William Stewart, 1st Earl of Blessington (7 April 170914 August 1769) 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 establis ...

peer and member of the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

, styled The Honourable William Stewart until 1728 and known as The Viscount Mountjoy from 1728 to 1745.

Life

Stewart was the son of

William Stewart, 2nd Viscount Mountjoy William Stewart, 2nd Viscount Mountjoy (1675 – 10 January 1728), was an Anglo-Irish peer. William Stewart was born in 1675, the son of Sir William Stewart, later 1st Viscount Mountjoy. His father was a leader of the Irish Protestants during t ...

and Anne Boyle. He married Eleanor Fitzgerald, daughter of Robert Fitzgerald, on 10 January 1733. They had two children, William Stewart and Lionel Robert, both of whom died before their father. He succeeded his father as Viscount Mountjoy on 10 January 1727. He was Grand Master of the Freemasons (in Ireland) between 1738 and 1740. He was created Earl of Blessington on 7 December 1745, his mother having been sister and sole heiress of Charles, 2nd and last Viscount Blesington. He was made Governor of

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional Counties of Ireland, counties of Ireland. It is no longer used as an admini ...

and in 1748, 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 ...

. On his death in London on 14 August 1769, he was buried at Silchester in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

. His peerages became extinct, but his baronetcy was inherited by a distant cousin, Sir Annesley Stewart.

References

, - 1709 births 1769 deaths Earls in the Peerage of Ireland Members of the Privy Council of Ireland 18th-century Anglo-Irish people {{Ireland-earl-stub