Sir William Joshua Goulding, 1st Baronet (7 March 1856 – 12 July 1925) 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 establis ...

business magnate,

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, following ...

politician and

rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...

player. He was a member of the short-lived

Senate of Southern Ireland The Senate of Southern Ireland was the upper house of the Parliament of Southern Ireland, established ''de jure'' in 1921 under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Act stipulated that there be 64 senators, but only 39 were selected ...

Early life and family

Goulding was born in

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

, the son of

William Goulding William Goulding (15 November 1817 – 8 December 1884) was an Irish Conservative Party politician from Cork. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1876 to 1880. At the general election in February 1874, he was stood unsuccessfully as a cand ...

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Member of Parliament for Cork City, and his second wife Maria Heath Manders. He was educated in Cork before attending

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, graduating with a masters in 1883. In 1875 Goulding's father employed

John Pentland Mahaffy Sir John Pentland Mahaffy (26 February 183930 April 1919) was an Irish classicist and polymathic scholar. Education and Academic career He was born near Vevey in Switzerland on 26 February 1839 to Irish parents, Nathaniel Brindley Mahaffy and ...

to take his son on a

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

to Italy and Greece, for part of which they travelled with

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

. His younger brother,

Edward Goulding Edward Alfred Goulding, 1st Baron Wargrave (5 November 1862 – 17 July 1936), known as Sir Edward Goulding, Bt, between 1915 and 1922, was a British barrister, businessman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician. He sat in t ...

, was raised to the peerage as Baron Wargrave in 1922. In 1881 he married Ada Stokes, daughter of Charles Lingard Stokes of Pauntley, Worcester. He had property in Dublin and

County Kildare County Kildare ( ga, Contae Chill Dara) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the county, ...

Business career

After graduating Goulding returned to Ireland and joined the family fertilizer and phosphates firm, W. & H. M. Goulding. He became chairman of the company on his father's death in 1884 and moved the company headquarters from Cork to

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

in 1885. He made several acquisitions of other Irish fertilizer businesses, and by 1902 the company's annual production was 119,337 tons. In 1907, Goulding became chairman of the

Great Southern and Western Railway The Great Southern and Western Railway (GS&WR) was an Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland from 1844 until 1924. The GS&WR grew by building lines and making a series of takeovers, until in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the ...

. He was chairman of the Irish railway committee from 1806 to 1909. After the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between th ...

government's amalgamation of southern Irish railway companies, Goulding was appointed chairman of the newly organised board. He was a director of the Irish National Bank Ltd. Goulding was on the council of the

Dublin Chamber of Commerce Dublin Chamber of Commerce also known as the Dublin Chamber, is the oldest chamber of commerce in Ireland. Origins The Dublin Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1783. It had been preceded by other collective bodies including the Guild of Merc ...

Political activity

Like his father, Goulding was an active Irish unionist, but despite two requests he never stood in a Parliamentary election. He was a member of the

Irish Unionist Alliance The Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA), also known as the Irish Unionist Party, Irish Unionists or simply the Unionists, was a unionist political party founded in Ireland in 1891 from a merger of the Irish Conservative Party and the Irish Loyal and ...

(IUA) and served as chairman of the city of Dublin and south county Dublin Unionist Representative Associations. On 22 August 1904 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 14th ...

, of Millicent and Roebuck Hill in the

Baronetage of the United Kingdom 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 ...

. Goulding was

Sheriff of County Dublin The Sheriff of County Dublin (or (High) Sheriff of the County of Dublin) was the Sovereign's judicial representative in County Dublin. Initially, an office for a lifetime, assigned by the Sovereign, the Sheriff became an annual appointment follo ...

in 1906 and

High Sheriff of Kildare The High Sheriff of Kildare was the British Crown's judicial representative in County Kildare, Ireland from the 16th century until 1922, when the office was abolished in the new Free State and replaced by the office of Kildare County Sheriff. T ...

in 1907. He was chairman of the

Property Losses (Ireland) Committee The Property Losses (Ireland) Committee was a committee established by the Dublin Castle administration in Ireland in 1916 to assess claims for damages to buildings and property as a result of destruction caused by the Easter Rising. Although prin ...

from 1916 to 1917. He was made a member of the

Privy Council of Ireland His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executi ...

in the

1917 Birthday Honours The 1917 Birthday Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The King, and were ...

, and was subsequently appointed by the British government to join the

Irish Convention The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the ''Irish question'' and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wid ...

of 1917–1918. Following the split of the IUA in 1919, Goulding joined the

Unionist Anti-Partition League The Unionist Anti-Partition League (UAPL) was a unionist political organisation in Ireland which campaigned for a united Ireland within the United Kingdom. Led by St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton, it split from the Irish Unionist Alliance ...

. In March 1921 he led a deputation of southern unionists formed to persuade

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

bishops to act as intermediaries between

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...

and the British government. That month he also founded the Irish Businessmen's Conciliation Committee alongside Andrew Jameson, which aimed to galvanise the support of businesses against the

partition of Ireland The partition of Ireland ( ga, críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. I ...

.Dempsey, Pauric J.; Boylan, Shaun
Goulding, Sir William Joshua
''Dictionary of Irish Biography'' (October 2009). Retrieved 29 November 2022. In 1921, Goulding was nominated to be an inaugural member of the short-lived

. He took the oath of office, but did not attend either of the Senate's two meetings. On 12 May 1922 he participated in a

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second ...

deputation with Archbishop John Gregg and Bishop Robert Miller to

W. T. Cosgrave William Thomas Cosgrave (5 June 1880 – 16 November 1965) was an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as the president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1932, leader of the Opposition in both the Free State and Ir ...

and

Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to: * Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician * Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...

to ensure the rights

Irish Protestants Protestantism is a Christianity, Christian minority on the island of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland, 48% (883,768) described themselves as Protestant, which was a decline of approximately 5% from the 2001 census. In the 2011 ...

were secure in the Irish Free State.

Irish Rugby Football Union

Goulding played rugby for

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 ...

, gaining an international cap against

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in 1879. He was the fourth president of the

Irish Rugby Football Union The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) ( ga, Cumann Rugbaí na hÉireann) is the body managing rugby union in the island of Ireland (both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). The IRFU has its head office at 10/12 Lansdowne Road and home ...

from 1880 to 1881, and also served as the organisation's vice-president, honorary secretary and honorary treasurer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goulding, William Joshua, 1st Baronet 1856 births 1925 deaths 19th-century Anglo-Irish people 20th-century Anglo-Irish people 19th-century Irish businesspeople 20th-century Irish businesspeople Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom High Sheriffs of County Dublin High Sheriffs of Kildare Irish Anglicans Irish Freemasons Ireland international rugby union players Irish unionists Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Members of the Senate of Southern Ireland Irish rugby union administrators