembered as ‘one of the most cultivated men of any rank of his era’, Adare pursued numerous intellectual interests.8Freeman’s Journal, 9 Oct. 1871. He was elected F.R.S. in 1834, and was active in a plethora of other (largely Irish) learned societies, taking a particular interest in archaeology, which he studied ‘with more than common perseverance and industry’.9Limerick Chronicle, cited in Belfast News-Letter, 10 Oct. 1871. He helped to found the Irish Archaeological Society (1840) and the Celtic Society (1845), and later became involved with the Cambrian Archaeological Association, presiding over its 1849 annual meeting at Cardiff whilst Glamorgan’s MP.10Archaeologia Cambriensis, iv (1849), 295. He also presided over its 1862 and 1869 annual meetings: North Wales Chronicle, 6 Sept. 1862; Archaeological Journal, 29 (1872), 80. Among his friends was the explorer James Clark Ross, who in 1841 named Cape Adare in Antarctica in his honour.11D. McGonigal, Antarctica: secrets of the southern continent (2009), 102.

Rumours that Adare would follow in his father’s footsteps and offer in 1832 for county Limerick (which his father had represented 1806-20) were ill-founded, as he was still a year short of his majority.12Freeman’s Journal, 7 Sept. 1832. However, a canvass was begun on his behalf in December 1833 in anticipation of a vacancy, and with one of the MPs, Colonel O’Grady, seriously ill in October 1834, his candidature was again rumoured.13Freeman’s Journal, 28 Dec. 1833; The Times, 9 Oct. 1834. It was not, however, until 1837 that he offered, as a Conservative at Glamorgan, which his maternal grandfather, Thomas Wyndham, had represented, 1789-1814.14HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 660. After visiting the heartland of his opponent, John Guest, at Dowlais, Guest’s wife claimed that ‘the Little Lord was so frightened that he did not canvass a single vote, and got the Constables to escort him safely back again’.15Earl of Bessborough (ed.), Lady Charlotte Guest: extracts from her journal 1833-1852 (1950), 51-2. Criticised for his youth and inexperience, Adare was no more impressive at the hustings, where his lacklustre speech reportedly left him ‘pitied by all – his ignorance on political matters is frightful’.16Morning Chronicle, 11 July 1837, 3 Aug. 1837. He declared his opposition to the appropriation clauses of the Whigs’ Irish church proposals, and to any reforms which might damage the established Church, but favoured legislation to improve Sabbath day observance.17M. Cragoe, Culture, politics, and national identity in Wales 1832-1886 (2004), 55. The territorial influence of Glamorgan’s largely Conservative landowners enabled him to top the poll, leaving the incumbent Liberal, Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot to take the second seat ahead of Guest.

In April 1838, Adare’s election organiser praised his ‘indefatigable attention to his duties in the House’, and he was initially a regular presence in the division lobbies, voting loyally with his party.18The Times, 21 Apr. 1838. An opponent of free trade, he divided against Villiers’ motion to consider the corn laws, 18 Mar. 1839. He served on the committees on the Kingston-upon-Hull, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Tynemouth election petitions.19PP 1837-38 (433), xi. 3; The Times, 2 Mar. 1838; Freeman’s Journal, 26 Feb. 1838. Although returned for a Welsh constituency, he displayed more interest in Irish than Welsh questions, and served on the 1838 committee on pawnbroking in Ireland, which recommended extensive reforms.20PP 1837-38 (677), xvii. 174. He attended less assiduously later in this Parliament, pairing for the remainder of the session in June 1840, and also pairing for most of February 1841, when his son and heir was born.21The Times, 23 June 1840; Morning Chronicle, 3 Feb. 1841. Three other sons were still-born, in 1837, 1850 and 1852: Debrett’s complete peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1838), 601; E. Lodge, The peerage and baronetage of the British empire (1860), 209. At that year’s general election was returned unopposed.

Adare made his only known contribution to debate, 30 May 1845, opposing the academical institutions (Ireland) bill, which proposed to create non-denominational colleges in Cork, Galway and Belfast, and insisting that ‘the plan of founding a Roman Catholic College in the south of Ireland was the only one that would be acceptable to the Irish people’. He was more active in the committee-rooms, serving on those on the fisheries (Ireland) bill and the state of Westminster bridge.22PP 1842 (403), xiv. 395; The Times, 5 June 1844. A vice-president of the Royal Irish Art Union, he sat on the 1845 select committee which examined how art unions could be made ‘more subservient to the improvement and diffusion of Art through the different classes’.23PP 1845 (612), vii. 1. There had been some doubts about the legal status of art unions, as one of their activities was to hold lotteries whereby members could win paintings as prizes, and the committee’s recommendations that art unions be licensed in some way by the government were embodied in legislation passed in 1846: C.P. Darcy, The encouragement of the fine arts in Lancashire, 1760-1860 (1976), 93. He was among those praised for diligent service on railway committees,24Morning Chronicle, 22 July 1847. and was keen to improve communication between Ireland and Britain by means of railways across North and South Wales.25North Wales Chronicle, 28 Mar. 1843; Freeman’s Journal, 31 Oct. 1844. As well as promoting the South Wales railway, Adare in 1845 was chairman of the Rhondda and Ely Valleys Junction Railway and on the provisional committee of the Ogmores and Garw Vales and Port of Cardiff Union Railway: The Times, 9 Oct. 1845, 23 Oct. 1845. In 1845 he lobbied Peel regarding improvements to the port of Limerick.26Freeman’s Journal, 4 June 1845. He joined other Protestant jurors from county Limerick to petition in 1847 for amendment of their oath, to make it acceptable to Catholics.27Morning Chronicle, 17 Mar. 1847.

However, Adare’s key interest at this date was the progress of the Irish ordnance survey, where he was friendly with one of the leading officials, Thomas Larcom.28J.H. Andrews, A paper landscape: the ordnance survey in nineteenth century Ireland (2nd edn., 2002), 170. In 1843 he was among a deputation of Irish noblemen and gentlemen who pressed Peel to continue publication of the topographical and antiquarian ordnance survey memoir, begun by Larcom in 1837, but suspended on grounds of cost.29The Times, 22 June 1843; Freeman’s Journal, 27 June 1843. Although he opposed continuation, Peel appointed a commission to investigate, and with Adare as one of three commissioners, unsurprisingly it recommended completing the project.30Andrews, A paper landscape, 171-4; PP 1844 [527], xxx. 259ff. Praised for his ‘wise and patient exertions’ on this matter, Adare accompanied another deputation to Peel in 1844 to encourage resumption, but in a speech to the Commons that July, Peel only agreed to continue the geological and economic surveys (and the latter was subsequently dropped).31The Times, 11 Mar. 1844; Morning Chronicle, 21 May 1844; Freeman’s Journal, 27 May 1844; Andrews, A paper landscape, 175-6. In 1846 Adare was appointed to a select committee which investigated the progress of the Irish ordnance survey maps, but its recommendations that the one inch map be proceeded with as planned were ignored by the Treasury, again concerned about costs.32PP 1846 (664), xv. 74; Andrews, A paper landscape, 204.

Although they differed on the ordnance survey, Adare still routinely divided with Peel, supporting him on the sugar duties, 14 June 1844, and the Maynooth grant, 24 Apr. and 21 May 1845. He wavered briefly on factory reform, but although he divided with Ashley for a ten hour day, 22 Mar. 1844, he abstained in subsequent votes. However, having consistently defended the corn laws, he broke with Peel to divide against repeal, 27 Mar. and 15 May 1846. He stayed loyal on other questions, voting with Peel on the protection of life (Ireland) bill, 25 June 1846. Although primarily concerned with Ireland, Adare was not inattentive to his constituents, attending events such as the opening of the Bute dock in Cardiff and serving on the Glamorgan grand jury.33Bristol Mercury, 12 Oct. 1839; Freeman’s Journal, 26 July 1839. Adare served on the jury which tried the ‘Rebecca’ rioters in 1843: The Examiner, 28 Oct. 1843.

Despite rumours that he would retire at the 1847 election, Adare was returned unopposed, attempts at securing a free trade opponent having failed.34The Examiner, 12 June 1847. He became less attentive to his parliamentary duties thereafter. In September 1847 it was reported that he and his brother-in-law, William Monsell (MP county Limerick 1847-74) were undertaking a tour of Switzerland for several months.35Freeman’s Journal, 18 Sept. 1847. His only committee service after 1847 appears to have been on the Lancaster election petition.36PP 1847-8 (644), xvi. 191. Deviating from his usual voting pattern, Adare was in the minority with Irish and Radical MPs, 13 Apr. 1848, to support repealing part of the ministers’ money (Ireland) bill, substituting funds drawn from ecclesiastical revenues for the unpopular tax levied in corporate towns. However, he divided with his party against the abolition of church rates, 13 Mar. 1849. Adare voted in only 20 out of 219 divisions during the 1849 session, and spent nearly all of the 1850 session at Lucerne for health reasons.37Bristol Mercury, 13 Oct. 1849; North Wales Chronicle, 10 Aug. 1850; Morning Chronicle, 14 Feb. 1850. It was from Lucerne that he responded to the Glamorgan Protection Society’s request for a statement of his views on protection, his votes – among them dividing for repeal of the Navigation Acts, 12 Mar. 1849 – having aroused concern. Adare stated that he had voted against corn law repeal, being unconvinced of the necessity of change, but felt it was ‘quite another question’ to reverse the policy of free trade now it was in place. He did, however, favour measures to relieve the agricultural interest. This ‘vague and unsatisfactory’ answer led the Glamorgan protectionists to withdraw their support in July 1850.38The Times, 24 July 1850. This was perhaps a contributory factor to Adare’s decision, following his succession as third earl of Dunraven that August, to take the Chiltern Hundreds, 24 Dec., in order to devote more time to his new responsibilities. In his retirement address, he admitted that ‘I have fulfilled the duties of your representative far less efficiently than I could have wished’.39The Times, 6 Jan. 1851.

Thereafter, Dunraven, as he now was, focused his attention on his Irish estates,40His mother took up residence in Wales, where Dunraven succeeded his father as patron of several livings, including Llangan (alternately with Sir George Tyler), Coychurch, Coyty, Flemingston, Penllyne and Llanmihangel: see entries in S. Lewis, A topographical dictionary of Wales (1849). On the death of the incumbent in 1861, the livings of Coychurch and Coyty reverted to Oxford University, due to the fact that Dunraven had become a Catholic: Morning Chronicle, 23 May 1861. and came to be regarded as ‘one of the country’s model landlords’, reportedly spending £7,000 annually on his estates, completing the construction of Adare manor, and undertaking drainage works and other improvements.41W.E. Vaughan, Landlords and tenants in mid-Victorian Ireland (1994), 49, 121; Limerick Chronicle, cited in Belfast News-Letter, 10 Oct. 1871; C. Wyndham-Quin & E.R.W. Wyndham-Quin, Memorials of Adare Manor (1865), 7. In 1854 he purchased Garnish Island, near Sneem, county Kerry, planning to construct a ‘marine castle’.42Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 5 Nov. 1854. Dod in 1853 regarded the Dunraven influence over county Limerick elections as less significant than formerly, although two of Dunraven’s brothers-in-law, Monsell and Wyndham Goold (MP 1850-54) sat there.43H.J. Hanham (ed.), Charles R. Dod. Electoral facts 1832-1858 impartially stated (1972), 184. In addition, Sir Robert Gore Booth, MP county Sligo, 1850-76, was married to one of his wife’s sisters. Dunraven was a leading promoter of the Limerick to Foynes railway, serving as chairman until 1861 (and a director thereafter).44Daily News, 21 Oct. 1851; The Times, 30 Sept. 1856; Freeman’s Journal, 10 Apr. 1861.

Although it was rumoured in 1852 that Dunraven would attend mass and announce his conversion at Adare’s Catholic chapel, which he had recently spent £4,000 enlarging, this event was delayed until 1855 by his wife’s ‘vehement opposition. Her tactic was to threaten to have a heart-attack when he seemed to be about to convert’.45Morning Chronicle, 15 Sept. 1852; The Era, 25 Apr. 1852; Daily News, 6 Sept. 1855; Potter, ‘William Monsell’, 62. He and Monsell (who had converted in 1850) had been influenced by Tractarianism from the late 1830s, and as part of ‘a small and secret confraternity of high church laymen’ had received spiritual direction from Henry Manning. In 1843 they had helped to found St. Columba’s College, county Meath as part of a scheme ‘to promote high church principles in Ireland’.46Freeman’s Journal, 12 Oct. 1871; D. Roantree, ‘William Monsell and Papal infallibility: the workings of an inopportunist’s mind’, Archivium Hibernicum, 43 (1988), 118-19. Adare, as he then was, served as one of the college’s governors: The Times, 10 June 1843. Having previously supported Anglican education, Dunraven now switched his patronage to Catholic causes.47Among the Anglican educational causes he supported were the School for the Sons of the Irish Clergy, Lucan, the Church Education Society for Ireland, and the National Society: The Dublin almanac and general register of Ireland (1843), 293-4; The Times, 18 May 1843. Among the Catholic educational causes he supported in Ireland were the Catholic Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, the Limerick Scholarships at the Catholic University and (in 1871) the Catholic Education Crisis Fund: Freeman’s Journal, 15 Dec. 1855; 28 Apr. 1862, 3 Apr. 1871. Even before his public conversion, he had become a generous benefactor to the local Catholic Church, and this largesse continued thereafter.48Freeman’s Journal, 25 Oct. 1851; Vaughan, Landlords and tenants, 121n. In 1863 alone he spent £1,000 on an organ for Limerick’s Catholic cathedral and £3,000 building a Catholic church at Sneem.49Freeman’s Journal, 31 Mar. 1863, 7 Sept. 1863. His conversion caused family tensions, with his wife and children resisting his ‘strenuous efforts... bordering on persecution’ to convert them.50P. Maume, ‘Quin, Windham Thomas Wyndham-’, Dictionary of Irish Biography [http://dib.cambridge.org]; A. Hawkins & J. Powell (eds.), The journal of John Wodehouse, first earl of Kimberley for 1862-1902 (1997), 166-7. Kimberley regarded Dunraven as ‘a melancholy example of a sensible good hearted man led by superstition & bigotry’. Dunraven’s second wife, whom he married in 1870, was a fellow Catholic.

Dunraven developed a new role as a leading representative of Ireland’s Catholic laity.51He was a regular signatory to petitions and addresses on their behalf, ranging from an 1857 complaint about the ‘invidious distinction’ made against Catholics in the parliamentary oaths bill to an 1870 protest against the invasion of Rome: Derby Mercury, 24 June 1857; Pall Mall Gazette, 31 Dec. 1870. He continued his interest in education, serving from 1861 on the Irish education commission, and was a diligent member of the royal commission on primary education in Ireland (1868-70).52The Times, 23 Mar. 1861, 20 June 1870; PP 1870 [C.6], xxviii pt.I. 1ff. His religious conversion was accompanied by a political one, and in 1866 Russell gave him a U.K. peerage – Baron Kenry – and appointed him to the senate of the Queen’s University.53Belfast News-Letter, 26 June 1866; Freeman’s Journal, 10 July 1866. The latter appointment was alleged to be part of an attempt to pack the senate with those favourable to the new charter then under discussion: Belfast News-Letter, 8 Oct. 1866. In the same year he became only the second Catholic to be appointed as a Knight of St. Patrick.54The Times, 15 Mar. 1866. In the Lords, he routinely divided or paired with the Liberals. Dunraven maintained his keen interest in archaeology, and became an expert on monastic and church architecture. In 1865 he published his research on architectural remains around Adare, and his two volume Notes on Irish Architecture appeared posthumously (1875-7).55Norgate, ‘Quin, Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-’; D. Murphy, ‘Quin, Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-’, Dictionary of Irish Biography [http://dib.cambridge.org]. In his will, Dunraven left £500 to assist with the costs of the latter publication: Freeman’s Journal, 16 Oct. 1871. In his later years, he took an interest in spiritualism, contributing the introduction to a privately printed volume containing his son’s reports of séances.56Visct. Adare, Experiences in spiritualism with Mr. D.D. Hume (1869).

On his mother’s death in May 1870, Dunraven came into possession of the Wyndhams’ Glamorgan estates, but did not live long to enjoy them.57Western Mail, 28 May 1870. The family’s Gloucestershire estates had been settled on his nephew. His health ‘ruined by over-exertion’, he went to Great Malvern in the hopes of relieving pulmonary problems, but died there in October 1871.58Murphy, ‘Quin, Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-’; Freeman’s Journal, 9 Oct. 1871; Norgate, ‘Quin, Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-’. He was interred at Adare.59Freeman’s Journal, 16 Oct. 1871. His son, Windham Thomas (1841-1926), who succeeded as fourth earl and second Baron Kenry, inherited the bulk of his estate, which was sworn under £100,000, with significant benefactions to the Catholic Church in Ireland and Glamorgan.60The Times, 27 Jan. 1872. The resealed probate was sworn at £25,783 10s. 3d: Norgate, ‘Quin, Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-’. Initially a Liberal, he became an active Conservative politician, serving as under-secretary of state for the colonies (1885-7) and taking a leading role in negotiating the 1903 Irish Land Act.61Maume, ‘Quin, Windham Thomas Wyndham-’. Two of the third earl’s daughters had married MPs, and his nephew, Major Windham Henry Wyndham-Quin (1857-1952), who later succeeded as 5^th earl, was Conservative MP for South Glamorgan, 1895-1906.62Augusta Emily married Arthur Pendarves Vivian (Liberal MP West Cornwall, 1868-85, and brother of Henry Hussey Vivian, who was one of Dunraven’s successors as MP for Glamorgan, 1857-85), and Mary Frances married Arthur Hugh Smith Barry (MP county Cork 1867-74). The title of Baron Kenry became extinct in 1926 when the 4th earl died without male issue. Family and estate papers relating to the third earl are held by the National Library of Wales,63http://arcw.llgc.org.uk/anw/get_collection.php?coll_id=20139&inst_id=1&term=dunraven Limerick University Library,64http://www2.ul.ie/web/WWW/Services/Library/Special_Collections/Dunraven and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.65http://www.proni.gov.uk/index_alphabetical_index_to_private_deposits.pdf. Additional material can be found in the National Library of Ireland and in the Cardinal Newman papers at Birmingham Oratory: ‘Murphy, ‘Quin, Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-’.