Henry Seymour Guinness (24 November 1858 – 4 April 1945) was an Irish engineer, banker and politician.

Early life

Guinness was born at Burton Hall, Stillorgan,

County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...

, the family home, on 24 November 1858. He was a son of Emelina ( née Brown) Guinness and Henry Guinness (1829–1893), Esq. J.P., who had been the Dublin manager of the

Guinness Mahon Guinness Mahon was an Irish merchant bank originally based in Dublin but more recently with operations in London. History Formation The firm was founded as a land agency in Dublin in 1836 by barrister Robert Rundell Guinness, a great-nephew of ...

bank. His sister, Lucy Madeleine Guinness, married Philip de László, the Anglo- Hungarian painter known particularly for his portraits of royal and aristocratic personages. His paternal grandfather was

Robert Rundell Guinness Robert Rundell Guinness (12 December 1789 -7 March 1857) was an Irish banker, most famous for co-founding the Guinness Mahon bank in 1836. The grandson of a Dublin goldbeater Samuel Guinness (1727-1795), he is the first of the "banking line" in ...

, founder of the Guinness Mahon bank, and his maternal grandfather was James Brown, Esq. of

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

. He was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of ...

and then the

Royal Indian Engineering College The Royal Indian Engineering College (or RIEC) was a British college of Civil Engineering run by the India Office to train civil engineers for service in the Indian Public Works Department. It was located on the Cooper's Hill estate, near Egham, ...

Career

Guinness worked as an engineer in the Indian Public Works in 1880–95. He served as a lieutenant in the Burma State Railway Volunteer Rifles in the

Third Anglo-Burmese War The Third Anglo-Burmese War ( my, တတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် – မြန်မာစစ်, Tatiya Anggalip–Mran cac), also known as the Third Burma War, took place during 7–29 November 1885, with sporadic resistance conti ...

. Back in Ireland he was a director of the Great Northern Railway in 1902–24, director of the Bank of Ireland, and assistant managing director at Guinness in 1924–30.

Public life

He was appointed

High 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 foll ...

in 1899. A supporter 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 ...

until 1921, he was chosen to represent the Irish business world as a Senator in the

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 selecte ...

, which failed to function. During the Irish War of Independence Guinness arranged for the

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 G ...

led

Dublin Corporation Dublin Corporation (), known by generations of Dubliners simply as ''The Corpo'', is the former name of the city government and its administrative organisation in Dublin since the 1100s. Significantly re-structured in 1660-1661, even more sign ...

to be funded by the Bank of Ireland, as rates due from the Local Government Board had been withheld in 1920.

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 ...

chaired the British-run Local Government Board finance committee for Dublin, while being at the same time the Minister for Local Government of the

Irish Republic The Irish Republic ( ga, Poblacht na hÉireann or ) was an unrecognised revolutionary state that declared its independence from the United Kingdom in January 1919. The Republic claimed jurisdiction over the whole island of Ireland, but by ...

. In 1951 he recalled that "I went to the Bank of Ireland and there interviewed two of the Directors, H.S. Guinness and Andrew Jameson. They eventually gave the accommodation so urgently required for the Corporation. It was for this reason that when President of the Executive Council at a later stage, I nominated these two gentlemen as Senators." Guinness was nominated as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

member of the first Irish Senate of the new

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 ...

for 12 years at the 1922 election. He supported measures such as a regular financial system and also the proposal by

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

for the local translation of ancient

Irish manuscripts This is a list of manuscripts produced in Ireland as well as other manuscripts of Irish interest, including both vellum and paper manuscripts. See also *Cín Dromma Snechtai *Irish Manuscripts Commission Notes Sources *General: ** *Brussels: ...

. He did not seek re-election in 1934. In 1953, he published ''The Guinness Family'', written along with Brian Guinness, along with a number of essays and short books on the history of the

Guinness family The Guinness family is an extensive Irish family known for its accomplishments in brewing, banking, politics, and religious ministry. The brewing branch is particularly well known among the general public for producing the dry stout Guinnes ...

. The originals and supporting notes are at the

National Library of Ireland The National Library of Ireland (NLI; ga, Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann) is the Republic of Ireland's national library located in Dublin, in a building designed by Thomas Newenham Deane. The mission of the National Library of Ireland i ...

Personal life

In 1900, he was married to Mary Bainbridge (1871–1954), the second daughter of Robert Stagg Bainbridge, Esq. of Keverstone, County Durham. Together, Mary and Henry were the parents of four children, including: * Moira Emelina Guinness (b. 1902), who married Capt. Arthur Lafone Frank Hills, OBE, in 1923. * Rachel Ursula Isolde Guinness (b. 1906), who married Prince John Bryant Digby de Mahé, the only son of Prince Charles Digby Mahé de Chenal de la Bourdonnais, in 1931. * Patricia Guinness (1909–2002), who married Frederick Charles Leopold Ullstein, a descendant of publisher

Leopold Ullstein Leopold Ullstein (6 September 1826 – 4 December 1899) was the founder and publisher of several successful German newspapers, including '' B.Z. am Mittag'' and ''Berliner Morgenpost.'' Many of these are still published today. Ullstein was als ...

. * Heather Seymour "Judy" Guinness (1910–1952), an Olympic medalist fencer who married twice. He lived at Burton Hall, Stillorgan, for many years. In March 1923, during the Irish Civil War, the anti-Treaty republicans tried to burn it down, albeit without success.''Freeman's Journal'', 28 March 1923
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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Guinness, Henry 1858 births 1945 deaths

Henry Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) * Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...

Independent members of Seanad Éireann Members of the 1922 Seanad Members of the 1925 Seanad Members of the 1928 Seanad Members of the 1931 Seanad Members of the Senate of Southern Ireland Irish bankers High Sheriffs of County Dublin Place of death missing People educated at Winchester College Alumni of the Royal Indian Engineering College