Richard Samuel Guinness (7 June 1797 – 27 August 1857) was an Irish lawyer and 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 ...

Parents

Guinness was one of the sons of Richard Guinness (1755-1829), a Dublin barrister and judge, and his wife Mary Darley, descended from a well-known Dublin house-building family. He was a great-nephew of the brewer

Arthur Guinness Arthur Guinness ( 172523 January 1803) was an Irish brewer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. The inventor of Guinness beer, he founded the Guinness Brewery at St. James's Gate in 1759. Born in Celbridge, County Kildare around 1725, Guinness ...

. His elder brother

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 ...

(1789-1857) founded 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 ...

merchant bank in 1836.

Career

Guinness was called to the bar at the

King's Inns The Honorable Society of King's Inns ( ir, Cumann Onórach Óstaí an Rí) is the "Inn of Court" for the Bar of Ireland. Established in 1541, King's Inns is Ireland's oldest school of law and one of Ireland's significant historical environment ...

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 practised as a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

. He was also a banker in partnership with his elder brother Robert, but this was dissolved in the 1830s. He then worked as a land agent, trading as "R. Guinness & Co.", but found it difficult in the aftermath of the

Irish famine The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...

of the 1840s. At the general election of August 1847, standing as a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

, Guinness was elected as a member of the Parliament of 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 ...

for the Kinsale division, and took his seat at Westminster. However, an

election petition An election petition refers to the procedure for challenging the result of a Parliamentary election. Outcomes When a petition is lodged against an election return, there are 4 possible outcomes: # The election is declared void. The result is q ...

was filed by the losing Whig candidate, W. H. Watson, and early in 1848 a select committee found that Guinness's agents' generous hospitality in providing free drinks for the electorate of Kinsale in Kiley's public house had amounted to bribery. The committee comprised three Whigs and two fellow Conservatives. While Guinness was personally exonerated, his election was declared void. He did not stand at the resulting by-election, and the Whig

Benjamin Hawes Sir Benjamin Hawes (1797 – 15 May 1862) was a British Whig politician. Early life He was a grandson of William Hawes, founder of the Royal Humane Society, and son of Benjamin Hawes of New Barge House, Lambeth, who was a businessman and Fello ...

took the seat by just three votes. At a double by-election on 25 August 1854, Guinness was again elected to parliament as a Conservative, this time for

Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, and held the seat for three years, but did not stand for re-election at the general election of 1857.

Personal life

On 25 November 1833, at the residence of the British ambassador to France, in

Verdun Verdun (, , , ; official name before 1970 ''Verdun-sur-Meuse'') is a large city in the Meuse department in Grand Est, northeastern France. It is an arrondissement of the department. Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital ...

, Guinness married Katherine Frances Jenkinson, a daughter of

Sir Charles Jenkinson, 10th Baronet Sir Charles Jenkinson, 10th Baronet (23 February 1779 – 6 March 1855), known as Charles Jenkinson until 1851, was a British politician. Background Jenkinson was the son of Colonel John Jenkinson, Joint Secretary for Ireland, and great-gran ...

and his wife Katherine Campbell, a daughter of

Walter Campbell of Shawfield Walter Campbell, 3rd of Shawfield and Islay and 9th of Skipness (29 December 1741 – 19 October 1816) was a Scottish landowner, advocate and Rector of Glasgow University. Early life Campbell was born on 29 December 1741 into the Clan Campbell o ...

. Sir Charles was a cousin of

Lord Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. He held many important cabinet offices such as Foreign Secret ...

, the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

in 1812–27. They rebuilt and lived at Deepwell House,

Blackrock, Dublin Blackrock () is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, northwest of Dún Laoghaire. Location and access Blackrock covers a large but not precisely defined area, rising from sea level on the coast to at White's Cross on the N11 national primary road. ...

, and also had other houses at 17 Sillwood Place,

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, and 4 Park Place,

St James's St James's is a central district in the City of Westminster, London, forming part of the West End. In the 17th century the area developed as a residential location for the British aristocracy, and around the 19th century was the focus of the de ...

, Westminster. They couple had eight children, including: * Col. Charles W. N. Guinness CB (1839–1894) * Arthur C. C. J. Guinness (1841–1897), who emigrated to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

* Sir Reginald R. B. Guinness (1842-1909) JP, DL for

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 ...

* Adelaide (1844-1916), known as “Dodo”, who married her third cousin

Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, (10 November 1847 – 7 October 1927) was an Irish businessman and philanthropist. A member of the prominent Anglo-Irish Guinness family, he was the head of the family's eponymous brewing business, ma ...

* Claude H. C. Guinness (1852–1895), the managing director of

Guinness Guinness () is an Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in 1759. It is one of the most successful alcohol brands worldwide, brewed in almost 50 countries, and available in ove ...

1886-95 Guinness became known within his family as Old Pelican or Old Pel.Bill Yenne. ''Guinness: The 250 Year Quest for the Perfect Pint'' (2009)
p. 54
“Known inside the family as “old Pelican” or “Old Pel”, Richard was the son of the first Arthur Guinness's goldsmith brother Samuel.” Guinness died in Dublin in 1857, aged 60. His executors were Samuel Nalty and Anna Maria Yelverton. His net estate at death was just £100.Richard Samuel Guinness (1797–1857): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/55817

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guinness, Richard Samuel Irish barristers 19th-century Irish lawyers Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Cork constituencies (1801–1922) Irish Conservative Party MPs 1797 births 1857 deaths

Richard Samuel Richard Samuel ( fl. 1770–1786) was an English portrait painter who won several prestigious medals in the 1770s in London. He is known for a small number of paintings including what came to be known as ''The Nine Living Muses of Great Britai ...

Alumni of King's Inns Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Barnstaple UK MPs 1847–1852 UK MPs 1852–1857 19th-century Irish businesspeople