Charles Brownlow, 1st Baron Lurgan PC (17 April 1795 – 30 April 1847), 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 ...

politician who sat in 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 ...

from 1818 to 1832, during which time he recanted his

Orange Order The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants. It also has lodges in England, Grand Orange Lodge of ...

opposition to Catholic emancipation. He was raised to the peerage in 1839.

Life

Brownlow was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Brownlow and his wife, Caroline Ashe. His father's elder brother William Brownlow, a

Tory A Tory () is an individual who supports a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalist conservatism which upholds the established social order as it has evolved through the history of Great Britain. The To ...

MP for Armagh, had died childless in 1815. They were the sons of the politician William Brownlow by his first marriage. He was educated at

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

. In 1818 he was elected Member of Parliament for

Armagh Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...

and held the seat until 1832 as a Whig. During parliamentary debate in 1824, he announced his admission to the Orange Order and presented a vigorous case for the suppression of

Daniel O'Connell Daniel(I) O’Connell (; 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 mobilisation of Catholic Irelan ...

Catholic Association The Catholic Association was an Irish Roman Catholic political organization set up by Daniel O'Connell in the early nineteenth century to campaign for Catholic emancipation within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was one of ...

. However, the following year a parliamentary committee to inquire into the state of Ireland, and which took evidence from leading Catholic clerics, appeared to have a profound impact on Brownlow. In April 1825, in a lengthy speech to the House of Commons he conceded that he had been "misled by old alarms, and old prejudices". Accepting that the Roman Catholics of Ireland received their spiritual guidance but not their politics from Rome, he asserted that there was no longer any "shadow of argument" that could justify the continued denial of their claims. In the general election a year later, despite anger and disquiet among many of his Protestant constituents and Orange brethren, he was returned to Westminster. Whilst advocating Catholic emancipation as a matter of natural justice, Brownlow also insisted that, by pacifying the country, it served the best interests of Protestants whose continued "obstinacy" would otherwise "exclude improvement", "repeal British enterprise"- and "shut out British capital." However, to the dismay of George Ensor, and a coterie of other reformers in the county who campaigned for his re-election, Brownlow accepted, and defended, as a condition for admitting Catholics to parliament and to higher offices, that the property qualification for the electoral franchise in Ireland be raised five-fold to the English ten pound level. In 1829, the year of the

Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 ( 10 Geo. 4. c. 7), also known as the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that removed the sacramental tests that barred Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom f ...

, Brownlow gave the Rev. W.O. O'Brien land for a church in the townland of Derry. His plea for the disestablishment of the

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomy, autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the Christianity in Ireland, second-largest Christian church on the ...

may have cost him his seat in 1832. In 1833 he had built Brownlow House designed by the Edinburgh architect

William Henry Playfair William Henry Playfair Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE (15 July 1790 – 19 March 1857) was a prominent Scottish architect in the 19th century who designed the Eastern, or Third, New Town, Edinburgh, New Town and many of Edinb ...

in the Elizabethan style and constructed of Scottish sandstone. He was High Sheriff of Armagh in 1834 and was raised to the peerage by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

, as Baron Lurgan, of

Lurgan Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and roughly southwest of Belfast. The town is linked to Belfast by both the M1 motorway (Northern Ireland), M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin rail ...

in the County of Armagh, on 14 May 1839. Brownlow was keen to improve his estate and was actively concerned with the welfare of the people of Lurgan. During the Great Famine, Lord Lurgan, as he had become, was chairman of the Lurgan Board of Guardians and was constantly at his post. While alleviating distress and attending the wants of the Union, he contracted typhus fever which led to his death at the age of 52.History from Headstones – Shankill Graveyard, Lurgan
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Family

Brownlow married

Lady ''Lady'' is a term for a woman who behaves in a polite way. Once used to describe only women of a high social class or status, the female counterpart of lord, now it may refer to any adult woman, as gentleman can be used for men. "Lady" is al ...

Mary Bligh, daughter of The 4th Earl of Darnley and Elizabeth Brownlow, on 1 June 1822. He married as his second wife Jane Macneill, daughter of Roderick Macneill of Barra, on 15 July 1828. His son by his second wife, Charles Brownlow, succeeded him. His daughter, the Hon Clara Anne Jane Brownlow (d.1883) married Col. William Macdonald Farquharson Colquhoun Macdonald of St Martins Abbey.

Arms

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lurgan, Charles Brownlow, 1st Baron 1795 births 1847 deaths Brownlow, Charles Brownlow, Charles Brownlow, Charles Brownlow, Charles Brownlow, Charles Brownlow, Charles UK MPs who were granted peerages Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Members of the Privy Council of Ireland

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...

Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria Alumni of Trinity College Dublin