William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse: Astronomy and the castle in nineteenth-century Ireland

By Manchester University Press

This is a revealing account of the family life and achievements of the Third Earl of Rosse, a hereditary peer and resident landlord at Birr Castle, County Offaly, in nineteenth-century Ireland, before, during and after the devastating famine of the 1840s. He was a remarkable engineer, who built enormous telescopes in the cloudy middle of Ireland. The book gives details, in an attractive non-technical style which requires no previous scientific knowledge, of his engineering initiatives and the astronomical results, but also reveals much more about the man and his contributions – locally in the town and county around Birr, in political and other functions in an Ireland administered by the Protestant Ascendancy, in the development and activities of the Royal Society, of which he was President from 1848–54, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The Countess of Rosse, who receives full acknowledgement in the book, was a woman of many talents, among which was her pioneering work in photography, and the book includes reproductions of her artistic exposures, and many other attractive illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781526101938

Book preview

Introduction

Charles Mollan

This volume, in the form of a collection of chapters by specially invited authors, provides both biographical information about, and historical national and international context to, an important nineteenth-century personality, who deserves such acknowledgement but has not until now received it.

It is widely known, in Ireland and further afield, that Sir William Parsons (1800–67), 3rd Earl of Rosse, of Birr Castle in King’s County (Offaly), built what was for some 70 years the largest telescope in the world (Figure I.1). He published extensive details of his remarkable inventive initiatives, as he manufactured telescopes based on increasingly larger mirrors of reflective speculum metal (an alloy of copper and tin), financed by the wealth of his wife, Mary. A summary of his labours is given in my chapter, ‘A consummate engineer’ (Chapter 6), where it is noted that there had been a tradition of engineering and architectural initiative at Birr Castle over a lengthy period. There it is also noted that Parsons’ real interest was in engineering, and it was the engineering challenge presented by a (literally) burning question in astronomical science (i.e., are all the bright lights in the sky discrete stars like our Sun?) that motivated him. When observing the sky, it was clear that there were indeed discrete stars in abundance. But there were also fuzzy bits. Was it because they were blurred by atmospheric conditions between us and them, or were too far away and thus beyond the range of the telescope, or both, which made them appear fuzzy? The hope was that telescopes with improved light grasp would settle this query, and so Parsons got to work. What he and his assistants saw is fully covered in Wolfgang Steinicke’s, ‘Birr Castle observations of non-stellar objects and the development of nebular theories’ (Chapter 7). They found that some of the fuzzy bits indeed appeared to be resolvable, but there was doubt about others. This was not the fault of Parsons’ ingenious telescopes, which, in the best conditions – not too common at Birr – worked very well indeed. It was because, while some can indeed be resolved, it transpired subsequently that others are actually burning gases and cannot. And there were many more unresolved objects beyond the range of Parsons’ telescopes. However, as a consolation prize, Parsons – and it was Parsons himself – probably at 0:58 am on 6 April (New Moon) 1845 (see p. 230), noticed that one of the objects he was observing was spiral in shape, an observation of profound importance in astronomical history.

I.1 The last picture that Mary Rosse took of the Leviathan telescope (c. 1865)

Apart from this, word has got around in some circles that Parsons’ telescopes, especially the ‘Leviathan’, his enormous instrument with a mirror of 72-inch [183 cm] diameter, while of course very impressive, was an expensive failure. Wolfgang Steinicke, in his detailed Chapter 7, scotches this suggestion. The astronomical observing programme at Birr produced extensive and important results.

The 3rd Earl is variously called (Sir) William, (Sir) William Parsons, Parsons, the Earl of Rosse, the 3rd Earl of Rosse, the 3rd Earl, or just Rosse, throughout the book. Different contexts indicate different forms, and in most cases no attempt has be made to make the appellation consistent, so long as no ambiguity is involved. It can also be confusing when alternate Earls of Rosse are called Laurence and William, and this is made clear where necessary. The first name of the present, 7th Earl, is William, although he uses Brendan, while the first name of his elder son, Patrick, Lord Oxmantown, is Laurence (see p. 16).

While almost all the focus on Birr Castle in the nineteenth century has been on the astronomical endeavours there, and this book will, to a considerable extent, follow suit, we wanted also to address the question: what do we know about the man behind this? Can we place him also in the context of local history as a landlord, and of international history as a promoter of science, technology and human progress? He was more than ‘just’ an astronomer. This book is our response to this challenge.

The ‘Succession of the Parsons family at Birr’ (pp. 14–16) and the ‘History of the Parsons family and Birr Castle’ (Chapter 1), by the Earl and Countess of Rosse, set the scene for the rest of the book. One mystery seems to remain: why was the 3rd Earl born in York? In his little booklet Reminiscences, the Reverend Randal Parsons (1848–1936), the third surviving son of the 3rd Earl, tells us that:

The family of Parsons, it is said, came from Norfolk in the time of Elizabeth, and settled first in the County of Wexford. The title Rosse is derived from lands which they possessed in that county. The second title, Oxmantown, was taken from a district in Dublin where apparently they had property. Christchurch Cathedral stands in that district … The name Oxmantown is a corrupt Ostomontowne, the town of the Eastmen, i.e., the Danes.¹

There can be no doubt that William Parsons was born in York, since the York Courant of Monday 23 June 1800 records: ‘On Tuesday evening [17th June] the lady of Sir Lawrence [sic] Parsons of Parsonstown, MP for King’s County, Ireland, was safely delivered a son and heir at their lodgings in this city.’² Letters from Thomas Clere Parsons, the 2nd Earl’s brother, show that the 2nd Earl was in Harrogate and Scarborough in Yorkshire at dates between July and September 1800,³ and that he went to York at the end of September ‘to get William inoculated’.

A suggestion can be made.⁴ It is well documented that the Earl was unhappy with the 1800 Act of Union (and refused to be corrupted by the bribery connected with it), so he may have taken his pregnant wife out of the country in disgust. He and Alice were married in May 1797, but William was not born until June 1800. Is there a suggestion here that there were complications with an earlier pregnancy or pregnancies? Perhaps the 2nd Earl knew of a particularly eminent, or otherwise recommended, obstetrician in York, and so travelled there to ensure the best outcome for his wife.

Trevor Weekes, in his chapter ‘Origin of the 3rd Earl’s interest in astronomy’ (Chapter 2), gives us information about the childhood of the then Lord Oxmantown, who, with his also talented brother John (1802–28), was educated by tutors at home. It was unusual for such aristocratic Ascendancy children to be educated at home, rather than at an English boarding school, and this is considered of extreme importance in the formation of the remarkable engineering genius of William himself, and of his sons Laurence (1840–1908, later the 4th Earl) and Charles Parsons (1854–1931),⁵ the latter the inventor of the steam turbine engine. Oxmantown went, via Trinity College Dublin (from which his father had graduated BA in 1780), to Magdalen College Oxford, where, in December 1822, he earned a first class honours degree in Mathematics. But Trevor Weekes concludes that William’s interest in engineering and astronomy was largely based on his access to workshops at Birr, to his father’s wide knowledge of science, and to his parents’ influence on the curriculum which the tutors were required to teach. The 2nd Earl’s wide erudition, in science as well as theology, is apparent in the book which he wrote to try to deal with the heart-breaking early death of his son John, in his 25th year – An Argument to Prove the Truth of the Christian Revelation.⁶ He wrote: ‘During the long period of deep affliction for so great a loss, I studied the subject of this argument’,⁷ and this did allow him to reconcile the death with his continued faith. The book showed that he was widely read in theology and science, and, to give just one example, it gave a ‘Proof that the Mosaic account of the Creation allows sufficient time for the formation of the primary rocks’,⁸ a topic of much controversy both then and for some time after.

In Chapter 3, dealing with the heiress wife of the 3rd Earl, Mary Rosse (1813–85), the current Countess of Rosse gives us a picture of life in the Castle as William and Mary’s four boys grew up. As in most families, there were good times and bad. The worst of the bad was the death of no fewer than seven of their eleven children. Several of them, including three girls, died after a few days; their eldest child, Alice, died at age 8, and two boys died at age 11. Four boys, Laurence, Randal, Clere and Charles, survived to productive adulthood, three of them as accomplished engineers – most notably the latter, inventor of the steam turbine engine, which revolutionised marine transport and electricity generation⁹ – and the fourth as a clergyman. Like their father, the boys were educated by tutors at home in Birr, with an exacting timetable (see p. 62), and they were clearly inspired by the engineering miracles being developed there. Interestingly, Randal, although he ‘disliked mathematics exceedingly’, initially found it more convenient to study with his brothers’ mathematical tutor, and he obtained first honours in the Trinity College Dublin exams in his first two years, before transferring to the theological course for the next two years.¹⁰

Mary herself was a remarkable woman, and is thus entitled to much more than a passing mention, the fate of so many women in biographies of their nineteenth-century husbands. Evidently an admirer, the Reverend Thomas Romney Robinson (1793–1882) writes: ‘She sympathised in all his pursuits, mastered enough of astronomy to help him in his calculations, and entered into all his plans for the welfare of his tenantry and the good of her adopted country. And this last required no common strength of mind, for there was what might well startle a young Englishwoman.’¹¹ In the same chapter Daniel McDowell tells us of her family background in Yorkshire and her mighty inheritance, and David Davison describes and illustrates her talent as a pioneer photographer. He has happily provided copies of many of Mary’s photographs, used throughout the book, together with technical details for those who have an interest in the history of photographic methods at a time of significant development (pp. 70–87).

The times were challenging during the adult life of the 3rd Earl. Thomas Romney Robinson comments, in his typically strident way, that the Earl was:

Resolute in supporting the authority of law and in putting down the murderous societies which were the terror and curse of that part of Ireland. This, of course, made him a mark for the assassin; he knew his danger; but the knowledge neither made him shrink from his duty, nor embittered his feelings against the misguided people who were conspiring against him. He held on his steady way, sustained by his calm determined courage, and perhaps by the fear inspired by his great physical power and consummate skill in the use of arms.¹²

Margaret Hogan in ‘William Parsons’ influence on the town and community of Birr’ (Chapter 4), and Andrew Shields in ‘Negotiating a difficult sectarian terrain – the public life and political opinions of the 3rd Earl of Rosse’ (Chapter 5), fill in the details, albeit in more moderate terms. Hogan notes (p. 94) that: ‘the legal and political responsibilities of the Parsons family inevitably clashed with tenancy disputes, illicit distilling, secret societies, faction fights, Ribbonmen and Rockite combinations’. The Earl’s son, Randal, records:

I can remember times of great unrest, murders and robberies of arms. My father used to go out to the telescope to observe with pistols in his pockets. The lands near the telescopes were kept cut down to a foot or two [30–60 cm] in height, so as not to afford cover for an evilly disposed person to be concealed. Yet I do not think there was any real danger, as the family was very popular … The King’s County Militia had their headquarters in the new stables and my father was Colonel of the Militia, so we felt quite secure. The lower windows of the Castle were furnished with iron linings to the shutters and all necessary precautions were taken.¹³

Margaret Hogan, already a keen student of Birr’s history, has further researched the local background. She found the Famine a difficult subject, but cautiously concluded that the 3rd Earl comes out reasonably well in the conflicting situation in which he found himself. He went to great lengths and expense to give employment to his tenants and to relieve distress, but, as a wealthy Protestant landlord, at a time of increased political agitation, he was always going to be walking on eggshells. That he didn’t break too many eggs demonstrates that he achieved something of a balance between compassion and reality. He and his surviving family managed to retain considerable respect, and indeed affection, in the local community.

Margaret gives a blow-by-blow account of an interesting local religious crisis, beginning in the early 1820s, in which the 3rd Earl became entangled. Instinctively, most would assume that this would have been yet another Protestant/Catholic fracas, not unknown in Ireland. But, no, this one was Catholic/Catholic, in which the local curate, Michael Crotty, managed to turn most of the Catholic worshippers against their parish priest, Father Patrick Kennedy. The 3rd Earl, as the local magistrate, albeit a committed member of the Protestant Church of Ireland, had to mount guard over the celebration of the Mass (p. 96). While Crotty hoped to take possession of the Catholic church, he didn’t succeed, though he and his followers did later manage to build a little one of their own on Castle Street, which still survives. It is significant that the Parsons family donated the sites for the new Church of Ireland church (1816), for the new Catholic church (1817), for the Methodist church (1828), and for the Crotty church (1837) – ‘blessed are the peacemakers’. Anyway, Crotty, buoyed by his own success (or should that be ‘hoist with his own petard’?¹⁴), eventually ended up in a ‘refuge for the mentally ill’ (p. 97) in Belgium. In contrast, Father Kennedy became Bishop of Killaloe, serving from 1836 to 1851.

The Parsons were representative politicians, both before and after the Act of Union. Andrew Shields deals with the 3rd Earl’s political and social career. As Lord Oxmantown, he represented King’s County in the Westminster House of Commons from 1821 to 1834. At the other end of his life, as the Earl of Rosse, he was a representative Peer in the House of Lords from 1845 to 1867. He was, however, no stellar performer, and was described as a ‘reluctant politician’,¹⁵ though Shields considers this as ‘slightly exaggerated’ (p. 133). Unsurprisingly, Rosse was particularly concerned with the land question. Shields (p. 123) writes: ‘Throughout his life, Rosse was to be a strong defender of the rights of property and of the privileges of the landed classes to which he belonged’, and he favoured the emigration of poorer farmers and agricultural labourers to mitigate the overpopulation of the country, which was leading to increased sub-division of farm holdings. He published pamphlets on the land question in 1847 and 1867. But, in contrast to others of the Ascendancy, he was tolerant towards Roman Catholicism, as is evident, for example, in his role in the Crotty schism, mentioned above. He was not, though, a fan of Daniel O’Connell and his agitation for the repeal of the Union, which was raising tensions and leading to increases in agrarian crime.

Rosse was very much engaged with educational issues. He was appointed to the Board of Visitors to Maynooth College in 1845, was elected Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin in 1862 and, shortly before his death in 1867, was also appointed to chair the Royal Commission on primary education. He was very much in favour of what we would now call multi-denominational education but, as we know, sectarian influences won out, and this remains a burning issue to-day. While I didn’t know it at the time, I was in agreement with the 3rd Earl, since I had the privilege of serving on the Council of what was called the ‘Dalkey School Project’, under the forceful chairmanship of Dr Michael Johnston, son of the late war correspondent and playwright Denis (also a Council member), which campaigned for the setting up of the first multi-denominational primary school in the Republic. The campaign eventually succeeded with the opening of the School in South County Dublin in 1978. There are now over 65 such schools in the Republic under the banner of ‘Educate Together’, now in the process of moving into secondary education, with three secondary schools scheduled to open in 2014.¹⁶ How would our education system look to-day, had Lord Rosse’s influence prevailed; indeed how would our national history, North and South, have differed? But we can’t rewrite history.

Simon Schaffer in ‘A presiding influence: the relations of the 3rd Earl of Rosse with scientific institutions in Britain and Ireland’ (Chapter 9), details the Earl’s considerable influence on the scientific life of these islands. He didn’t always get his own way, and Schaffer (p. 318) describes, for example, how his support for Charles Babbage’s calculating engine failed to produce the desired result. In his Presidential address to the Royal Society in November 1854, he regretted:

That the first great effort to employ the powers of calculating mechanism in aid of the human intellect, should have been suffered in this great country to expire fruitless, because there was no tangible evidence of immediate profit, as a British subject I deeply regret, and as a Fellow my regret is accompanied with feelings of bitter disappointment.¹⁷

His support for the siting of a large reflecting telescope in Melbourne did eventually come to fruition, but it turned out to be an expensive failure. However, overall, he was certainly a positive influence on the development of science policy and practice, particularly through his involvement in the Royal Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

The Earl’s modesty is illustrated in his remarks upon being chosen as President of the British Association when it met in Cork in 1843:

This very embarrassing position is not of my own seeking. To have aspired to the high honour of presiding at one of your meetings would have been an act of presumptuous vanity, which I never did, which I never could have contemplated. A communication from Manchester, announcing that the Association had actually made their selection, was the first intimation which reached me that my name had been thought of. Under such circumstances, to have declined the honour, and to have shrunk from the responsibility, would, in my opinion, have been inconsistent with proper respect.¹⁸

He was also mightily, and understandably, if a little naively, relieved at the lack of politics and animosity in the Association (see also p. 299):

The man of the world who, busied in the changing scenes of life … cannot fail to look with surprise, and, I may add, with gratification, at a meeting so large (and in this country [Ireland] too), from which politics are altogether excluded. Here he will see no angry conflict of passions, none of that feeling of bitterness and animosity, which never fails to attend the contests between man and man: all proceeding from the same cause, or nearly so – a struggle for power.¹⁹

And he did appreciate the fact that what was often the lonely experience of the scientist, especially one at a distance from the centre of activity, could be alleviated:

In the ordinary circle of acquaintances, the man engaged in scientific pursuits will find very few, if any, who can understand and appreciate his labours; but in such associations as this, there are always many who see exactly the object aimed at, the difficulties to be encountered, and who are readily [sic] to acknowledge with gratitude every successful effort in the cause of science.²⁰

Schaffer details the Earl’s public influence on the promotion of science, noting (p. 314) that:

The years of his Royal Society presidency represented the zenith of Parsons’ public role as administrator and scientific politician. His workload was remarkable. Presidency of the Royal Society made him ex officio Visitor of the Royal Observatory and Trustee of the British Museum, while his contacts with the Prince Consort prompted his appointment as a commissioner and financial guarantor for the Great Exhibition. The same year he was named a member of a commission to inquire into the affairs of Trinity College Dublin, which directly addressed issues of religious affiliation, overhaul of administration and changes in salaries.²¹

While, as would be expected, details of the astronomical work carried out at Birr by the 3rd Earl are recorded in some detail in the book, much space is given also to the context in which it was carried out. The 3rd Earl, with his ample funds, was not the only wealthy individual to turn to the challenges of science. Allan Chapman in ‘William Parsons and the Irish nineteenth-century tradition of independent astronomical research’ (Chapter 8), outlines what he has called the ‘Grand Amateur’ tradition of observational astronomy carried out by such people in observatories equipped with the latest equipment. Among these were William and John Herschel, William Wilson, Edward Joshua Cooper and John Birmingham.

This volume ends with Trevor Weekes’s ‘The 3rd Earl of Rosse: an assessment’ (Chapter 10). He gives a mixed verdict. Rosse’s foresight about the significance of iron-clad ships, his recommendations on land reform and the hoped-for results from his telescopes did not have the conclusions that he would have wished. Nevertheless, he was clearly a formidable character, an out-of-the-box thinker, socially and scientifically, a conscientious landlord and father and the most internationally famous Earl of Rosse in a highly talented succession.

Parsons received many honours during his lifetime. Several of these have already been mentioned above, while Agnes Mary Clerke, in her biography in the Dictionary of National Biography, writes that, in addition to his receiving the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1851:

The university of Cambridge conferred upon him in 1842 an honorary degree of LL.D., and the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg admitted him to membership in 1853. He was a knight of St. Patrick (1845), and Napoleon III created him a knight of the Legion of Honour at the close of the Paris Exhibition of 1855 … [he] belonged to the senate of the Queen’s University, [and] sat on the royal commission of weights and measures.²²

It is perhaps unsurprising that he was elected to Honorary Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1849.²³

Romney Robinson, the author of Rosse’s obituary for the Royal Society, wrote:

His appearance promised a long life, but it was cut short by an accident so trifling that it was neglected till too late. A slight sprain of the knee produced, after some months, a tumour which was ultimately removed by a severe operation. The wound was slowly healing, but his strength sunk in the process; and on October 31 he died.²⁴

A commemorative plaque, courtesy Dublin Tourism and of the Seapoint and Salthill Association of County Dublin, was unveiled by the 7th Earl at No. 1 Eaton place, Monkstown, on 12 July 1997:

DUBLIN TOURISM

SIR WILLIAM PARSONS

BART., K.P., P.R.S.,

3RD EARL OF ROSSE

1800–1867

RENOWNED FOR HIS

GREAT TELESCOPE AT BIRR

DIED HERE ON THE

31ST OCTOBER 1867

(KP = Knight of St Patrick; and PRS = President of the Royal Society.)

To celebrate the millennium, a set of six stamps was issued by An

Post, the Irish Postal Service, on 29 February 2000 (Figure I.2). They celebrated ‘Discoveries’, and two of these related to Ireland: the induction coil, invented by the Reverend Nicholas Callan at Maynooth, and the Birr Telescope. The others were Thomas Edison’s electric light, Albert Einstein’s relativity, Marie Curie’s radium, and Galileo’s astronomy.

While one of the 72-inch specula was transferred to the Science Museum in London in 1914 (see Chapter 10), attempts to find the other have been unsuccessful. Patrick Moore wrote: ‘According to Charles Parsons, the 36-inch was still nearly intact as recently as 1927, but nothing of it now remains in the Castle grounds.’²⁵ Actually, this is not quite true. When carrying out an inventory of the historic scientific instruments preserved at Birr, I found part of a speculum, and Patrick Wayman, then Director of Dunsink Observatory in Dublin, was able to measure its focal length, which established that it was indeed a fragment of a 36-inch speculum.²⁶

I.2 Set of ‘Discoveries’ stamps issued in 2000

The life and work of the 3rd Earl and his family are imaginatively exhibited in Ireland’s Historic Science Centre at the Castle, set up under the initiative of the current, 7th Earl. This book complements the displays and will provide more details about this complex and talented man.

References

Luce 1992: Trinity College Dublin: the First 400 Years, by J. V. Luce, Trinity College Dublin Press.

Moore 1971: The Astronomy of Birr Castle, by Patrick Moore, Michael Beazley, London.

Mollan 1995: Irish National Inventory of Historic Scientific Instruments, by Charles Mollan, Samton Limited, Dublin.

Mollan 2007: It’s Part of What We Are – Some Irish Contributors to the Development of the Chemical and Physical Sciences, in two volumes, by Charles Mollan, Royal Dublin Society.

Parsons C. 1926: The Scientific Papers of William Parsons, Third Earl of Rosse 1800–1867, Collected and Republished by the Hon. Charles Parsons, K.C.B. F.R.S., Percy Lund, Humphries, London.

Parsons L. 1834: An Argument to Prove the Truth of the Christian Revelation, by Laurence Parsons, 2nd Earl of Rosse, John Murray, London.

Parsons R. undated (between 1914 and 1936): Reminiscences, by Randal Parsons, printed for private circulation only.

Parsons W. 1844: ‘Address by the Earl of Rosse’, in Report of the Thirteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Cork in August 1843, John Murray, London, pp. xxix–xxxiii. Reprinted in Parsons C. 1926, pp. 44–9.

Parsons W. 1851: Papers on the Great Exhibition, 1851, Birr Castle Archives, J/16.

Parsons W. 1854: ‘Address’, by the Earl of Rosse, Proceedings of the Royal Society, 7, pp. 248–63. Reprinted in Parsons C. 1926, pp. 72–9.

Robinson 1867: ‘Obituary of William Parsons’, by Romney Robinson, Proceedings of the Royal Society, 16, pp. xxxvi–xlii.

Scaife 2000: From Galaxies to Turbines – Science, Technology and the Parsons Family, by Garrett Scaife, Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol.

¹   Parsons, R. undated, 1

²   Daniel McDowell, personal communication

³   Birr Castle Archives, D/5/21

⁴   Margaret Hogan, personal communication

⁵   Scaife 2000, 91

⁶   Parsons L. 1834

⁷   Parsons L. 1834, iii.

⁸   Parsons L. 1834, 411.

⁹   Mollan 2007, 1255–83.

¹⁰   Parsons R. undated, 24.

¹¹   Robinson 1867, xxxvii.

¹²   Robinson 1867, xxvii.

¹³   Parsons R. undated, 14.

¹⁴   Hamlet, Act III, Scene IV, 207.

¹⁵   Scaife 2000, 14.

¹⁶   www.educatetogether.ie.

¹⁷   Parsons W. 1854, 256 (Parsons C. 1926, 78).

¹⁸   Parsons W. 1844, xxix.

¹⁹   Parsons W. 1844, xxix.

²⁰   Parsons W. 1844, xxxii.

²¹   Parsons W. 1851; Luce 1992, 93–6.

²²   Agnes Mary Clerke, DNB.

²³   Ian Elliott, personal communication; Scaife 2000, 77.

²⁴   Robinson 1867, xxxvii.

²⁵   Moore 1971, 67.

²⁶   Mollan 1995, 30.

Succession of the Parsons family at Birr

The Earls of Rosse of the second creation

Sir Laurence Parsons, 6th Bart, b. 1738, 2nd Earl of Rosse, 1807–41*

Sir William Parsons, 7th Bart, b. 1800, 3rd Earl of Rosse, 1841–67

Sir Laurence Parsons, 8th Bart, b. 1840, 4th Earl of Rosse, 1867–1908

Sir William Parsons, 9th Bart, b. 1873, 5th Earl of Rosse, 1908–18

Sir (Laurence) Michael Parsons, 10th Bart, b. 1906, 6th Earl of Rosse, 1918–79

Sir (William) Brendan Parsons, 11th Bart, b. 1936, 7th Earl of Rosse, 1979–

* Laurence, b. 1749, 1st Earl of Rosse, 1806–7, was uncle to the 2nd Earl and lived at Newcastle, Co. Longford, not Birr.

Previous generations of the Parsons family

James(?) Parsons of Leicestershire(?) married Catherine Fenton, sister of Sir Geoffrey Fenton (1539–1608), Secretary of State for Ireland from 1580 to 1608. His sons may have come to Ireland, under the patronage of their uncle Geoffrey.¹

The eldest was William (c. 1570–1650), who succeeded his uncle as Surveyor General of Ireland in 1602. His descendants became the first creation of the Earls of Rosse. They lived at Belamont Forest outside Dublin, but the line died out in 1764. The title was recreated in 1806.

Laurence, his younger brother (d. 1628), was knighted in 1620 (the same year as William), and was granted 1,000 acres around Birr.² He married Anne Malham from Yorkshire, and the couple had two sons, Richard and William (d. 1652). The former, who had one daughter, died young in 1634, and William succeeded at Birr, marrying Dorothy Philips from Newtown Limavaddy, County Derry.

Their eldest son was Lawrence (c. 1637–98), who was created a Baronet in 1677.³ He married Frances Savage from Castle Rheban, Athy, in County Kildare.⁴

Their son, William (1661–1740), succeeded as 2nd Bart in 1698. He married Elizabeth Preston from Craig Millar in Scotland, but their son, also William, died before his father, so it was his grandson, Laurence (1707–57), who succeeded to the title as 3rd Bart.

The eldest son of Sir Laurence and his first wife, Mary Sprigge from Cloghnevoe, Co. Offaly, was William (1731–91), who succeeded as 4th Bart in 1757. With his second wife, Anne Wentworth, Sir Laurence had a second son, another Laurence (1749–1807), who became the 1st Earl of Rosse, of the second creation, in 1806, not long before his death in 1807. He had been created Baron Oxmantown in 1792, and Viscount Oxmantown in 1795.

As he had no male child, the Viscountcy became extinct, but the other titles devolved to Laurence (1758–1841), his nephew,⁵ the son of his elder half-brother, William, and his wife, Mary Clere from Kilbury, Co. Tipperary. Laurence thus combined the titles of 6th Bart and 2nd Earl of Rosse. Lord Oxmantown continues to be the courtesy title of the heir to the Earldom.

The eldest son of Sir Laurence, the 6th Bart and 2nd Earl of Rosse, and his wife, Alice Lloyd from Gloster, Birr, was William (1800–67), the subject of this book, who succeeded to the title 7th Bart and 3rd Earl of Rosse in 1841.

William, 3rd Earl, married Mary Field, from Bradford, Yorkshire, and their eldest son, Laurence (1840–1908), 4th Earl, succeeded to the title in 1867.

Laurence, 4th Earl, married Cassandra Harvey-Hawke, from Womersley Park, Yorkshire, and their eldest child, William (1873–1918), 5th Earl, succeeded to the title in 1908, and died from war wounds in 1918.

He married Lois Lister-Kaye from Denby Grange, Yorkshire, and their eldest son, Laurence Michael (1906–79), 6th Earl, succeeded to the title in 1918.

Laurence Michael married Anne Messel from Nymans, Sussex, and their eldest child, William Brendan (b. 1936), 7th Earl, succeeded to the title in 1979.

He married Alison Cooke-Hurle of Startforth, Yorkshire, and their eldest child, Laurence Patrick (b. 1969), bears the courtesy title, Lord Oxmantown. His siblings are Alicia (b. 1971) and Michael (b. 1981). Lord Oxmantown married Anna Lin from Tienjing, China, in 2004, and their children are Olivia (b. 2006) and William (b. 2008).

Sources

Family tree supplied by the Earl and Countess of Rosse.

Debrett 1968: Debrett’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage, 166th year, Kelly’s Directories Limited, Kingston upon Thames.

DIB: Dictionary of Irish Biography, Under the Auspices of the Royal Irish Academy, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, and Cambridge University Press, published in 9 volumes in 2009.

ODNB: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, the revision of the Dictionary of National Biography, published in 60 volumes in 2004.

¹   There are conflicting sources here and the name of the father of the boys is not known for certain.

²   Judy Barry in DIB.

³   Piers Wauchope in ODNB.

⁴   John Bergin in DIB.

⁵   Debrett 1968, 955.

ONE

History of the Parsons family

¹

and Birr Castle

The Earl and Countess of Rosse

The family of William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, had been in Ireland some three and a half centuries by the time the great telescope was built. There is no doubt that William thought of himself first and foremost as an Irishman. His father, Sir Laurence Parsons, had been a member of Grattan’s Parliament at the end of the previous century and was an orator and patriot; it was said of him that he was the only honest member of the House. He had been violently opposed to the Act of Union, which took away Ireland’s own parliament and forced him to travel to England. Sir Laurence, who became the 2nd Earl of Rosse on the death of his uncle, was a great influence on his three sons, as will be seen later, bringing them up and educating them in Ireland and encouraging their scientific and mathematical side (see Chapters 2 and 3).

The Parsons family came to Ireland from England probably towards the end of the sixteenth century. There were at least three Parsons brothers, the eldest of whom was William, with Laurence probably the next. These two names, William and Laurence, alternate down the generations of the family at Birr.

Nothing is known of their father, and there is only speculation on the place where the family originated – probably central England. However, their mother, Catherine Fenton, was well connected. She was a sister of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, Secretary of State for Ireland at the end of the devastating Elizabethan wars. The Fentons were an interesting Elizabethan family of scholars and explorers, well known at the Court of Queen Elizabeth. Through this connection, William, the eldest, became Surveyor General after his uncle, while Laurence, ancestor of the Birr branch of the family, stayed in the south at Youghal, where he worked with Richard Boyle, the great Earl of Cork. Laurence and Richard Boyle were cousins by marriage, as Boyle had married another Fenton, a daughter of his uncle Sir Geoffrey, also called Catherine.

1.1 Birr Castle in 2009

Laurence took over Sir Walter Raleigh’s house in Youghal, later known as the Myrtle Grove. He had begun his career as a seafarer and trader, which, in the early seventeenth century, probably involved him in straightforward piracy. Indeed he managed to get off accusations in the Court of the Star Chamber, although admitting that he did ‘sometimes help himself to trifles and petty commodities’.²

Over the second decade of the seventeenth century, Laurence built up his career as Recorder of Youghal. In 1620, he was appointed Attorney General and Vice Admiral of Munster: poacher turned gamekeeper. The 3rd Earl’s ancestor – ex-pirate and entrepreneur – was ready to strike off on his own. His cousin and colleague, the Earl of Cork, remained at Lismore Castle in Cork. Richard had sixteen children, one of whom was Robert Boyle, the great mathematician and scientist and author of Boyle’s law. It is a rather distant relationship, but certainly it would be possible for William, the 3rd Earl, to claim kinship with Robert Boyle through the Fentons.

Laurence’s move to Birr, like the family’s origins, was also mysterious. It seems strange that a man who had built up his career on the coast of Ireland should move to the very centre of the country. However, no doubt it was the practicality of land being available. Laurence had a network of powerful friends, one of whom was Sir Adam Loftus of Rathfarnam Castle, nephew of Archbishop Loftus, first Provost of Trinity College. Laurence’s eldest son, Richard, was later to marry one of his daughters. Sir Adam owned lands in the Slieve Bloom, an area of low mountains in the centre of Ireland, near Birr. It was here that Laurence first purchased land, at Leiter Luna, near the village named after Loftus, Cadamstown, on the slopes of the mountains. However, shortly afterwards he managed to exchange these lands for the fortress at Birr, nearby, which had been recently acquired by Sir Robert Meredith. He exchanged his Slieve Bloom land with Meredith.

The Castle at Birr had been an O’Carroll stronghold, the territory around it being known to this day as Ely O’Carroll, but the O’Carrolls had sold it in 1588 to the powerful Ormond Butlers. They in turn had sold it to Sir Robert Meredith. All this took place in 1620, the year that Laurence was knighted, an honour which gave him the status appropriate to a local governor.

The Castle at Birr was at this time in a ruinous state. Sir Laurence decided to abandon the tall tower-house built by the O’Carrolls, called the Black Tower, which stood on a motte overlooking the river. He decided to make his living quarters in the gate tower, which led into the fortress from the town. The carriage-way through the gate house, wide enough for carts and carriages, still exists as a broad passage in the basement of the Castle, between immensely thick walls. This gate house probably dates back to the late thirteenth century and was built by the Anglo-Norman invaders. Sir Laurence’s extensions to the gate house form the basis of the shape of the present Castle.

Sir Laurence was a good administrator. He used his experience as Recorder of Youghal to enact a series of ordinances for the governance of Birr and set about improving the town. He ordered that all houses had to have stone chimneys, to reduce the incidence of fire; he also ruled against single women as barmaids. He built a prison and he paved the main street at his own expense, and then declared that any person who ‘cast any dunge rubbidge filth or sweepings into the forestreet’ was to pay a fine.³

His wife and family, including one of the Boyle children, whom they fostered, came to join him, and thus started family life at Birr for the Parsons family. Laurence may not have imagined, but would be happy to know, that he was founding a dynasty. Some eight generations of Laurences and Williams at Birr stretch back from William, the 3rd Earl.

The seventeenth century continued with very troubled times. Sir Laurence died suddenly at Rathfarnham Castle, the great house belonging to Sir Adam Loftus. He was on the legal circuit at the time and had left his wife and several young children at Birr. Anne Parsons, his wife, was born Anne Malham, and came from a Yorkshire family. She bravely stayed on and, from our archives, we know how well she was able to take over the reins and run the estate. Another blow to her was that her eldest son, Richard, died young, soon after his marriage to Loftus’ daughter, and her second son, William, took over the Castle.

The castle was attacked twice in the seventeenth century. The first time was in 1641. The troubles in England which culminated in the Civil War and the death of Charles I cast their long shadows of unrest and revolution into Ireland. The arrival of Thomas Strafford, Viscount Wentworth and Charles I’s Lord Deputy, only stirred things further. In 1636 Strafford was briefly at Birr, probably to discuss troops with William. William was made Governor of Ely O’Carroll and was given permission by the King to raise a small army for its protection. He was a good soldier, as we see from his diary, which we have still, kept in the Castle archives.

If the family had any scientific leanings during the seventeenth century, they could hardly be expected to show themselves. The family’s pressing need was to hang on to its land and home. Governor Parsons was still a young man, barely thirty, and at first the skirmishes between his troops and the rebels seemed little more than a dangerous game of raiding and pillaging. There were some deaths, woundings and indiscriminate hangings. Once, William himself narrowly escaped capture as, when galloping home hotly pursued, his horse fell while crossing the river.

The Castle was besieged by the Confederate Catholics in the winter of 1641 and the family was finally forced to leave, and moved to London during the civil war. Captain William died in London, but his young son Laurence, only in his late teens, returned with the restoration.

A period of happiness and prosperity then followed, during which Laurence embellished the house with an elegant yew staircase. This, and earlier seventeenth-century plasterwork from the generation before, can still be seen in one of the flanking towers. Laurence was created a Baronet in 1677.

In the archives from this time is a cook book, written by Laurence’s sister Dorothy. The book included not only cooking instructions but medicinal ones also, especially for the healing