BERNARD, Hon. William Smyth (1792-1863), of 3 Connaught Place, London; The Farm, Bandon and Harbour View, Kilbrittain, co. Cork

William Smyth Bernard was the fourth son of Francis Bernard, who was an MP in the Irish parliament for Ennis, 1778-83 and Bandon, 1783-90 and, as 1^st earl of Bandon, was a representative Irish peer at Westminster, 1801-30.1E.M. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800, iii, (2002), 175-6; CP, i. 408-9. His grandfather, James Bernard, was MP for County Cork, 1781-90, see Johnston-Liik, Irish Parliament, iii. 177-8. His maternal great-grandfather, John Ponsonby MP (1713-89), had been speaker of the Irish House of Commons in 1756-71.2See M.J. Powell, ‘Ponsonby, John’, Oxford DNB, 44, 813-5. Bernard served in the Peninsula with the 67^th Regiment in 1810-11 and 1812-13, and was at the siege of Cadiz and the battle of Barossa, for which he was decorated. He also served with the 4^th Dragoons in the retreat from Burgos (an elder brother Francis died on campaign in Portugal in 1813, and a younger brother, Henry, was slain at Waterloo).3The Times, 10 Feb. 1863; Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (99th edn., 1949), 123.

William’s oldest brother, James Bernard, had sat for Youghal, 1806-7, 1818-20, County Cork, 1807-18, and lastly in his father’s interest for the strongly Protestant town of Bandon in 1820-26 and 1830-1.4HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 195-6; HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 270. His brother Richard was also MP for Bandon in 1812-15: HP Commons 1790-1820, iii, 196. After becoming 2^nd earl of Bandon, James was succeeded by his son Francis Bernard who sat briefly for the borough in 1831. At the 1832 general election Bernard, then an army captain on half pay, was selected to stand in his place. Bernard had already served as the town’s provost on five occasions and, in December 1828, had chaired the inaugural meeting of Bandon’s Brunswick Club.5HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 702-3 He easily defeated the reformer Jacob Biggs and his election has been said to have represented ‘the unmuzzling of political Protestantism’ in the borough.6I. d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics in Cork 1812-1844 (1980), 113.

Bernard sat as an ultra-Tory, and in August 1834 he had a petition presented on behalf of the landowners of County Cork for the maintenance of the integrity of the church establishment in the face of the Irish church bill. Two months later, during a large loyalist meeting at Bandon in October 1834, Bernard issued a formal invitation to the town’s dissenters to defend their social, economic and religious interests by cooperating with those Conservatives opposed to any dismantling of the church establishment.7Hansard, 13 Aug. 1834, vol. 25, cc. 1240-52; d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 75. Bernard was said, even by critics, to be ‘a diligent member of parliament, and apart from his politics, which were of the Orange school, was a very good kind of representative for a country town’.8Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849. In August 1833 he proposed an amendment to the slavery abolition bill to the effect that the laws applying to the apprenticeship of freemen should be applicable to the slaves when apprenticed after 1 June 1834. This was opposed by Lord Stanley on the ground that laws pertaining to apprenticeships were not in force in the colonies.9Hansard, 5 Aug. 1833, vol. 20, c. 336. Predictably, he supported the Irish coercion bill, opposed changes to the status of the Irish church, and voted against O’Connell’s repeal motion in April 1834. At the 1835 general election, having tired of Westminster, he stood down on grounds of ill-health and was succeeded by Joseph Devonsher Jackson, a distinguished Conservative barrister, whom he nominated at the 1837 election.10d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 171; The Times, 7 Aug. 1837.

In 1851, Bernard finally retired from the army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel and was lined up as the Conservative candidate for Bandon as a replacement for his nephew, Francis Bernard (Viscount Bandon), who succeeded as 3^rd earl of Bandon in October 1856. In February 1857, Bernard comfortably defeated William Shaw, the future leader of the home rule party, after a keenly contested and turbulent election. He was returned unopposed at that year’s general election. A supporter of Lord Derby, Bernard’s political views remained ‘ultra-Tory’ and ‘quite in accordance with the hereditary principles of his family’.11The Era, 23 Nov. 1856; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Nov. 1856. He is not known to have spoken in the Commons but supported the defeat of Palmerston on Cobden’s motion on the government’s China policy in March 1857, and measures such as Derby’s ill-fated reform bill in March 1859. He was re-elected at the ensuing general election, having promised employment for the young men of Bandon.12K.T. Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society in Ireland 1832-1885 (1984), 82. During the agricultural crisis of 1862, Bernard presided over the relief committee at Bandon and was respected by his supporters for his ‘kind-hearted’ and ‘independent’ behaviour.13Hansard, 21 Feb. 1862, vol. 165, c. 562; Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849.

Regarded, even by opponents, as ‘a popular country gentleman, a kind neighbour, affable, and courteous’, Bernard died in harness at Queenstown, co. Cork in February 1863. He was succeeded as MP for Bandon by his nephew, the Hon. Henry Boyle Bernard, who held the seat until 1868.14Belfast News-letter, 7, 9 Feb. 1863, quoting Cork Constitution.