BUNBURY, Thomas (1775-1846), of Lisnavagh and Moyle, co. Carlow of St. James’s Hotel, Jermyn Street, London, Mdx.

Bunbury was the eldest son of a landowner of ‘independent fortune’ who served as high sheriff of County Carlow in 1760 and sat for the county in the Irish parliament, 1776-8, in the Bagenal interest.1E. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800, (2002), iii. 302-3. He was a descendant of Sir Henry Bunbury of Stanny, Cheshire, whose grandson, Benjamin (1642-1707), settled at Killerig, County Carlow in 1669: Burke’s Gentry (1855), 152; Carlow Sentinel, 14 Nov. 1874. His father died after being thrown from his horse whilst Bunbury was an infant. He was brought up in Bath by his mother, the heiress of Redmond Kane (d. 1778), a wealthy attorney and landowner who had profited from the acquisition of bishops’ leases in the dioceses of Dublin and Clogher. Bunbury succeeded to a large estate in County Carlow and in 1834 inherited from his mother ‘very considerable’ lands in counties Tyrone, Fermanagh, and Dublin, including the leases of houses and lands at Swords, where his maternal grandfather had maintained an electoral interest. He was a cousin of Field-Marshal Hugh Gough, 1^st viscount Gough, to whom he subsequently bequeathed a small estate.2www.turtlebunbury.com/family/bunburyfamily; Belfast News-letter, 9 Sept. 1874; Gent. Mag. (1846), ii. 205.

As a resident proprietor of no profession but of ‘vast wealth’ and Conservative opinions, Bunbury came forward at the request of Carlow’s Conservative gentry at a turbulent by-election caused by the death of Thomas Kavanagh in February 1837.3Dod MS, i. 193; The Times, 11 June 1846. Despite his advanced age and charges that ‘God or nature never fitted [him] out for a public man’, even his ‘deadliest foes’ among the Catholic clergy testified to his reputation as ‘a kind and generous landlord’, one of them conceding that he did not belong ‘to the mushroom gentry’. He was proposed by the ex-reformer, Sir Thomas Butler, as ‘a man who was ever liberal, and had been a warm advocate of emancipation’.4www.turtlebunbury.com/family/bunburyfamily; Morning Post, 11 Aug., 18 Feb. 1837; Freeman’s Journal, 16 Feb. 1837. However, having maintained a ‘profound silence as to his principles’, basing his claim almost solely on his family’s past representation of the county, Bunbury left the hustings just minutes before being called upon to speak and was defeated by the repealer Nicholas Aylward Vigors.5Freeman’s Journal, 20 Feb. 1837; Morning Post, 27 Apr. 1837; Freeman’s Journal, 16 Feb. 1837. He petitioned against the result without effect, and only reluctantly agreed to stand again at that year’s general election, insisting that it ‘must be the last time of asking’. He was, however, ‘evidently most deeply affected’ to see his tenants once more vote against him, and his petition against the Liberal victory again proved futile.6www.turtlebunbury.com/family/bunburyfamily, quoting Lisnavagh archives, G/5/6 & G/6/2; Standard, 14 Aug. 1837; Freeman’s Journal, 19 Mar. 1838. After being lauded, in March 1839, for having come ‘forward like a prince, and opened his purse’ for the Conservative cause, he reluctantly agreed to stand once more for the county at the 1841 general election.7The Times, 11 Mar. 1839. He had reportedly refused to stand or finance the election, and was subsequently said to have declared his intention to retire from the contest: Freeman’s Journal, 28, 29 June 1841; Bristol Mercury, 3 July 1841. His short address, noted the Freeman’s Journal, might ‘have been ‘published by Whig, Tory, or Radical, without any compromise of principle’, and after a bitter and protracted contest, he was returned closely behind his political mentor, Sir Henry Bruen. Regarded locally as a ‘man that does good deeds, and deals not in empty words’, Bruen explained that Bunbury’s absence from the declaration was due to ‘his patriotic desire to assist friends of the constitution in other counties’.8The Times, 11 Mar. 1839, 20 July 1841. By prior agreement between the parties, no speeches had been made at the nomination and one searches in vain for evidence of him uttering one word in public: The Times, 15 July 1841.

In the House Bunbury behaved largely as an Irish Tory protectionist.9Morning Post, 26 Jan. 1846. He supported Sir Robert Peel’s proposal for a sliding scale of duty on imported corn, 9 Mar., 7 Apr. 1842, but opposed Labouchere’s motion for the reduction of sugar duties, 3 June 1842. He voted for the reintroduction of income tax, 13, 22 Apr., 31 May 1842, and the poor law amendment bill, 17 June, but opposed the ballot, 21 June, and regularly divided against Villiers’s motions for the abolition of the corn laws, 15 May 1843, 26 June 1844, 10 June 1845. He also opposed the abolition of Anglican oaths at universities, 25 May 1843, and supported the Irish arms bill, 19 June 1843, opposing motions by William Smith O’Brien and Lord John Russell for committees to consider Irish grievances, 12 July 1843, 23 Feb. 1844. He supported the second reading of the railways bill, 11 July 1844, and opposed Cobden’s motion on agricultural distress, 13 Mar. 1845. He was absent from the divisions on the Maynooth College bill in April and May 1845, but supported the second reading of the government’s bill to establish the Queen’s University in Ireland, 23 June 1845.

A silent member, Bunbury does not appear to have sat on any select committees, being excused service from election committees on account of his age, or to have introduced any bills.10Examiner, 25 Feb. 1843. He divided against the first reading of the corn importation bill, 27 Feb. 1846, and paired in opposition to its second and third readings, 27 Mar., 15 May. Amidst rumours that he was about to retire in order to provide Abraham Brewster, the Irish solicitor-general, with a chance of securing a seat in parliament, Bunbury died at Portman Square, London, in May 1846.11The Times, 19 May 1846; Standard, 30 May 1846. He was succeeded in the family estates by his brother Colonel Kane Bunbury (c. 1777-1874), with his nephew William Bunbury McClintock (1800-62), MP for County Carlow, 1846-62, inheriting Lisnavagh and becoming residuary legatee of his uncle’s ‘enormous funded property’.12The Times, 2 June 1846; Examiner, 6 June 1846. On Kane Bunbury’s death the Moyle estate passed to George Gough, 2nd viscount Gough, the residue going to John McClintock, 1st baron Rathdonnell: Belfast News-letter, 9 Sept. 1874. In accordance with the terms of Bunbury’s will, McClintock took the additional surname of Bunbury in September 1846.13The Times, 11 June 1846; Bunbury’s personal estate in England was estimated for probate duty at £180,000, and was exclusive of the value of the real estate and other effects in Ireland: Morning Post, 17 Aug. 1846.