(Jenico) Nicholas Dudley Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston (born 19 November 1939), is a British

hereditary peer The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of September 2022, there are 807 hereditary peers: 29 dukes (including five royal dukes), 34 marquesses, 190 earls, 111 viscounts, and 443 barons (disregarding subsid ...

who sat (as Baron Gormanston) in the House of Lords until

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

An Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Lord Gormanston is the premier viscount in the Peerage of Ireland (created 1478).

Family background

The only son and heir of Lieutenant the 16th Viscount Gormanston (1914–1940) and Pamela Hanly, daughter of Captain Edward Hanly and Lady Marjorie Feilding (daughter of the 9th Earl of Denbigh), he succeeded to the family titles before his first birthday; the 16th Viscount (Lieutenant Jenico William Preston,

King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army. It officially existed from 1881 to 1968, but its predecessors go back to 1755. In 1968, the regiment was amalgamated with the Somerset and Cornwall ...

) was killed in action at

Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Battle of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...

, 1940. His maternal great-grandfather was General Sir William Butler, of Bansha Castle, County Tipperary, and his great-grandmother was the celebrated Victorian painter,

Elizabeth Thompson Elizabeth Southerden Thompson (3 November 1846 – 2 October 1933), later known as Lady Butler, was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic ...

(later Lady Butler). The 14th Viscount Gormanston was his paternal great-grandfather. A Roman Catholic like his forebears, Lord Gormanston attended the Benedictine school at Downside, Somerset. He is a connoisseur of art and lives in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, London.

Gormanston Castle

The

ancestral seat A family seat or sometimes just called seat is the principal residence of the landed gentry and aristocracy. The residence usually denotes the social, economic, political, or historic connection of the family within a given area. Some families to ...

, Gormanston Castle in County Meath, Ireland, is no longer in the family's possession. The castle is fully maintained by the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (OFM), bought in 1947. Shortly after its purchase, the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

opened a boarding school for boys,

Gormanston College Franciscan College Gormanston is a school operated and managed by the Irish province of the Franciscans, Order of the Friars Minor. The college operates under the trusteeship of the Minister Provincial and Definitory of the Franciscan Province ...

, in the adjacent grounds; the college has since become a coeducational day school.

Personal life

Viscount Gormanston married his first wife Eva-Antonie Landzwójczak (1955–1984) in 1974. The marriage produced two sons: * Hon. Jenico Francis Tara Preston, born 1974, heir apparent; commercial director, Toye, Kenning & Spencer, married 2015 Kelly Reade (born 1978), descended via her mother from the Marquises of Chaves, and by whom has one son; * Hon. William Luke Preston, born in 1976. Viscount Gormanston married, secondly, Lucy Arabella Fox (born 1960) in November 1997. She is the only daughter of the actor Edward Fox and his first wife, the actress Tracy Reed (''qv.'', a daughter of

Penelope Dudley-Ward Penelope Ann Rachel, Lady Reed (born Penelope Anne Rachel Dudley Ward; 4 August 1914 – 21 January 1982), known as Penelope Dudley-Ward, was an English actress. Born in London, she was the elder daughter of William Dudley Ward and the lead ...

and Anthony Pelissier).www.thepeerage.com
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References

External links

*
www.hereditarypeers.comwww.debretts.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gormanston, Jenico Preston, 17th Viscount 1939 births Living people People from Kensington People educated at Downside School Robin Fox family 20th-century Anglo-Irish people British Roman Catholics Conservative Party (UK) hereditary peers Viscounts in the Peerage of Ireland Preston family

Family background

Gormanston Castle

Personal life

See also

References

External links