John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany (31 August 1853 – 16 January 1899) 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 and peer.

Early life and career

Plunkett was the second son of Edward Plunkett, 16th Baron of Dunsany (1808–1889), and Anne Constance Dutton (1816–1858), daughter of

John Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne John Baron Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne (24 January 1779 – 18 October 1862), was a British peer. Background Sherborne was the son of James Dutton, 1st Baron Sherborne, of Sherborne, Gloucestershire, by his wife Elizabeth Coke (1753–1824), ...

and Mary Bilson-Legge (1780–1864), daughter of

Henry Bilson-Legge, 2nd Baron Stawell Henry Bilson-Legge, 2nd Baron Stawell (22 February 1757 – 25 August 1820) was a British peer and landowner, serving as a member of the House of Lords from 1780 until his death in 1820. Stawell was the only son of the statesman Henry Bilso ...

and Mary Curzon. His father pursued military interests, and wrote on the topic of a Channel Tunnel to France. His elder brother, Randal Edward Sherborne Plunkett, predeceased him. John William Plunkett received a Bachelor of Arts degree from

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 Unive ...

(1877). He studied at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

(B.A., 1878; M.A., 1881). He was Lieutenant R.N. Artillery Volunteers and a Conservative Party Member of Parliament for the Thornbury (or Southern) division of Gloucestershire from 1886 to 1892. He proved his right to vote at the elections of Representative Peers (Ireland) 1890 and Representative Peers (Ireland) 1893–99.

Family

John William married on 3 April 1877, at

St George's, Hanover Square St George's, Hanover Square, is an Church of England, Anglican church, the parish church of Mayfair in the City of Westminster, central London, built in the early eighteenth century as part of a project to build fifty new churches around London ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, his second cousin, Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Burton (later, in 1906, by Royal Licence, Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax), the only daughter and heir to Colonel Francis Augustus Plunkett Burton, Coldstream Guards, by Sarah Frances Elizabeth, younger daughter and coheir of John Samuel Wanley Sawbridge-Erle-Drax, of Charborough Park,

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

. Ernle Burton's paternal grandmother, Anna Maria Plunkett, wife of Admiral

James Ryder Burton Admiral James Ryder Burton, KH (1795 – 2 August 1876) was a British Royal Navy officer. He was the son of Edmund Burton, the Dean of Killala. He progressed on the Reserved List to the rank of Admiral on 14 November 1863. In 1823, he marri ...

, was a sister of her husband's paternal grandfather,

Edward Plunkett, 14th Baron Dunsany Edward Wadding Plunkett, 14th Baron Dunsany (7 April 1773 – 11 December 1848) was an Anglo-Irish peer. Biography He was the son of Randall Plunkett, 13th Baron of Dunsany, and Margaret Mandeville, and he inherited his father's title of Baron ...

. In addition, Ernle, Lady Dunsany, was descended via her maternal line from James Drax, a young Englishman who, with a few hundred pounds, had sailed from the Port of London for Barbados in the late 1620s. There he had made a fortune developing sugar and slave-trading into a hugely profitable business. Just before the turn of the seventeenth century, the family returned to England and purchased an estate in Dorset. Lady Dunsany inherited Charborough Park in 1905. Her unusual Christian name,

Ernle Ernle was the surname of an English gentry or landed family descended from the lords of the manor of Earnley in Sussex who derived their surname from the name of the place where their estates lay. Origins Onomastic Onomasticians say that ...

, was inherited from an ancestress, Elizabeth

(1697–1759), wife of Henry Drax, Esq., who was the daughter and eventual heiress of

Sir Edward Ernle, 3rd Baronet Sir Edward Ernle, 3rd Baronet (c. 1673 – 1729) of Charborough in Dorset, of Brimslade Park and Etchilhampton, both in Wiltshire, was an English Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1695 and 1729. He had ...

, P.C., M.P., (1673–1729) of Maddington, Wiltshire, by his wife, Frances (d. 1728) only daughter and heir of Lieutenant General

Thomas Erle General Thomas Erle PC (1650 – 23 July 1720) of Charborough, Dorset, was a general in the English Army and, thereafter, the British Army. He was also a Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons of England and of Great Britain from 1 ...

(1650–1720), of Charborough House, the source of a further barrel of her surname. John William and Ernle Elizabeth had two sons, the author Edward John Moreton Drax, 18th Baron of Dunsany and Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (Charborough Park was left to Reginald, who changed his name to include Drax, the family who had formerly owned it, as well as including references to the

and Erle families from which various of his mother's legacies to him came). Lady Dunsany was a cousin of

Sir Richard Burton Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, KCMG, FRGS, (19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British explorer, army officer, orientalist writer and scholar. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa and South America, as wel ...

, the great traveller, scholar, writer, and translator of the ''

Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition () ...

''. Her son and heir, Edward, the noted author, may have inherited his imaginative streak partly from the Burton family.

Personal life

He lived at the family seat of

Dunsany Castle Dunsany Castle (), Dunsany, County Meath, Ireland, is a modernised Anglo-Norman castle, started c. 1180 / 1181 by Hugh de Lacy, who also commissioned the original Killeen Castle, nearby, and the famous Trim Castle. It is one of Ireland's ol ...

County Meath County Meath ( ; or simply , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is bordered by County Dublin to the southeast, County ...

, Ireland, and in London and Shoreham, Kent. He was an exceptional sportsman, and was reputed to have been the best marksman in England. He was deeply interested in mechanical things and developed his own X-ray machine, which was in operation in Dunsany Castle before his death in 1899.Röntgen delivered his seminal paper on the subject in Berlin in 1895. The Dunsany version of the Röntgen ray machine was given to

Sevenoaks Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506, situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parishes in England, civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter South Eastern Main Line, main line railway into Lo ...

Hospital in 1918. He had acquired the right to drive the Irish Mail Train and regularly took charge of the branch line train from Dublin to Drumree, near Dunsany. He was also responsible for having the first Irish telephone system installed in Dunsany Castle. The 17th

Baron of Dunsany The title Baron of Dunsany or, more commonly, Lord Dunsany, is one of the oldest (1439 or 1461/2) dignities in the Peerage of Ireland, one of just a handful of 13th- to 15th-century titles still extant, having had 21 holders, of the Plunkett nam ...

died, after a short illness, on 16 January 1899, at Dunsany Castle, aged forty-five years. His widow, from whom he was separated in his last years, and who, by Royal Licence of 20 December 1905, assumed the names of Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, died at her residence, Dunstall Priory, Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, Kent, England, on 28 February 1916.

References

Sources

*''Source: "The Story of Dunsany Castle," by Malachy Lynch and Mary-Rose Carty, pp. 50-51''
ThePeerage.com

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dunsany, John Plunkett, 17th Baron of 1853 births 1899 deaths 19th-century Anglo-Irish people Barons of Dunsany Plunkett, John William Plunkett, John William UK MPs who inherited peerages Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Royal Artillery officers Irish representative peers Ernle family