William Conyngham Plunket, 1st Baron Plunket, PC (Ire), QC (1 July 1764 – 5 January 1854) was an Irish politician and lawyer. After gaining public notoriety as the prosecutor in the treason trial of

Robert Emmet Robert Emmet (4 March 177820 September 1803) was an Irish Republican, orator and rebel leader. Following the suppression of the United Irish uprising in 1798, he sought to organise a renewed attempt to overthrow the British Crown and Prote ...

in 1803, he rose rapidly in government service. He become

Lord Chancellor of Ireland The Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, commonly known as the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was the highest ranking judicial office in Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From 1721 until the end of 1800, it was also the hi ...

in 1830 and served, with a brief interruption, in that post until his retirement in 1841.

Background and education

The son of a

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

minister, Reverend Thomas Plunket of

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, and his wife Mary (née Conyngham), Plunket was born in

Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from , ' Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 14,086 at the 2011 censu ...

County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of and had a population of 63,585 as of 2021. Enniskillen is the ...

, and educated at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

. After graduating in 1784, he was admitted as a student at

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

, and was called to the Irish bar three years later.

Prosecution of Robert Emmet and political career

Plunket was made a

King's Counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

in 1795, and three years later was elected to the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...

as a Member of Parliament for Charlemont. After the Act of Union was passed, Plunket lost his seat, and failed to be elected to Westminster for

Dublin University The University of Dublin (), corporately named as The Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a research university located in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dublin, whi ...

in 1802. He was restored to prominence in September 1803 as the prosecuting counsel in the treason trial of Robert Emmet. Lord Castlereagh, as a principal architect of the Acts of Union, had been acutely embarrassed by Emmet's abortive rising in Dublin. He advised that "the best thing would be to go into no detail whatever upon the case, to keep the subject clearly standing on its own narrow base of a contemptible insurrection without means or respectable leaders". It is an instruction that Plunket appears to have followed. The prosecution itself presented no difficulty: the evidence was overwhelming and the Crown had taken the extra precaution of suborning Emmet's defence attorney, Leonard McNally, for £200 and a pension. But when McNally announced that the trial was concluded because his client wished to call no witnesses nor "take up the time of the court", Plunket took to his feet to berate the prisoner. He mocked Emmet as the deluded leader of a conspiracy encompassing "the bricklayer, the old clothes man, the hodman and the hostler". Plunket was made

Solicitor-General for Ireland The Solicitor-General for Ireland was the holder of an Kingdom of Ireland, 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 ...

and, in 1805,

Attorney-General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish and then, from 1801 under the Acts of Union 1800, United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on ...

. He was also raised to the

Irish Privy Council 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 execut ...

. As Solicitor General, Plunket was one of the Irish officials singled out for attack in a series of scurrilous letters published by the radical

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

William Cobbett William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an Agrarianism, agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restr ...

in his weekly newspaper ''

Political Register The ''Cobbett's Weekly Political Register'', commonly known as the ''Political Register'', was a weekly London-based newspaper founded by William Cobbett in 1802. It published continuously until Cobbett's death in 1836. History Originally propou ...

.'' Plunket was alluded to as "the viper" who "in an unheard of exercise of prerogative" had "wantonly lashed ..the dying son of his former friend mmet's father at whose table it was alleged Plunket had often dined when that dying son produced no evidence, and had made no defence; but on the contrary had acknowledged his offence and submitted to his fate". Plunket was able to bring successful libel cases both against Cobbett and against the author of the letters, "Juverna" (a variant of Hibernia, Ireland) whom he had unmasked as

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His singing, guitar playing and songwriting on his landmark 1936 and 1937 recordings have influenced later generations of musicians. Although his r ...

, a judge of the

Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) The Court of Common Pleas was one of the principal courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror image of the equivalent court in England. Common Pleas was one of the four courts of justice which gave the Four Courts in Dublin, which is sti ...

, who was forced to resign from the Bench as a result. In January 1807, Plunket was returned to

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...

as a Whig member for

Midhurst Midhurst () is a market town and civil parish in the Chichester District in West Sussex, England. It lies on the River Rother (Western), River Rother, inland from the English Channel and north of Chichester. The name Midhurst was first reco ...

, representing the constituency for only three months, although he subsequently returned to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

in 1812 as the member for

, a seat which he continued to represent until May 1827. In 1822 he was reappointed to the office of

, since William Saurin (Attorney General 1807–22) was implacably opposed to Catholic emancipation, which the Crown now accepted was inevitable. Plunket, unlike Saurin, supported Emancipation and was able to work in reasonable harmony with

Daniel O'Connell Daniel(I) O’Connell (; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Irelan ...

to secure it. In 1827, relinquishing his seat in the House of Commons, he was raised to the

Peerage of the United Kingdom The Peerage of the United Kingdom is one of the five peerages in the United Kingdom. It comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Acts of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great B ...

as Baron Plunket, of Newton in the County of Cork and was appointed

Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas The chief justice of the Common Pleas for Ireland was the presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland, which was known in its early years as the Court of Common Bench, or simply as "the Bench", or "the Dublin bench". It was one of the ...

. He was an advocate of Catholic emancipation, and served as

from 1830 to 1841, with a brief interval when the Tories were in power between 1834 and 1835. He was forced into retirement to allow Sir John Campbell to assume office. His tenure as Chancellor was not without controversy: opponents accused him of political partisanship, lengthy absences from work, and

nepotism Nepotism is the act of granting an In-group favoritism, advantage, privilege, or position to Kinship, relatives in an occupation or field. These fields can include business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, religion or health care. In ...

on a scale unusual even in an age when it was understood that officeholders took care of their relatives.

Family

Plunket was married to Catherine McCausland, daughter of John McCausland of

Strabane Strabane (; ) is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Strabane had a population of 13,507 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census. This article contains quotations from this source, which is available under th Open Government Li ...

and Elizabeth Span, daughter of Reverend William Span of Ballmacove,

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...

. Their son

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

became

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 ...

Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry. Thomas's eldest daughter the Honourable

Katherine Plunket Katherine Plunket (born Catherine Plunket; 22 November 182014 October 1932) was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and Botanical illustration, botanical illustrator from Ballymascanlan, County Louth. She holds the distinction of being List of Irish super ...

(1820–1932) was the longest-lived Irish person ever. Their other children included sons Patrick (died 1859), judge of the Court of Bankruptcy, and Robert ( Dean of Tuam from 1850), and a daughter, Louisa. In Dublin, Plunket was a member of

Daly's Club Daly's Club, with premises known as Daly's Club House, was a gentlemen's club in Dublin, Ireland, a centre of social and political life between its origins in about 1750 and its end in 1823. History Daly's had its origins in a Chocolate House ...

.T. H. S. Escott, ''Club Makers and Club Members'' (1913)
pp. 329–333
/ref> He died in January 1854, aged 89, at his country house, Old Connaught, near Bray, County Wicklow, and was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son, Thomas. He lived in considerable state:

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

, who visited him at Old Connaught, left a glowing tribute to Plunket's charm and hospitality, and the excellence of his food and wine.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Plunket, William Plunket, 1st Baron 1764 births 1854 deaths Attorneys-general for Ireland 1 Lord chancellors of Ireland Irish MPs 1798–1800 Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Armagh constituencies Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Dublin University People from Enniskillen Solicitors-general for Ireland UK MPs 1806–1807 UK MPs 1812–1818 UK MPs 1818–1820 UK MPs 1820–1826 UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs who were granted peerages Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies Chief justices of the Irish Common Pleas Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Wicklow constituencies Peers of the United Kingdom created by George IV Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Lawyers from County Fermanagh Politicians from County Fermanagh

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 ...

Whig (British political party) MPs for Irish constituencies