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

Lord Chancellor of Ireland The Lord High Chancellor of Ireland (commonly known as Lord Chancellor of Ireland) was the highest judicial office in Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From 1721 to 1801, it was also the highest political office of ...

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 part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

minister, Reverend Thomas Plunket of

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 ...

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

Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from ga, Inis Ceithleann , 'Cethlenn, 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 ...

County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of 1,691 km2 (653 sq mi) and has a population of 61,805 a ...

, and educated at Trinity College Dublin. After graduating in 1784, he was admitted as a student at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

, and was called to the Irish

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

three years later.

Prosecution of Robert Emmet and political career

Plunket was made a

King's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or ...

in 1795, and three years later was elected to the Irish House of Commons as a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

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 ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...

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 Leonard Patrick McNally (1752–1820) was an Irish barrister, playwright, lyricist, founding member of the United Irishmen and spy for the British Government within Irish republican circles. He was a successful lawyer in late 18th and early 19th ...

, 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 and, in 1805, Attorney-General for Ireland. 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 executi ...

. 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 an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

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 agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign ...

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 ceased publication in 1836, the year after Cobbett's death. History Originally ...

.'' 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, 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 still ...

, 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 mem ...

as a Whig member for Midhurst, representing the constituency for only three months, although he subsequently returned to the House of Commons 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 Attorney-General for Ireland, since

William Saurin William Saurin (1757 – 11 February 1839) was an Irish barrister, Crown official and politician. He was Attorney-General for Ireland from 1807 to 1822, and for much of that period, he acted as the effective head of the Irish Government. He was ...

(Attorney General 1807–22) was implacably opposed to

Catholic Emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

, 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 O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 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 mobilizat ...

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 1800, Acts of Union in 1801, when it replaced the ...

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 s ...

. He was an advocate of

, 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 an advantage, privilege, or position that is granted to relatives and friends in an occupation or field. These fields may include but are not limited to, business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, fitness, religion, an ...

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 John McCausland, Jr. (September 13, 1836 – January 22, 1927) was a brigadier general in the Confederate army, famous for the ransom of Hagerstown, Maryland, and the razing of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War. Early ...

Strabane Strabane ( ; ) is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Strabane had a population of 13,172 at the 2011 Census. It lies on the east bank of the River Foyle. It is roughly midway from Omagh, Derry and Letterkenny. The River Foyle marks ...

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

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconne ...

. 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 Ap ...

became

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 ...

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

Katherine Plunket Katherine Plunket (born as Catherine Plunket; 22 November 182014 October 1932) was an Anglo Irish aristocrat and artist from Ballymascanlan, County Louth, a prolific Botanical illustrator and painter. and the oldest person ever to be born and d ...

(1820–1932) was the longest-lived Irish person ever. Their other children included sons Patrick (died 1859), judge of the

Court of Bankruptcy A Commissioner of Bankruptcy (England and Wales) was, from 1571 to 1883, an official appointed (initially by commission of the Lord Chancellor) to administer the estate of a bankrupt with full power to dispose of all his lands and tenements.Commi ...

, 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, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...

, 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 Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom 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 English constituencies 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 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