FITZPATRICK, John Wilson (1809-1883), of Grantstown Manor, Abbeyleix, Queen’s County and Lisduff, Templemore, Queen’s County and 38 Portman Square, London, Mdx.

A representative of a younger branch of the Fitzpatrick family,2Collins’s Complete Peerage of England (1812), viii. 293-310. The Fitzpatricks ‘had been the ruling family in Upper Ossory for centuries’ and had developed ‘marriage alliances with some of the most powerful members of the Irish catholic nobility and gentry’: A. Creighton, ‘Fitzpatrick, John (‘Jack’)’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, iii. 963; G.E.C., Complete Peerage, xii (pt. II). 192-3. Fitzpatrick was born in London and was baptised John Wilson. He was, however, known as Fitzpatrick before formally assuming the name in 1841.3He had used the name since at least 1826, when he joined the British Army: Hart’s Army List (1827). His birth had been ruled illegitimate, his father’s second marriage to his mother, an English Catholic, having been performed in Italy by a Roman Catholic priest.4His father’s first wife, Anne Liddell (d. 1804), was the daughter of Lord Ravensworth, and was divorced from Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd duke of Grafton, in 1769. His second wife had been governess to his two daughters by that marriage: Collins’s Complete Peerage of England, i. 219; P.F. Meehan, The Members of Parliament for Laois and Offaly (Queen’s and King’s Counties), 1801-1918 (1983), 40. Fitzpatrick came from a distinguished Irish Whig dynasty; his father had sat for Bedfordshire, 1767-94, in the Bedford interest, and was a friend of Charles James Fox.5HP Commons, 1754-1790, ii. 431-3; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 760-1. His great-grandfather, Richard Fitzpatrick (c. 1662-1727) had represented Harristown, 1703-13, and Queen’s County, 1713-4, in the Irish Parliament before being created baron Gowran by George I in 1715. His grandfather, John Fitzpatrick (c. 1719-58) represented Bedfordshire, 1753-8, in the interest of his brother-in-law, John, 4th duke of Bedford, before being created earl of Upper Ossory in 1758: E. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800 (2002), iv. 175-6; HP Commons, 1715-1754, ii. 36-7; HP Commons, 1754-1790, ii. 431. His uncle, Richard Fitzgerald, was MP for Maryborough in the Irish parliament, 1782-3, and represented Okehampton, Tavistock and Bedfordshire between 1774 and 1813 at Westminster. One of Fox’s closest companions, he served as chief secretary for Ireland, 1782, and secretary for war, 1783, 1806-7.6Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament, iv. 177-8; HP Commons, 1754-1790, ii. 433-5; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 761-5; D.R. Fisher, ‘Fitzgerald, Richard’, Oxford DNB, xix. 915-6; P.M. Geoghegan, ‘Fitzpatrick, Richard’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, iii. 968.

Fitzpatrick’s father died in 1818 without a legitimate male heir and his titles became extinct.7G.E.C., Complete Peerage, vi. 39-40; xii (pt. II). 193-5. Fitzpatrick was named as the heir of the Irish estates in the event that he survived his half sisters, Anne and Gertrude: The Assembled Commons; or, parliamentary biographer (1838), 91. Fitzpatrick became the ward of Henry Richard Vassall Fox, 3^rd baron Holland, who had himself been brought up by Wilson’s father (his maternal uncle) from the age of five.8The Times, 24 Jan. 1883; A.D. Kriegel (ed.), The Holland House Diaries 1831-1840 (1977), xiii. Having been ‘early trained’ in ‘the most pious traditions of Whiggery’ he subsequently served as an army officer, retiring in August 1829, and marrying the grand-daughter of John Murray, 4^th earl of Dunmore, at Caranallway, county Dublin in May 1830.9Freeman’s Journal, 4 July 1827, 7 May 1830; The Times, 19 Aug. 1829; G.E.C., Complete Peerage, iii. 101. He was also ‘connected’ to the marquis of Lansdowne through his father’s first marriage, and, by his sister’s marriage, to Rt. Hon. Robert Vernon Smith MP, 1^st baron Lyvedon.10Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1838), 110; ibid., (1847), 166.

Despite failing to satisfy some local radicals on his attitude towards progressive reform, he enlisted the aid of Daniel O’Connell to achieve ‘a glorious triumph’ at Queen’s County in 1837. As the advocate of ‘equal laws’ and a critic of those ‘political Protestants’ who sought to deny them, he defeated the sitting Conservative member, but refused to endorse the system of ‘exclusive dealing’ proposed by his leading supporters.11T. Haughton to D. O’Connell, 17 July 1837, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, vi. 68-70; Morning Post, 13 July, 18 Aug. 1837; Standard, 14 Aug. 1837; R.B. Mosse, The Parliamentary Guide (1837), 164. Although regarded as a ‘Whig-Radical’, his Whig beliefs were ‘of the severest type’, being a supporter of the corn laws and an avowed opponent of the ballot. He still professed ‘Liberal opinions’, however, and favoured the ‘improvement of the tenant farmer in Ireland’.12The Times, 29 Aug. 1837; Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 24 Jan. 1883; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1838), 110; (1847), 166; (1865), 190; Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 141. After his return he suffered ‘a long, painful, and serious illness’, and there is no evidence of his casting his vote in any significant division during his first two sessions in the Commons, although he did pair in favour of Sir Eardley Wilmot’s motion that slave apprenticeships should cease immediately, 22 May 1838.13Morning Chronicle, 24 May 1838, 2 Nov. 1839. Although still suffering the effects of an operation, as well as an attack of the skin disease erysipelus, thereafter he voted in support of the ministry in five critical divisions, including the confidence motion on the general conduct of the Irish administration, 19 Apr. 1839, the suspension of the constitution of Jamaica, 6 May, which he regarded as necessary ‘for the success of the great measure of negro freedom’, and the election of Charles Shaw Lefevre as speaker, 27 May 1839.14Morning Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1839. In voting against George Grote’s ballot motion of that year, he found himself at odds with many of his electors and so tendered the resignation of his seat. His constituents, however, ‘satisfied of his integrity and soundness, declined the offer, and repeated their assurances of confidence in him’.15Ibid. He instead urged ‘the necessity of insisting on other practical measures, in order to extend and secure the franchises of the people’. For his declaration on the subject, see Morning Post, 2 July 1839. He soon afterwards addressed the county’s reformers which led the otherwise critical Morning Chronicle to laud him as ‘a thoroughly honest man, and most conscientiously devoted to the cause of good government and popular institutions’. Although a ‘sincere Protestant’, he strongly supported the reform of Irish municipal corporations, embarrassed that they had acted ‘as the bulwark and safeguard’ of his religion. He was, however, critical of Rowland Hill’s postage reform, arguing that, however popular it might prove, the country could not then afford ‘to dispense with so large and so sure a source of revenue’.16Morning Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1839.

Fitzpatrick rallied to the Whig ministry in the confidence vote, 31 Jan. 1840, opposed the censure motion on the government’s conduct towards China, 9 Apr. 1840, and divided against the motion for a committee to consider the corn laws, 26 May 1840. He spoke only infrequently in the House, but in March 1840 criticised Lord Stanley’s Irish electoral registration bill on the ground that its sole effect would be ‘to curtail the franchise’ by discouraging registration. The measure, he contended, failed to ‘grapple effectively with the crime of perjury … in the registry courts’, and he suggested that before any scheme of annual registration could be contemplated the franchise must first be placed ‘on such plain and well-defined grounds, that they cannot be misunderstood’.17Hansard, 25 Mar. 1840, vol. 53, cc. 55-6. Having voted against the measure, 26 Mar. 1840, he praised Lord Morpeth’s registration bill for going ‘to the real root of the evil’ by placing the franchise on the ‘clear and intelligible grounds’ of a poor law valuation.18Hansard, 22 Feb. 1841, vol. 56, cc. 834-5. Having voted for the proposed reform, 25 Feb. 1841, he divided against Peel’s confidence motion, 4 June 1841, which prompted the resignation of the Whig ministry. Much to the disappointment of the Liberal interest in the county, he retired at that year’s general election.19The Times, 10 July 1841; Freeman’s Journal, 17 June 1841.

Upon the death of his half-sister Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick in September 1841, he inherited his father’s Irish estates at Grantstown Manor and Lisduff in Queen’s County, and at Grafton Underwood in Northamptonshire, and formally assumed the name Fitzpatrick in February 1842.20At his death the estates amounted to 23,143 acres, worth £15,758 a year: Morning Post, 2 Oct. 1841; G.E.C., Complete Peerage, iii. 101. An active resident landlord, he took an interest in local farming societies, and was praised for spending freely to improve the condition of his tenants, it being said by one of them in December 1848 that he ‘had not one unemployed labourer in any of his districts’.21Morning Chronicle, 7 Oct. 1845; Freeman’s Journal, 27 Dec. 1848; A later political opponent would, however, accuse him of laying waste to ‘the fair plains of Ossory in 1851 and 1852’: Morning Post, 2 Nov. 1868. In June 1850 he was elected chairman of the Donaghmore poor law union, and became known to be ‘one of the oldest and firmest supporters of mixed education in Ireland’.22E. O’Leary & M. Lalor, History of the Queen’s County (1914), ii. 708. He took a practical interest in the schools he patronised and was convinced that ‘the State ought to afford the benefits of education to all its subjects without distinction’.23The Times, 19 Sept. 1853. He did, however, vote against W.J. Fox’s motion for the provision of free and secular schools paid for out of local rates and administered by elected committees, 22 May 1851. He had supported the government’s plan for English national education in 1839, and believed in ‘the foundation of schools for the instruction of schoolmasters in merely secular knowledge’, while at the same time affording aid to existing education societies, some of which considered that ‘religion ought to be the foundation and not the accompaniment of education’.24Morning Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1839.

Having been approached by the local Liberal gentry and freeholders to stand again for parliament, he was returned unopposed for Queen’s County in 1847 as a strong supporter of the Whig ministry, having refused to take the repeal pledge.25Daily News, 22 June 1847; Freeman’s Journal, 30 July, 9 Aug. 1847. In his address he defended the government’s efforts to mitigate destitution caused by the famine, while admitting that they had fallen short of achieving their aim, and advocated the creation of employment by improvement schemes under the Landlord Estates Act.26Dublin Evening Post, 3 Aug. 1847, cited in Brian Walker, ‘Politicians, Elections and Catastrophe: The General Election of 1847’, Irish Political Studies, 22:1 (2007), 1-34 at 24. Fitzpatrick generally supported Lord John Russell’s ministry, voting in December 1847 for the Irish coercion bill, while opposing an inquiry into the effects of the dissolution of the Irish parliament. Having been admitted to the Irish privy council in January 1848, he consistently supported the suspension of habeas corpus in Ireland that April.27Freeman’s Journal, 9, 23 Dec. 1847; Morning Post, 31 Jan. 1848. That year he also sat on the Cheltenham election committee, and the select committee on miscellaneous expenditure.28Freeman’s Journal, 16 May 1848; PP 1847-48 (382) (727) xi. 83, 139; PP 1847-48 (543) (543-II) xviii Pt. I. 1, xviii Pt. II. 1. He supported the removal of Jewish disabilities, 11 Feb. 1848, but opposed Hume’s motion for the ‘little charter’, 6 July 1848, and once again divided against the ballot, 8 Aug. 1848. The following year he opposed Cobden’s motion to reduce public expenditure to the level of 1835, 26 Feb. 1849, but supported the repeal of the Navigation Acts, 12 Mar. 1849, 23 Apr. 1849. In June 1849 he criticised Romilly’s Irish incumbered estates bill on the ground that it promoted ‘confiscation’, and that May seconded a motion for extracts of despatches relative to Irish emigration to the North American and Australian colonies to be laid before the House.

Fitzpatrick attended the House quite regularly, dividing in 61 of the 219 votes in 1849.29J. O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers: John Sadleir M.P., 1813-56 (1999), 91-2; Hansard, 15 May 1849, vol. 105, c. 513; Hampshire Telegraph & Sussex Chronicle, 20 Oct. 1849. In March 1850 he objected to a clause of the Irish franchise bill that ‘gave votes in right of joint occupancy in counties’, because he believed that it would encourage the practice of sub-letting, ‘a species of tenure alike injurious both to the landlord as well as the tenant’.30Hansard, 4 Mar. 1850, vol. 109, c. 319. In May he moved unsuccessfully to have the clause removed and voted for the third reading of the bill, 10 May 1850.31Hansard, 3 May 1850, vol. 110, c. 1142; Freeman’s Journal, 13 May 1850. He supported Grantley Berkeley’s motion to reconsider the corn laws, 14 May 1850, but opposed the repeal of paper and advertising duties, 16 Apr., 7 May 1850 (and would again, 12 May 1852), and backed Palmerston over the Don Pacifico affair, 28 June 1850. He voted against the repeal of the malt tax, 5 July, and the equalisation of the English borough and county franchises, 9 July 1850 (and would again, 27 Apr. 1852).

Although Fitzpatrick considered himself ‘intimately connected’ with the agricultural interest, he was absent from the vote on Disraeli’s motion to relieve the burden on agriculture, 13 Feb. 1851, when he was listed as a ‘free trader’. Later that year he served on select committees on the law of mortmain and the Kaffir tribes of South Africa.32Freeman’s Journal, 20 May 1852; Morning Post, 15 Feb. 1851; PP 1851 (483) xvi. 1; PP 1851 (635) xiv. 1. Fitzpatrick was added to the latter only after it was complained that Irish members had been unfairly excluded from recent select committees: Hansard, 8 May 1851, vol. 116, cc. 732-40. He was the only Irish liberal to publicly defend the ecclesiastical titles bill, for which he voted, 25 Mar., 9 May 1851.33Shortly prior to this he was wrongly identified as a Catholic MP: Reynold’s Newspaper, 16 Feb. 1851. Nevertheless, he considered himself to be ‘a staunch friend of religious freedom’, denying that the Act was ‘a measure of persecution’ and regarding it instead as a legitimate defence against ‘an attack on the prerogative of the crown’, and ‘interference with the independence of the Nation’.34Freeman’s Journal, 12 May 1851, 20 May 1852. He argued that the Act ought to be ‘considered more in the light of a protest, than a measure intended to be brought offensively into operation’. He consistently voted with the government during its subsequent conflicts with the ‘Irish Brigade’.35J.H. Whyte, The Independent Irish Party, 1850-9 (1958), 178; Freeman’s Journal, 10 Apr. 1851.

In 1852 Fitzpatrick stood at the general election as a Whig, but one prepared to give a ‘fair trial’ for Lord Derby’s ministry, regarding measures of ‘progressive reform’ as necessary for institutional stability and ‘the welfare of the people’. He was, however, still at loggerheads with the local Catholic clergy over the Titles Act, and so abandoned his pretensions on the morning of the nomination, ‘seeing no chance of success’ against a popular Liberal candidate.36The Times, 21 July 1852, 8 Apr. 1859; O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers, 250; O’Leary & Lalor, History of the Queen’s County, ii. 711.

By this time Fitzpatrick was ‘one of the most assiduous cultivators of pure Whiggism at the Fox Club’, and was appointed lord lieutenant of Queen’s County in November 1855. He was, however, persuaded by the Catholic clergy and popular electors of Queen’s County to stand again in 1857, having explained that he regarded the titles question ‘as a mere defence of the prerogative of the crown’ which would never have had his support if it had been ‘intended to obstruct the spiritual progress or interfere with the discipline of the Roman Catholic church’.37Freeman’s Journal, 26 Mar., 6 Apr. 1857; Whyte, The Independent Irish Party, 169. He was beaten into third place in an unruly contest, after which he presented a petition against the result, which he later abandoned.38Freeman’s Journal, 8 Apr., 27 July 1857. Although his return was considered ‘almost certain’ in 1859, he did not stand.

Fitzpatrick returned to politics in 1865 when, having shed some of his Whig principles, he was returned as a Liberal for Queen’s County. Although absent from the hustings, he secured second place in the poll, ahead of a tenant-right candidate.39The Times, 21 Apr. 1859; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1865), 190; Freeman’s Journal, 18 July 1865; Belfast News-letter, 21 July 1865. He supported the Liberal reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and, although he made no further contributions to debate, served on the Bridgwater election committee in 1866. On the Conservatives’ reform bill, he voted for the enfranchisement of compound rate payers, 12 Apr. 1867, and for Robert Lowe’s amendment to introduce cumulative voting, 5 July 1867. In 1868, his supporters claimed that his votes in parliament demonstrated that he had ‘entered heart and soul into the cause of the people’, and, having backed Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish Church, 3 Apr. 1868, he was adopted by local Liberals at the general election and returned alongside a Gladstonian candidate.40PP 1866 (247) (247-II) x. 1, 159; Freeman’s Journal, 10 Nov. 1868; Standard, 25 Nov. 1868.

Despite of his illegitimate birth and the fact that he possessed relatively little land in Great Britain, Fitzpatrick was created a peer of the United Kingdom in November 1869.41A.P.W. Malcomson, ‘The Irish Peerage and the Act of Union 1800-1971’, TRHS, 6th ser., x (2000), 289-328 [317]; The Times, 27 Nov. 1868. He died at his residence in Hertford Street, Mayfair, in December 1883, and was buried at Grafton Underwood, Northamptonshire.42Morning Post, 23 Jan. 1883; Freeman’s Journal, 27 Jan. 1883. His will was proved, 17 May 1883, at over £37,000, and he was succeeded in his title and estates by his only son, Bernard Edward Barnaby (1848-1937), Liberal Conservative MP for Portarlington, 1880-3, a distinguished Irish representative peer, who had married the daughter and heir of Hayes St. Leger, 4^th viscount Doneraile, in 1874.43G.E.C., Complete Peerage, iii. 101-2; The Times, 1 June 1937. See P. Rouse, ‘Fitzpatrick, Sir Bernard Edward Barnaby’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, iii. 960-1. His daughter Edith married Hon. Charles Augustus Murray, brother of the earl of Dunmore, and another daughter married Charles Magniac, MP for St. Ives, 1868-74, and Bedford, 1880-86.44Standard, 3 Nov. 1863; The Times, 8 Dec. 1868; Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 256. A collection of Fitzpatrick’s papers is held at UCD Archives (IE UCDA S6/17), and further correspondence can be found in the National Library of Ireland (MSS 13,748-52, 27,811-3).45Correspondence of the 2nd earl of Ossory is held in NLI MS 8,012 and British Library MSS 47,583, 51,454, 51,795-7, 51,966. Further Fitzpatrick family papers are held in Dublin, including those of the 2nd baron Castletown (see NLI Collection List 55).