BURROWES, Robert (1810-1881), of Stradone House, Co. Cavan

A landowner and moderate Conservative, who had established a reputation as a prudent and efficient poor law guardian and grand juryman, Burrowes entered Parliament somewhat reluctantly. He generally supported Lord Derby in the Commons, but also backed moderate proposals to reform landlord-tenant relations and amend the system of national education in Ireland, before returning to what he considered to be his primary duty as a resident proprietor.

Burrowes was born in Dublin, the son of a Protestant army officer and landowner.1Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 16 Apr. 1836. His family had become established in county Cavan during the Plantation before Thomas Burrowes was granted Stradone under a royal patent in 1638.2Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland (1912), 87. In 1836 Burrowes inherited his family’s estate of 10,500 acres and thus became the fifth largest landowner in the county.3Freeman’s Journal, 6 Oct. 1876. He acquired a reputation as an ‘indulgent’ landlord and a ‘kind and liberal employer’, but was otherwise regarded as ‘a thoroughly unexceptionable country gentleman’.4Standard, 27 Mar. 1855.

A supporter of the Conservative interest in Cavan, Burrowes seconded the nomination of Henry Maxwell at the 1835 general election.5Belfast News-letter, 20 Jan. 1835. In 1838, while visiting the continent, he was appointed high sheriff for the county, and he married the daughter of a Tipperary landowner later that year.6Morning Post, 28 Feb. 1838; Freeman’s Journal, 11 Sept., 18 Oct. 1838. He maintained his involvement in parliamentary politics, seconding Henry John Clements at a by-election in August 1840, and proposed John Young at the 1841 general election.7Standard, 15 Aug. 1840, 12 July 1841.

A resident proprietor, Burrowes acted sympathetically towards his tenants during the famine by permanently reducing their rents by about a quarter, and it was said that ‘not one’ of them applied for poor law relief.8Morning Chronicle, 5 Feb. 1851. In fact, his local reputation rested upon his work as chairman of the poor law guardians. By strictly attending to the operation of the system, he was said to have been ‘instrumental in reducing the fearful lists of the victims of the famine’.9Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1855. He subsequently won popularity with landlords for his management of the local grand jury, improving the county’s finances and reducing both the poor rate and county cess. He was one of Cavan’s leading protectionists, presiding over a county meeting in January 1850, and he also helped to initiate two local railway schemes, the Great North-Western in 1845, and the Ulster and Midland Great Junction in 1851.10Freeman’s Journal, 23 July 1845; The Times, 7 Jan. 1850; Belfast News-letter, 15 Aug., 24 Dec. 1851.

In December 1852 Burrowes was spoken of as a Protectionist challenger to Young, by then the leading Irish Peelite, who had sought re-election upon his appointment as chief secretary for Ireland. However, he proved unwilling to ‘excite sectarian animosity’ in the county and declined to be a candidate.11The Times, 31 Dec. 1852; Morning Chronicle, 3, 5 Jan. 1853. Upon Young’s retirement in March 1855, Burrowes reluctantly accepted an invitation to stand at the consequent by-election after two aristocratic Derbyites withdrew.12Daily News, 5 Mar. 1855; Freeman’s Journal, 12 Mar. 1855; Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1855. Although he found his candidacy personally inconvenient, involving as it did ‘the sacrifice of private feelings’,13Freeman’s Journal, 12 Mar. 1855. Burrowes had lost two infant sons in 1839 and 1848, and in September 1854 his youngest daughter had died. Another daughter was to die in February 1856: Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland (1912), 87. his sound local reputation was expected to ‘unite conflicting parties’. However, his expressed desire to see ‘bitter party differences and religious animosities … buried in oblivion’, and his apparent acceptance of the national education system and the Maynooth grant, threatened to alienate the Orange faction within his supporters.14Freeman’s Journal, 12 Mar., 9 Apr. 1855; Standard, 5 Apr. 1855. He subsequently indicated that he would welcome a reform of the board of national education, and would reconsider the Maynooth question in the light of a parliamentary commission’s recent report. After spending £1,420 on the election,15Essex Standard, 14 May 1856 he was returned ahead of Henry Hughes, a former Liberal solicitor-general for Ireland, whose association with Lord John Russell’s Whig ministry had made him unpopular with many Catholic voters.16Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1855; Freeman’s Journal, 9, 14 Apr. 1855.

Although Burrowes had been strongly backed by the Protestant landlords of Cavan, he claimed to enter Parliament as ‘the nominee of no man’, and insisted that his motto was ‘independence’. On the hustings, however, he had spoken of Lord Derby ‘in terms of the highest praise’, and he generally proved a reliable supporter of his party.17Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1855; Morning Chronicle, 13 Apr. 1855. At the same time he was widely referred to as a ‘Liberal Conservative’, having not only obtained Conservative support to secure his seat, but also the votes of a substantial number of Liberals, particularly those of the county’s more affluent Presbyterians.18Freeman’s Journal, 6, 12, 13 Mar. 1855; Standard, 24 Mar. 1855; Belfast News-letter, 13 Apr. 1855. He nevertheless tempered his commitment to ‘an equitable settlement’ of the tenant-right question by explicitly refusing to make ‘extravagant promises’, or to use the issue ‘as a delusive electioneering device’ by backing radical measures which he knew would ‘never be carried into law’.19Dod’s parliamentary companion (1856), 151; Freeman’s Journal, 12 Mar. 1855; Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1855. By taking this position, he stood accused by the Freeman’s Journal of standing as ‘the anti-tenant right candidate’, yet he voted alongside a number of Irish Liberals in support of William Shee’s Irish tenants’ improvements compensation bill, 4 May, 21 June 1855, and would later divide in favour of George Moore’s tenant-right bill, 4 June 1856.20Freeman’s Journal, 29 Mar., 22 June 1855.

He appears to have spoken only once in the chamber, when, shortly after taking his seat, he intervened in the debate on the ballot to challenge Henry Berkeley’s claim that a Cavan voter had been ‘roasted’ until his ribs appeared ‘to have been well done’ at the recent by-election, and to rebut his charge that Sir John Young had forced his tenants to vote for him.21Hansard, 22 May 1855, vol. 138, cc. 928-9, 942. That same day Burrowes voted against the ballot, 22 May 1855, (and did so again, 20 May 1856), and opposed the Aberdeen administration’s conduct of the war with Russia. He voted in favour of Disraeli’s critical motion on the issue, 25 May 1855, and Roebuck’s subsequent motion of censure, 19 July, and divided against the resolution in favour of the British and French governments guaranteeing a £5m loan to Turkey, 20 July. He divided against Layard’s motion on administrative reform, 18 June, but later voted for the motion criticising the ministry over the fall of Kars, 29 Apr., 1 May 1856.

It was anticipated that after gaining his seat with Orange support, Burrowes would join ‘the war against Maynooth’.22Freeman’s Journal, 5 Apr. 1855. He was, however, absent for Spooner’s anti-Maynooth motion, 15 Apr. 1856, and despite having attended the House to vote against a revision of the county franchise, 19 Feb. 1857, did not vote when the Maynooth question was raised later that night. He was nevertheless a staunch member of the established church and voted against Miall’s motion for a select committee to consider the temporalities of the Irish Church, 27 May 1856.23Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1855. While his critics regarded him as a supporter of ‘Scriptural education’, he behaved with moderation in the Commons, voting for Walpole’s motion to seek amendments to the national education board’s rules regarding religious instruction, 17 June 1856, but against a proposal that schools which demanded scriptural readings ought to receive state aid on the same basis as national schools, 23 June 1856.24All of the schools on his estate were under the control of the Church Education Society, to which he was a subscriber: Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1855; Freeman’s Journal, 9 Apr. 1855. That May he had served on a private bill committee on the London and South Western Railway, but he was an irregular attender, and took part in only 38 of the 198 divisions taken in the 1856 session.25PP 1856 (453), li. 35; 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.

In February 1857 Burrowes was requested by the board of the Cavan Union to present a petition for an inquiry into the state of the Irish poor law.26Morning Post, 14 Feb. 1857. He paired in favour of Cobden’s motion condemning the government’s treatment of China, 7 Mar., but with a substantial number of candidates ready to take the field at the 1857 general election, he quietly retired to make way for the Hon. Hugh Annesley, the son of the 3^rd earl of Annesley.27Morning Post, 14, 19 Mar. 1857; Freeman’s Journal, 14, 24 Mar. 1857. Burrowes proposed the Hon. James Pierce Maxwell at the 1859 general election, but does not appear to have taken an active part in politics thereafter.28Belfast News-letter, 11 May 1859. Burrowes had performed the same service for Maxwell at his return in 1843: Morning Chronicle, 21 Feb. 1843. In line with the promise he had made at his election in 1855, he returned to private life in order to discharge his duties as ‘a resident country gentleman’.29Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1855; Morning Chronicle, 7 Apr. 1855, quoting Daily Express.

Burrowes died at Stradone in November 1881 and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Robert James Burrowes (1844-93), an army officer who served as high sheriff of county Cavan in 1883. His only surviving daughter, Frances, had married Sir John Olpherts, of Ballyconnell in 1869.30The Times, 5 Dec. 1881; Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland (1912), 87; Freeman’s Journal, 10 Feb. 1883.