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 establis ...

Member of Parliament.

Biography

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 ...

landowner, his family had originally migrated to Ireland from

Congleton Congleton is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The town is by the River Dane, south of Manchester and north of Stoke on Trent. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 26,482. Top ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

. 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 (MP) from 1875 to 1891, also acting as Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882 and then Leader of the ...

, leader of the

Irish Home Rule The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for Devolution, 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 1 ...

campaign. Parnell first served in the

Parliament of Ireland The Parliament of Ireland ( ga, Parlaimint na hÉireann) was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chamb ...

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 northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

created the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...

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

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

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 title was sometimes given as Ch ...

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

Opposers

The only son of

Sir John Parnell, 1st Baronet Sir John Parnell, 1st Baronet (c. 1720–1782), was an Irish politician and a baronet. Biography He was the only son of John Parnell (1680–1727), Esq., MP and later Judge of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland), and Mary, sister of the Lord C ...

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 Benc ...

, 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 ( ga, Óglaigh na hÉireann), sometimes called the Irish Volunteer Force or Irish Volunteer Army, was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists and republicans. It was ostensibly formed in respons ...

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 gr ...

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 titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisio ...

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, who in turn had a son, John Henry Parnell. 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