Lord Barrymore Vanity Fair 31 August 1910

Arthur Hugh Smith-Barry, 1st Baron Barrymore, (17 January 1843 – 22 February 1925), was an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...

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

politician.

Background and education

Smith-Barry was the son of James Hugh Smith Barry, of Marbury,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, and

Fota Island Fota (statutory spelling Foaty; ) is an island in Cork Harbour, County Cork, Ireland, just north of the larger island of Great Island. It is the home of Fota Wildlife Park—the only such zoo or animal park (besides Dublin Zoo) in the country— ...

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

, and his wife Eliza, daughter of Shallcross Jacson. His paternal grandfather John Smith Barry was the illegitimate son of James Hugh Smith Barry, son of John Smith Barry, younger son of

Lieutenant-General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was normall ...

The 4th Earl of Barrymore (a title which had become extinct in 1823; see

Earl of Barrymore Earl of Barrymore was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created for David Barry, 6th Viscount Buttevant, in 1627/28. Lord Barrymore held the subsidiary titles of Baron Barry (created c. 1261) and Viscount Buttevant (created 1541) in the ...

). He was educated at

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England *Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States *Éton, a commune in the Meuse depa ...

and

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

Political career

Smith-Barry entered

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

as one of two representatives for

in 1867, a seat he held until 1874. Smith-Barry remained out of 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 ...

for the next twelve years but returned in 1886 when he was elected for

Huntingdon Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by John, King of England, King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver C ...

, and represented this constituency until 1900. He was also High Sheriff of County Cork in 1886 and was tasked by

Arthur Balfour Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (; 25 July 184819 March 1930) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As Foreign Secretary ...

to organise landlord resistance to the tenant

Plan of Campaign The Plan of Campaign was a strategy, stratagem adopted in Ireland between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish politicians for the benefit of tenant farmers, against mainly absentee landlord, absentee and rack-rent landlords. It was launched to ...

movement of the late 1880s. He was sworn of the

Privy Council of Ireland 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 ...

in 1896. It was announced in the

1902 Coronation Honours The 1902 Coronation Honours were announced on 26 June 1902, the date originally set for the coronation of King Edward VII. The coronation was postponed because the King had been taken ill two days before, but he ordered that the honours list shou ...

list that he would be created a peer, and the Barrymore title held by his ancestors was partially revived when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Barrymore, of Barrymore in the County of Cork, on 24 July 1902. He took his seat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

a couple of days later.

Cricket

Smith-Barry played two

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

matches for the

Marylebone Cricket Club The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's, Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London, England. The club was the governing body of cricket from 1788 to 1989 and retain ...

, playing once in 1873 and once in 1875.

Family

Lord Barrymore married firstly Lady Mary Frances, daughter of The 3rd Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, in 1868. Their children were: * Geraldine Smith-Barry, born 9 Jun 1869 at 26 Chesham Place in London, died 23 Dec 1957 * James Hugh Smith-Barry, born 22 Oct 1870 on Fota Island, died 18 May 1871 After his wife's death on 11 Sep 1884 (in Bex, Switzerland). He then married Elizabeth, daughter of U.S. General

James S. Wadsworth James Samuel Wadsworth (October 30, 1807 – May 8, 1864) was a philanthropist, politician, and a Union general in the American Civil War. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864. Early years Wadsworth was born t ...

and widow of Arthur Post, on 28 Feb 1889. They had one child together: * Dorothy Elizabeth Smith-Barry, born 14 Apr 1894, d. 16 Jan 1975 Lord Barrymore died in London in February 1925, aged 82, and was cremated at

Golders Green Crematorium Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and is one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000 (the equivalent of £136,000 in 2021), ...

. His only son James had died as an infant in 1871 and consequently the barony became extinct on Barrymore's death. Lady Barrymore died on 9 May 1930 in London.

On the death of Arthur Hugh Smith Barry in 1925, the estate, which was

entailed In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust law, trust, established by deed or settlement, that restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate (law), estate in real property and prevents that property from being sold, devised by ...

, passed to his brother, James Hugh Smith Barry. On ''his'' death, it passed to James Hugh's son, Robert Raymond Smith-Barry. In 1939, the estate of Fota Island and the ground rents of areas was acquired by Arthur Hugh's daughter (from her cousin), Mrs. Dorothy Bell, for the sum of £31,000. On her death, in 1975, it passed to her daughter, Mrs. Rosemary Villiers, and Fota House is now the property of The Irish Heritage Trust.

Arms

References

External links

* * * *
fotahouse.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barrymore, Arthur Smith-Barry, 1st Baron 1843 births 1925 deaths People educated at Eton College Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Cork constituencies (1801–1922) UK MPs 1865–1868 UK MPs 1868–1874 UK MPs 1886–1892 UK MPs 1892–1895 UK MPs 1895–1900 UK MPs who were granted peerages Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Irish Conservative Party MPs

Arthur Arthur is a masculine given name of uncertain etymology. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Ital ...

High sheriffs of County Cork Directors of the Great Western Railway English cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Peers created by Edward VII