KING, John Gilbert (1822-1901), of Ballylin, Ferbane, King’s co.

King was born in Dublin, the only son of Henry Eagles, a Church of Ireland clergyman. Eagles had assumed the name of King in 1821 upon inheriting the estate of his maternal uncle, John King, whose family had dominated the representation of the close borough of Jamestown, county Leitrim, in the Irish parliament.1E. Walford, County Families of the United Kingdom (1888), 599. Beginning with Gilbert King (1658-1721), the family sat for four generations. After his father settled at Ballylin in 1765, John King (1760-1821) sat for Jamestown, 1797-1800, and voted against the Union: E. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800 (2002), ii. 269; v. 24-5, 27-8; P.F. Meehan, The Members of Parliament for Laois and Offaly (Queen’s and King’s Counties), 1801-1918 (1983), 134. John Gilbert King’s maternal grandfather, John Lloyd, had also sat in that parliament for King’s County, 1778-90, whilst his uncle, Hardress Lloyd, represented the county at Westminster in the Rosse interest between 1807 and 1818.2Johnson-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament, v. 99-100; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 438. John Gilbert was the product of ‘a cultured home’, and the maternal first cousin of William Parsons MP, 3^rd earl of Rosse. His sister, Mrs Mary Ward (1827-69), was a noted botanist and astronomer.3Burke’s Landed Gentry (4th edn., 1863), ii. 814; G.L’E. Turner, ‘Ward [nee King], Mary’, Oxford DNB, lvii. 329-30; M.R.S. Creese & T.H. Creese, Ladies in the Laboratory II. Western European Women in Science, 1800-1900 (2004), 39-42. King was an executor of Lord Rosse’s will: Hampshire Telegraph & Sussex Chronicle, 25 Mar. 1868.

After graduating from Dublin University King returned to his native county, and was nominated as high sheriff for King’s County in 1849 and 1850, being appointed to the position in 1852.4Freeman’s Journal, 16 July 1844, 14 Nov. 1849, 20 Nov. 1850, 2 Jan. 1852. On inheriting his father’s estate in 1857 he became one of the largest landowners in the county, holding more than 11,000 acres.5J. Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain (4th edn., 1883), 252. Being a ‘gentleman of very large and independent property’, and ‘most popular among the gentry and people’, he came forward as a Liberal Conservative for King’s County in 1865, declaring that he was ‘in favour of tenants receiving the fair value of their improvements’. After spending £2,000 on his election, he was returned at the top of the poll, easily defeating the sitting Conservative.6Belfast News-letter, 6 July 1865; Debrett’s Illustrated House of Commons and the Judicial Bench (1867), 137; K.T. Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society in Ireland 1832-1885 (1984), 84.

King supported the Conservatives in the Commons, opposing the abolition of church rates, 7 Mar. 1866, and attended the party meeting to oppose the Liberal reform bill in March 1866, voting against its second reading, 27 Apr., and supporting subsequent Conservative amendments to the measure.7Freeman’s Journal, 30 Apr., 11 June 1866. He opposed the ballot, 17 July, but steadily supported the Roman Catholic relief bill, and was one of only nine Conservatives who opposed the continued exclusion of Catholics from the office of lord lieutenant of Ireland, 10 Apr. 1867.8Freeman’s Journal, 23 July 1866, 12 Apr. 1867. As one of Lord Derby’s parliamentary supporters, he attended the meeting at Downing Street to consider the Hyde Park reform demonstration in May 1867 and supported the government’s bill.9The Times, 19 Mar. 1866; Standard, 7 May 1867. He voted against Gladstone’s amendment to enfranchise compound ratepayers, 12 Apr., but backed Acton Ayrton’s proposal to reduce the residency qualification from two years to one, 2 May. He opposed the enfranchisement of lodgers, 13 May, and women, 20 May, the reduction of the copyhold franchise, 20 May, and the proposal to deprive two member boroughs with populations of less than 10,000 of one seat, 31 May, but divided in favour of the amendment to give a third seat to boroughs with populations over 150,000. Regarding the Irish measure, he opposed the disenfranchisement of Portarlington and voted against Chichester Fortescue’s proposal that Trinity College and the Queen’s University in Ireland should jointly return two members. He also opposed the abolition of the freeman franchise and a reduction of the county franchise from £12 to £8, but abstained on the question of the ballot, 18 June 1868.10Freeman’s Journal, 22 June 1868. He is not known to have spoken in parliament and does not appear to have sat on any committees or introduced any bills. Having opposed Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish Church, 3 Apr. 1868, he retired at the 1868 general election.

King’s home was once described as ‘a beautiful specimen of the life and residence of a genuine “old Irish country gentleman”’, yet he encountered violent resistance to the payment of his rents during the ‘land war’ of 1879-82, and was mooted as a Conservative candidate for King’s County in 1874 and 1880.11M.M. Gordon, The Home Life of Sir David Brewster (3rd edn., 1881), 133; The Times, 25 Nov. 1879; Morning Post, 29 Oct. 1881; Freeman’s Journal, 12 Mar. 1880. He is said to have ‘devoted his latter years to the Home Rule movement’, although no evidence to confirm this assertion has been found: Meehan, Members of Parliament for Laois and Offaly, 134. He was an enthusiastic local patron and is said to have been responsible for the building of a convent in his neighbourhood. He was also a keen sportsman and an expert on the keeping of red setters, being ‘fairly looked upon as the father of the breed’ in Ireland.12Ibid., 134; M. Brown, Irish Hunting (1955), 138; R. Briggs Lee, A History and Description of the Modern Dogs of Great Britain and Ireland (1893), 346-8. He died unmarried in January 1901, leaving property to the value of £500,000, and was succeeded by his nephew, Henry Louis Mahon, who assumed the surname of King, 7 May 1901.13He also bequeathed £14,000 principally to hospitals in Dublin: The Times, 23, 25 Apr. 1901; F.R. Montgomery Hitchcock, The Midland Septs and the Pale. An account of the early septs and later settlers of the King’s County and of life in the English Pale (1908), 306.