The Godfrey Baronetcy of Bushfield in the
County of Kerry was a title in the
Baronetage of Ireland
Baronets are a rank in the British aristocracy. The current Baronetage of the United Kingdom has replaced the earlier but existing Baronetages of England, Nova Scotia, Ireland, and Great Britain.
Baronetage of England (1611–1705)
James I of E ...
. It was created on 17 June 1785 for
William Godfrey
William Godfrey (1889–1963) was an English Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Westminster and ''de facto'' primate of England and Wales from 1956 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1958.
B ...
, member of the
Irish House of Commons
The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, but on a highly restrictive fra ...
for
Tralee
Tralee ( ; ga, Trá Lí, ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the Lee River') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in County ...
. The title became extinct on the death of the seventh Baronet in 1971.
The Godfrey family had arrived in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
during the
Cromwellian conquest. Major John Godfrey of
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
was an officer in the
New Model Army
The New Model Army was a standing army formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians during the First English Civil War, then disbanded after the Stuart Restoration in 1660. It differed from other armies employed in the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Th ...
, and was granted the estates of
Killagha Abbey
Killagha Abbey of Our Lady of Bello Loco, also called Kilcolman Abbey, is a ruined Augustinians, Augustinian abbey and former manor house in County Kerry, Ireland. The abbey is situated one and a half miles north-west of Milltown, County Kerry, Mi ...
following their seizure from the Catholic
Walter Spring
Walter Spring the Unfortunate (1620 – c.1678) was an Anglo-Irish Roman Catholic landowner involved in the Irish Confederate Wars.
Biography
Spring was the son of Thomas Spring, a lawyer. He was the grandson of Walter Spring, who had served as ...
. The estate amounted to approximately 7,000 acres.
[John Knightly, ''The Godfrey Estate During the Great Famine'' http://www.kerryhistory.ie/documents/5.%20Godfrey.pdf (Retrieved 25 February 2014)] One of Major Godfrey's descendants, also John, founded the settlement at
Milltown to serve as the economic focal point for his holdings. His eldest son was Sir William Godfrey, 1st Baronet, who rebuilt the family's principle residence at Bushfield House, Milltown, and renamed it Kilcolman Abbey, in reference to Killagha Abbey. His grandson was
Sir William Duncan Godfrey, 3rd Baronet.
Godfrey baronets, of Bushfield (1785)
*
Sir William Godfrey, 1st Baronet
Sir William Godfrey, 1st Baronet (1739 – 1817) was an Anglo-Irish member of the Irish House of Commons.
Godfrey was the son of John Godfrey, Esquire and Barbara, the daughter of Reverend Hathway. He was a great-grandson of Thomas Coningsby, 1 ...
(1739–1817)
*Sir John Godfrey, 2nd Baronet (1763–1841)
*
Sir William Duncan Godfrey, 3rd Baronet (1797–1873)
*Sir John Fermor Godfrey, 4th Baronet (1828–1900)
*Sir William Cecil Godfrey, 5th Baronet (1857–1926)
*Sir John Ernest Godfrey, 6th Baronet (1864–1935)
*Sir William Maurice Godfrey, 7th Baronet (1909–1971)
References
External links
*{{Rayment-bt, date=March 2012
Extinct baronetcies in the Baronetage of Ireland