Dunbar Plunket Barton Vanity Fair 7 April 1898

Sir Dunbar Plunket Barton, 1st Baronet PC (29 October 1853 – 11 September 1937) was an Anglo-Irish British politician, author and judge. Barton was born in

Merrion Square Merrion Square () is a Georgian garden square on the southside of Dublin city centre. History The square was laid out in 1752 by the estate of Viscount FitzWilliam and was largely complete by the beginning of the 19th century. The demand fo ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, the eldest son of the magistrate Thomas Henry Barton, a younger son of Dunbar Barton of Rochestown,

County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after t ...

, who was High Sheriff of Tipperary in 1810. His mother was Hon. Charlotte Plunket, daughter of

John Plunket, 3rd Baron Plunket John Span Plunket, 3rd Baron Plunket of Newtown, County Cork (10 July 1793 – 16 April 1871) was an Irish peer and Queen's Counsel. He was the second son of William Plunket, 1st Baron Plunket, and Catherine MacAusland. He succeeded his brother Tho ...

and Charlotte Bushe. Barton was descended from Lord Chief Justice Charles Kendal Bushe; and from the co-founder of the celebrated wine merchants Barton and Guestier. He attended Harrow and

Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corpus Christi College (formally, Corpus Christi College in the University of Oxford; informally abbreviated as Corpus or CCC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1517, it is the 12t ...

. Nephew of the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin, Barton was a sincere Protestant, but exceptionally tolerant in all matters of religion: Maurice Healy recalled him quoting a saying of his father that whether one is a Protestant or a Catholic is largely a chance of birth. When Barton was a boy, his father instructed him to guess the distance between his mother's bedroom window and the window at the home next door, to which he guessed 20 ft. "Well, my boy," his father told him, "You are a Protestant; but always remember that if you had been born 20 ft. to the east you would have been a Catholic." Barton was

called to the Irish Bar The Bar of Ireland ( ga, Barra na hÉireann) is the professional association of barristers for Ireland, with over 2,000 members. It is based in the Law Library, with premises in Dublin and Cork. It is governed by the General Council of the Ba ...

in 1880, to the English Bar in 1893, from

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and W ...

(of which he was elected Treasurer in 1922), and

took silk In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or a ...

in 1898. He served as an

Irish Unionist Unionism is a political tradition on the island of Ireland that favours political union with Great Britain and professes loyalty to the British Crown and constitution. As the overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority, follow ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for Mid Armagh from 1891 to 1900 and was

Solicitor-General for Ireland The Solicitor-General for Ireland was the holder of an Irish and then (from the Act of Union 1800) United Kingdom government office. The holder was a deputy to the Attorney-General for Ireland, and advised the Crown on Irish legal matters. On ra ...

for two years (1898–1900). In January 1900 he was appointed a judge of the Queen's Bench Division of the

High Court of Justice in Ireland The High Court of Justice in Ireland was the court created by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Ireland) 1877 to replace the existing court structure in Ireland. Its creation mirrored the reform of the courts of England and Wales five years e ...

, to which appointment he was sworn in on 2 February 1900. In 1904 he was transferred to the Chancery Division where he served until his retirement in 1918. He was created a

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14t ...

of Fethard in the County of Tipperary on 28 January 1918: since his only son predeceased him the title became extinct at his death. He married Mary Tottenham Manley in 1900; their only son, Dunbar, died unmarried in 1929. He died at Gray's Inn Square in London in 1937, aged 83. He was a keen historian, with a particular interest in

Marshal Bernadotte sv, Karl Johan Baptist Julius , spouse = , issue = Oscar I of Sweden , house = Bernadotte , father = Henri Bernadotte , mother = Jeanne de Saint-Jean , birth_date = , birth_place = Pau, ...

, and is said to have done much to popularise golf in Ireland. He was president of the

Golfing Union of Ireland The Golfing Union of Ireland (GUI) ( Irish: ''Aontas Gailf na hÉireann (AGÉ)'') was the governing body for men's and boy's amateur golf across the island of Ireland. Formed in 1891, the GUI was the first national golfing union to be establishe ...

and of the Royal Dublin Golf Club, Royal Portrush Golf Club, and Greenore Golf Club.

Works

* '' Timothy Healy: Memories and Anecdotes'' * ''Bernadotte, The First Phase, 1763–1799'' * ''Bernadotte and Napoleon, 1800–1810'' * ''Bernadotte, Prince and King, 1810–1844'' * ''The Amazing Career of Bernadotte, 1763 to 1844'' * ''Links Between Ireland and Shakespeare'' * ''Links Between Shakespeare and the Law'' * ''The Story of the Inns of Court''

References

* *

Maurice Healy Maurice Healy (3 January 1859 – 9 November 1923) was an Irish nationalist politician, lawyer and Member of Parliament (MP). As a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, he was returned to in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Gre ...

''The Old Munster Circuit'' Michael Joseph Ltd 1939 *Ball. F. Elrington ''The Judges in Ireland'' 1221–1921 John Murray London 1926

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Barton, Dunbar Plunket 1853 births 1937 deaths Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Irish Unionist Party MPs Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Armagh constituencies (1801–1922) Solicitors-General for Ireland UK MPs 1886–1892 UK MPs 1892–1895 UK MPs 1895–1900 People from County Armagh Irish non-fiction writers Politicians from Dublin (city) Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Judges of the High Court of Justice in Ireland Members of Gray's Inn Presidents of the Oxford Union Lawyers from Dublin (city) People educated at Harrow School