John Willoughby Cole, 2nd Earl of Enniskillen (23 March 1768 – 31 March 1840), styled Viscount Cole from 1789 to 1803, was an Irish peer and Member of Parliament.

Biography

Cole was the son of

William Cole, 1st Earl of Enniskillen William Willoughby Cole, 1st Earl of Enniskillen (1 March 1736 – 22 May 1803), styled The Honourable from 1760 to 1767, then known as the Lord Mountflorence to 1776 and as the Viscount Enniskillen to 1789, was an Irish peer and politician. E ...

. He succeeded his father to the peerage and the

Florence Court Florence Court is a large 18th-century house and estate located 8 miles south-west of Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is set in the foothills of Cuilcagh Mountain. The nearby village is distinguished by the one-word name Flo ...

estate in 1803. In 1790 and in 1798, he was elected for

Sligo Sligo ( ; , meaning 'abounding in shells') is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of 20,608 in 2022, it is the county's largest urban centre (constituting 2 ...

and

County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of and had a population of 63,585 as of 2021. Enniskillen is the ...

. Both times, he chose to sit for the latter and represented the constituency in the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...

until the Act of Union in 1801. After the Union, Cole was subsequently returned to the

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...

for

Fermanagh Historically, Fermanagh (), as opposed to the modern County Fermanagh, was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Fermanagh. ''Fir Manach'' originally referred to a distinct kin group of alleged Laigin or ...

, a seat he held until he succeeded his father to the earldom in 1803. He then sat 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 ...

as an Irish representative peer from 1804 to 1840. He was also Governor of Fermanagh until 1831 and thereafter

Lord Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility ov ...

of the county until his death. He was made a

Knight of the Order of St Patrick The Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick is a dormant British order of chivalry associated with Ireland. The Order was created in 1783 by King George III at the request of the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the 3rd Earl Temple (later cre ...

in 1810 and in 1815 created Baron Grinstead, of Grinstead in the County of Wiltshire, in the

Peerage of the United Kingdom The Peerage of the United Kingdom is one of the five peerages in the United Kingdom. It comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Acts of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great B ...

Personal life

Lord Enniskillen married Lady Charlotte Paget, daughter of Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge, in 1805. They had five children: * William Willoughby Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen (25 January 1807 – 12 November 1886) * Colonel The Hon. Henry Arthur Cole (14 February 1809 – 2 July 1890) * Lady Jane Anne Louisa Florence Cole (27 July 1811 – 23 March 1831) * The Hon. John Lowry Cole (8 June 1813 – 28 November 1882) * The Hon. Lowry Balfour Cole (6 June 1815 – 14 January 1818) He died in March 1840, aged 72, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son

William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

References

* Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). ''Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage'' (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990. * Malcolmson, A. P. W. 'The Enniskillen Family, Estate and Archive'. ''Clogher Record'' 16 (2), 1998, pp. 81–122.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Enniskillen, John Cole, 2nd Earl of 1768 births 1840 deaths Cole family (Anglo-Irish aristocracy) Earls of Enniskillen Irish MPs 1790–1797 Irish MPs 1798–1800 Knights of St Patrick Lord-lieutenants of Fermanagh Cole, John Cole, Viscount Cole, John Cole, Viscount Cole, John Cole, Viscount Enniskillen, E2 UK MPs who were granted peerages Irish representative peers Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Fermanagh constituencies Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Sligo constituencies