Charles Moore, 2nd Marquess of Drogheda (23 August 1770 – 6 February 1837), styled Viscount Moore until 1822, was an Irish peer. He went

insane Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to ...

when he was about twenty, and spent the rest of his life at the private asylum at

Greatford Greatford is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated west from the A15, north-east from Stamford, and south from Bourne. Greatford is noted for Greatford Hall, once the home of ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershir ...

, which had been founded by the renowned physician Francis Willis. He was the eldest son of

Charles Moore, 1st Marquess of Drogheda Field Marshal Charles Moore, 1st Marquess of Drogheda (29 June 1730 – 22 December 1822), styled Viscount Moore from 1752 until 28 October 1758 and then Earl of Drogheda until 2 July 1791, was an Irish peer and later a British peer, and milita ...

, and Lady Anne Seymour Conway, daughter of

Francis Seymour, 1st Marquess of Hertford Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford, KG, PC, PC (Ire) (5 July 1718 – 14 June 1794) of Ragley Hall, Arrow, in Warwickshire, was a British courtier and politician who, briefly, was Viceroy of Ireland where he had substantial es ...

. Some sources give his first name as Edward. When he was about the age of twenty he began to show signs of mental illness, which may have been hereditary. He was elected to the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, but on a highly restrictive fr ...

as member for Queen's County in 1790, but unseated the following year on foot of a petition that he was disqualified by reason of insanity.Mosley, editor ''Burke's Peerage'' 107th Edition 2003 Vol. 1 p.1181 Despite this, he was given the rank of

captain-lieutenant Captain lieutenant or captain-lieutenant is a military rank, used in a number of navies worldwide and formerly in the British Army. Northern Europe Denmark, Norway and Finland The same rank is used in the navies of Denmark (), Norway () and Finl ...

in the

Royal Irish Artillery The Royal Irish Artillery was an Irish regiment of the British army in the 18th century. It was formed in 1755 as The Artillery Company of Ireland. The name was changed in 1760 to The Royal Regiment of Irish Artillery. They were recruited all over ...

in 1793; Lord Moore's father was colonel of the regiment. He was placed in the care of Dr Francis Willis at Greatford Hall. Willis had won renown in 1789 for curing King

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

of what was thought then to be

insanity Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to oth ...

but is now generally agreed to have been

porphyria Porphyria is a group of liver disorders in which substances called porphyrins build up in the body, negatively affecting the skin or nervous system. The types that affect the nervous system are also known as acute porphyria, as symptoms are ra ...

. His treatment involved a regimen of fresh air and manual labour. Whether the treatment had any success in Lord Drogheda's case is unclear, but certainly, there was no significant recovery of his mental faculties, as there had been in the case of the King; Drogheda remained at Greatford until his death in 1837. He was unmarried and his titles passed to his nephew

Henry Moore, 3rd Marquess of Drogheda The Most Hon. Henry Francis Seymour Moore, 3rd Marquess of Drogheda, KP, PC (I) (14 August 1825 – 29 June 1892), was an Irish peer, styled Viscount Moore until 1837. He was the only son of Lord Henry Seymour Moore, a younger son of Field ...

. The cause of his mental illness is unclear, but it is significant that his mother's family had a history of eccentricity and mental instability.Hyde, Montgomery ''The Strange Death of Lord Castlereagh'' William Heinemann 1959 p.157

Lord Castlereagh Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, (18 June 1769 – 12 August 1822), usually known as Lord Castlereagh, derived from the courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh ( ) by which he was styled from 1796 to 1821, was an Anglo-Irish politician ...

, who committed suicide in 1822, was Lord Drogheda's first cousin and the increasingly strange behaviour which culminated in his death was thought by some to be due to a hereditary mental illness inherited from the Seymour Conway family, to which his mother, as well as Drogheda's, belonged.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Drogheda, Charles Moore, 2nd Marquess Of 1770 births 1837 deaths 19th-century Irish people Irish soldiers Irish MPs 1790–1797 Marquesses of Drogheda Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for Queen's County constituencies