Sir John Parnell, 2nd Baronet (25 December 1744 – December 1801) was an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...

Member of Parliament.

Biography

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomy, autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the Christianity in Ireland, second-largest Christian church on the ...

landowner, his family had originally migrated to Ireland from

Congleton Congleton is a market town and civil parish in Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is on the River Dane, south of Manchester and north of Stoke on Trent. At the 2021 census, the parish had a population of 28,497 and the built-up area ha ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

. Although not from a Roman Catholic Irish background, Parnell is renowned in Irish history for his efforts to bring about a more emancipated country and was the great-grandfather of

Charles Stewart Parnell Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom from 1875 to 1891, Leader of the Home Rule Leag ...

, leader of the

Irish Home Rule The Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of ...

campaign. Parnell first served in the

Parliament of Ireland The Parliament of Ireland () was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until the end of 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chambers: the Irish Hou ...

as one of the members for Bangor, from 1767 to 1768. He later sat for Queen's County from 1783 until the Union with

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

created the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the union of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into one sovereign state, established by the Acts of Union 1800, Acts of Union in 1801. It continued in this form until ...

in 1801. After the Union, he gained a seat in the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

for a short time as member for Queen's County, but died in December of the same year. From a line of politically astute ancestors who had moved to Ireland in the 17th century, Parnell rose to the highest positions in Irish politics as Commissioner of the Revenue (1780),

Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland The Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland was the head of the Exchequer of Ireland and a member of the Dublin Castle administration under the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the Kingdom of Ireland. In early times the office was sometimes called ...

(1787), and Lord of the Treasury (1793). He died suddenly in London in 1801.

Opposers

The only son of Sir John Parnell, 1st Baronet and Anne Ward, daughter of Michael Ward, justice of the

Court of King's Bench (Ireland) The Court of King's Bench (of Queen's Bench when the sovereign was female, and formerly of Chief Place or Chief Pleas) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The King's Ben ...

, Parnell was the great-grandfather of

, known as ''the uncrowned king of Ireland'' and was best known for opposing (with his son Henry) the Act of Union between the two kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Before this, Parnell was a Commander of

Irish Volunteers The Irish Volunteers (), also known as the Irish Volunteer Force or the Irish Volunteer Army, was a paramilitary organisation established in 1913 by nationalists and republicans in Ireland. It was ostensibly formed in response to the format ...

and had been instrumental in winning the right for Irish Roman Catholics to vote and to be elected to Parliament. However, the latter faltered when the parliament of Ireland was dissolved in 1800.

Henry Grattan Henry Grattan (3 July 1746 – 4 June 1820) was an Irish politician and lawyer who campaigned for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century from Britain. He was a Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) from 1775 to 18 ...

described Parnell as "an honest, straightforward, independent man, possessed of considerable ability and much public spirit; as Chancellor of the Exchequer he was not deficient, and he served his country by his plan to reduce the interest of money. He was amiable in private, mild in disposition, but firm in mind and purpose. His conduct at the Union did him honour, and proved how warmly he was attached to the interests of his country, and on this account he was dismissed".

Family

Parnell married Laetitia Charlotte Brooke, younger daughter of

Sir Arthur Brooke, 1st Baronet Sir Arthur Brooke, 1st Baronet PC (Ire) (1726 – 7 March 1785) was an Irish baronet and politician. He was the son of Henry Brooke and his wife Lettice Burton, daughter of Benjamin Burton. Brooke was educated at Trinity College Dublin and g ...

and his first wife Margaret Fortescue in 1774, and together they had four children. Their eldest son John Augustus was a deaf-mute who was housed in a large walled garden for most of his life, while their second son Henry Brooke Parnell would go on to inherit the baronetcy and follow his own political career, becoming an

Irish peer The peerage of Ireland consists of those Peerage, titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lordship of Ireland, Lord or Monarchy of Ireland, King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great B ...

and also a member of parliament for Queen's County in the House of Commons at Westminster. Sir John Parnell, 2nd Baronet, left another son

William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

, who in turn had a son,

John Henry Parnell John Henry Parnell (14 August 1811 – 3 August 1859) was an Anglo-Irish cricketer with amateur status who was active in 1831. He was born in Avondale, County Wicklow and died in Dublin. He made his first-class debut in 1831 and appeared in one ...

. The fourth son of John Henry Parnell was

.Sherlock, Thomas and Mahoney, J. S. (1881)
"The Life and Times of Charles Stewart Parnell"
New York: Murphy & McCarthty, p. 23

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parnell, John 1744 births 1801 deaths Irish MPs 1761–1768 Irish MPs 1783–1790 Irish MPs 1790–1797 Irish MPs 1798–1800 Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Queen's County constituencies (1801–1922) UK MPs 1801–1802 Baronets in the Baronetage of Ireland Commissioners of the Treasury for Ireland Chancellors of the Exchequer of Ireland Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Down constituencies Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for Queen's County constituencies