ALEXANDER, John (1802-1885), of Milford House, co. Carlow of 26 Inverness Terrace, Kensington, London, Mdx.

Alexander was one of eleven children (the fourth child and first son) of a family of merchants of Scottish origin who had settled in county Donegal in the early seventeenth century. In the 1650s Andrew Alexander obtained a grant of land at Ballyclose, county Londonderry and Alexander’s grandfather, John, was a successful Belfast merchant and mill owner. Alexander’s father sold Ballyclose and purchased the lands of Milford, county Carlow in 1790, where he established one of the largest flour mills in Ireland, which by the 1830s had an annual turnover of £195,000.1C. Rogers, Memorials of the Earl of Stirling and of the House of Alexander (1877), 98-104; ‘Milford Mills’: www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/environment-geography

In 1843 Alexander inherited ‘the great establishment’ built up by his father at Belfast and Milford,2Designed by William Fairburn of Manchester, the flour mills and malt house occupied ‘three immense buildings’ on the banks of the river Barrow. The recently refurbished mills were destroyed by fire in November 1862, but in 1891 the giant water wheel was used to generate electricity for Carlow. The malt house became a tannery in the 1940s before being destroyed by fire in July 1965: D. Carbery, ‘Milford Tannery, Carlow’, citing Carlow Sentinel, 8 Oct. 1836; Carlow Post, 11 Nov. 1862: www.carlowcountymuseum.com/industry/milford-tannery/index; www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlcar2/milford along with an estate of 2,000 acres in county Carlow and 2,375 acres at an annual valuation of £2,809 in county Antrim.3Freeman’s Journal, 18 Jan. 1853; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1854), 129; J. Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain (4th edn., 1883), 7. Alexander also leased properties in the Shankhill and Falls Roads in Belfast: J. O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers: John Sadleir M.P., 1813-56 (1999), 316, 334-5. In 1848 he married the grand-daughter of the late John Brinkley, a mathematician and astronomer and bishop of Cloyne, 1826-35.4P.A. Wayman, ‘Brinkley, John’, Oxford DNB, vii. 663-4. An energetic entrepreneur, Alexander used the profits from his flour mills to invest in the development of Irish railways.5Standard, 8 Jan. 1853. He was a large shareholder in the Cashel line and helped to finance a line from Carlow to Kilkenny. He was also a director of the West of Ireland Mining Company.6Standard, 19 Nov. 1844; Morning Chronicle, 18 Jan. 1847. He was also a director of the Bagnalstown and Wexford Railway Company, and the Belfast and West of Ireland Junction Railway Company: Standard, 8 Jan. 1853; Freeman’s Journal, 29 Sept. 1854.

As a resident proprietor, Alexander backed Horace Rochfort, an ostensibly Liberal candidate, for County Carlow in 1830, but supported the Conservative, Henry Bruen, in subsequent parliamentary elections.7HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 678. His father petitioned parliament in response to allegations made by Robert Wallace MP that he had forced his tenants to vote for Bruen in 1835, and the family remained at Bruen’s side in the county by-election of December 1840.8Standard, 24 Mar. 1836; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Jan. 1853, 1 Dec. 1840. His brother, Lorenzo, married Bruen’s oldest daughter in June 1857: Standard, 30 June 1857; Gent. Mag. (1857) ii. 328. Approached to stand ‘by a large number of the most respectable of his fellow-townsmen’ Alexander came forward at the January 1853 by-election for the borough of Carlow which followed the appointment of John Sadleir as a commissioner of the treasury. Although the ‘entire Conservative party in Carlow’ was said to be ‘firmly united in his support, his address made ‘no reference to the old cries of the “Protectionist” party to which he belonged’, alluding only to securing ‘the true independence’ of the borough, and the development of Irish resources. Having been advised not to make any pledges, he declared himself ‘bound to no party’ and ‘not pledged to any line of conduct’. He did, however, enjoy the active support of William Auchinleck Dane of Enniskillen, a deputy grand master of the Orange Order, but met Sadleir’s accusation that he was ‘not merely an Irishman, but a Toryman and an Orangemen’ by claiming that his previous support for Conservative candidates had arisen ‘from motives of pure friendship’. He benefitted from the hostility borne by ‘the Brigade section of the Liberals’ (independent oppositionists) towards Sadleir for having accepted a government post, and, claiming the support of the tradesmen of the town, ‘from the millers down to the nailers’, was returned by a narrow margin.9Belfast News-letter, 5 Jan. 1853; Morning Chronicle, 5 Jan. 1853; O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers, 316; Adams’s Parliamentary Handbook (3rd edn., 1854), 135; Freeman’s Journal, 18, 21 Jan. 1853.

Alexander declared that he had ‘no private ambition to gratify in becoming a member of parliament’, and stated that he ‘would not give a factious opposition’ to the government.10Freeman’s Journal, 18, 21 Jan. 1853. He was, however, widely regarded as a ‘Conservative and Protectionist’, although he is not known to have spoken in the House, introduced any bills or sat on any committees. He did, however, regularly attend the House in order to oppose the Aberdeen ministry, voting against its clergy reserves (Canada) bill, 11 Apr. 1853, and supporting Milner Gibson’s efforts to repeal advertisement duty, 14 Apr., 1 July.11Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1854), 129. With the backing of the proprietors and occupiers of Carlow, he opposed Gladstone’s budget, 2 May, and supported an unsuccessful effort to secure Ireland’s exemption from income tax, 6 May.12Freeman’s Journal, 5, 12 May 1853. He took part in 67 of the 152 divisions that session: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853. He supported Sir John Pakington’s amendment to postpone the succession duty bill, 13 June, opposed the second reading of the India bill, 30 June, and joined other Irish Conservatives in backing Joseph Napier’s Irish landlord and tenant bill, 8, 22 July. In the following year he divided against the government’s resolutions on malt tax and exchequer bonds, 9, 22 May 1854, and opposed the excise duties bill, 15 May. He was in the majority that defeated the second reading of the oaths bill, 25 May, and he opposed a motion on the ballot, 13 June, (and would do so again in 1855 and 1858). He generally avoided divisions which involved Catholic interests and on five occasions between February 1853 and April 1858 was absent from divisions on the question of Maynooth. He did, however, support Richard Spooner’s successful amendment to block payments to Catholic prison chaplains, 12 June 1854. He had opposed the removal of Jewish disabilities, 15 Apr. 1853, and later supported Sir Frederick Thesiger’s amendment to the oaths bill to exclude Jews from parliament, 15 June 1857. Although he appears to have said little in public about religious questions, he regularly opposed the abolition of church rates, and voted against Edward Miall’s motion for a select committee to consider the temporalities of the Irish Church, 27 May 1856.

Regarding the conduct of the Crimean War, he opposed the ministry’s enlistment of foreigners bill, 19, 22 Dec. 1854, supported John Roebuck’s motion for a select committee into the condition of the army, 29 Jan. 1855, which led to the demise of Aberdeen’s ministry, and then opposed Lord Palmerston’s ministry by supporting Disraeli’s critical motion on the prosecution of the war, 25 May, as well as those of Austen Layard and Vincent Scully regarding administrative reform, 18 June, 10 July. He divided in favour of Roebuck’s motion of censure on the cabinet, 19 July 1855, and voted against the government’s proposal for the Turkish loan, 20 July. The following year he supported motions criticising the government over the fall of the Turkish fortress at Kars, 29 Apr., 1 May 1856. Declaring himself in favour of ‘general retrenchment’, Alexander supported Disraeli’s effort to secure the eventual abolition of the income tax, 23 Feb. 1857, and voted against Locke King’s motion to equalise the borough and county franchises, 19 Feb. 1857.13Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 6. He participated in only 32 of the 166 divisions in 1856: J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of parliament (1857), 27. He was absent for the important division on Canton, 3 Mar. 1857, but was re-elected at the 1857 general election, easily seeing off a challenge from a Liberal. His attendance at Westminster appears to have diminished thereafter, but he was attentive to constituency issues, convening a cross-party meeting at Carlow in April 1857 to consider methods of improving the prosperity of the town.14 Freeman’s Journal, 4 May 1857, quoting Carlow Post. He was absent from the divisions on Palmerston’s conspiracy to murder bill, 9, 19 Feb. 1858, but opposed Roebuck’s resolution in favour of the abolition of the Irish viceroyalty, 25 Mar. He opposed the county franchise bill, 10 June 1858, and supported Lord Derby’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859.15Morning Post, 19 Mar. 1857; Morning Chronicle, 11 Feb., 7 Apr. 1858; Daily News, 22 Feb. 1858.

Alexander was defeated by the Liberal, Sir John Acton, at the general election in May 1859. He came forward again in 1865, when he was portrayed by the Irish nationalist press as ‘the candidate of the Orange ascendancy faction’, and was defeated by an advanced Liberal.16Freeman’s Journal, 5 July 1865. Having taken no further part in politics, he died in October 1885, and was succeeded by his eldest son Major John Alexander (b. 1850), a cavalry officer and high sheriff of Carlow in 1891.17Burke’s Irish Family Records (1976), 16. A small collection of Alexander’s papers is held on microfilm at the National Library of Ireland (n.2778, p.1680).