BARRY, George Richard (1825-1867), of Lota Lodge, Glanmire, co. Cork of 7 Pembridge Square, Bayswater, London

Barry was born in Cork but spent part of his youth in Mauritius, where his father John Richard Barry (1801-47) had established himself in commerce.1T. Cadogan & J. Falvey, A Biographical Dictionary of Cork (2006), 9-10; Daily News, 4 Oct. 1847. From 1850 Barry operated as a merchant at Serajgunge in Bengal, where he became a successful tea planter and an extensive landed proprietor.2Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1865), 143; Daily News, 19 June 1865; Belfast News-letter, 23 Sept. 1865.

On his return to Ireland, Barry purchased Lota Lodge, which had formerly belonged to the late James Hugh Smith-Barry, as his family residence. Shortly afterwards he established the Upper Assam Tea Company, a speculation which ultimately proved a failure.3Gent. Mag. (1867), i. 399. Having amassed ‘a splendid fortune’ through his mercantile pursuits in London, where he was chairman of several public companies, Barry came forward for County Cork in advance of the 1865 general election on ‘Liberal and independent principles’.4Freeman’s Journal, 9 Feb. 1865. As a Catholic, he was in favour of complete civil and religious liberty, denominational education, and an immediate measure of tenant-right, so as to secure due compensation for tenants who improved their holdings.5Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1865), 143; Debrett’s House of Commons (1867), 14. He was adopted early by the most powerful and influential section of the county’s electors and returned at the top of the poll by a clear margin, after reportedly spent ‘at least’ £12,000 on the election.6The Times, 6 Mar. 1865; Standard, 6 Feb. 1867.

Barry was one of a small minority to divide in favour of The O’Donoghue’s amendment to the queen’s speech, which referred to Irish disaffection, 8 Feb. 1866, and, having voted in favour of the suspension of habeas corpus in Ireland, 17 Feb., opposed its continuation that August. He voted in favour of the abolition of church rates, 7 Mar., and the second reading of the parliamentary oaths amendment bill, 8 Mar., yet appears to have attended a meeting of the Conservative party at Lord Salisbury’s house in Arlington Street later that month.7The Times, 19 Mar. 1866. His name was not amongst those MPs subsequently reported as having been incorrectly listed at the meeting: Ibid., 20 Mar. 1866. He divided against a reduction of malt duty, 17 Apr., and for the adjournment of the debate on the Irish tenure of land bill in May 1866. A regular attender, he consistently supported the Liberal reform bill. He was not an orator, but had denied an opponent’s claim that he had read his hustings speech ‘out of his hat’.8Belfast News-letter, 27 July 1865. He appears to have spoken only once in the Commons, in July 1866, to ask the secretary of state for India what steps had been taken regarding the famine then prevailing in the Orissa province of India, and what measures the government proposed to prevent its recurrence.9Hansard, 26 July 1866, vol. 184, cc. 1528-9. Barry does not appear to have served on any select committees, but in December 1865 led a deputation from Rosscarbery to the viceroy of Ireland to defend the inhabitants’ right to take sand from the sea shore, and subsequently pressed their case before the commissioners of woods and forests.10The Times, 14 Dec. 1865.

Late in 1865 Barry purchased a part of the Lota Park estate of Lord Fermoy, but in the following July was forced by the landed estates court to resell land that he had recently purchased from The O’Donoghue MP but failed to pay for.11Pall Mall Gazette, 23 July 1866. It then emerged that Barry’s business and financial affairs had been thrown into ‘the most desperate confusion’ following the collapse of two of his speculations in the Assam tea industry. A large number of shareholders in Cork, including members of his immediate family, were subjected to heavy financial losses and a widespread belief arose that Barry’s apparently ‘questionable’ financial dealings amounted to fraud.12Belfast News-letter, 23 Sept. 1865; Morning Post, 4 Feb. 1867, quoting Cork Examiner.

In December 1866 Barry faced a law suit brought by the Chubwa Tea Company to recover more than 1,000 shares which Barry had created as chairman of the company.13The Times, 22 Dec. 1866. In the space of a few months Barry, ‘a hale, powerful man’ had fallen from ‘winning golden opinions from all sorts of men’ to being ‘branded with the vilest epithets’. The ‘agony of this crisis’ apparently broke his health, and he died at St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, Sussex in January 1867.14Morning Post, 4 Feb. 1867, quoting Cork Examiner; Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 8 Feb. 1867. He left one daughter and his wife, who in 1869 successfully defended a suit brought against her husband’s estate by Agra and Masterman’s bank, from whom Barry had borrowed £25,000 shortly before his death.15The Times, 2 Mar. 1869; Freeman’s Journal, 12 Mar. 1869, 16 June 1874. It does not appear that Barry had any connection with Barry’s Tea Company, which was founded in Cork by James J. Barry in 1901, and remains one of the largest retailers of tea in Ireland.