Horatio Hamilton Townsend (6B05)
| Date of Birth: | 23 May 1829 |
|---|---|
| Date of Death: | 23 Oct 1895 |
| Generation: | 6th |
| Residence: | Woodside, (1) Co Cork & Cordangan Manor, (2) Co Tipperary |
| Father: | Captain Horatio Townsend [6B01] |
| Mother: | Chetwood, Henrietta Margaret |
| Spouse: |
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| Issue: | |
| See Also: | Table VIB ; Scrapbook ; Lineage ; Ancestors' Tree ; Descendents' Tree |
Notes for Horatio Hamilton Townsend JP
Judge John FitzHenry Townsend [250] shows Horatio's birth as September 1839 - this is most probably wrong. McDonnell's Index of Births records an extract from the Cork Constitution of 16 June 1829 - ‘On Thursday [23rd], at Sydney Place, the Lady of Horace Townsend, of Belgrave (Belgrove?), Esq, of a son.’ This probably refers to Horatio.
Married 1st 5 September 1867 at Kilshannig, Mallow. Elizabeth Ware (3) was the youngest daughter of Nathaniel Webb Ware (3a & 3b) JP of Woodfort (4), near Mallow, Co Cork. See 1886 Edn Burke's Landed Gentry -Ware. Married 2nd 31 July 1894 (5). Elizabeth Fleming (Bessie) was the daughter of Becher Townsend Fleming (6) of Newcourt (7), Skibbereen, whose grandmother was Eliza Townsend [5D05].
Horatio studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and the TCD Graduation List records that he qualified BA in Spring 1848. Horace Townsend [5D03] and Horace Townsend [5D12] were undergraduates at Trinity at the same time, whilst whilst Rev Richard Townsend [337] was teaching at the university.
Horatio was a member of the Cork Grand Jury at the Summer Assizes 1882 and Spring Assizes 1883.
Robert H Laing’s Cork Mercantile Directory 1863 records on page 182 that ‘HH Townsend’ was a ‘Baronial High Constable’ for East Muskerry. It further records on page189 the following as Magistrates: ‘Townsend Henry J, Castletownshend’, ‘Townsend, Horace, Derry, Rosscarbery; Union Club, London SW’, ‘Townsend, Horatio DL, Woodside, Cork’, ‘Townsend, J Handcock, Myross Wood, Leap’, ‘Townsend, John Henry, Dunbeacon, Ballydehob’, ‘Townsend, Richard, Clontaff, Union Hall, Leap’, ‘Townsend, Saml, Blackrock, Cork’, ‘Townsend, Samuel Richd, Whitehall, Skibbereen’.
A report on the front page of the Cork Examiner of 26 November 1868 records that Horatio, John Henry Townsend [238], Samuel Nugent Townsend [432], Thomas Somerville of The Prairie, son of Henrietta Townsend [242] and James Redmond Barry JP (7a) were all members of McCarthy Downing’s Election Committee for the Cork County Election. He was duly elected on 30 November 1868 and served as a Liberal MP until 9 February 1874.
Page 228 of the Cork and Queenstown Directory 1871 records that Horatio, his kinsman Robert Uniacke FitzGerald Townsend [531] and Samuel Murray Hussey were partners in an estate and land agency at 69, South Mall, Cork, “Hussey Saml M land and ins agent, Townsend H & R land and ins agent.” Page 4 of ‘Estate ownership and management in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Ireland’ by Terence A.M. Dooley records that “Agents continued to manage estates after the Famine though in the 1870s a high proportion of agents were still drawn from landed families, there was a tendency to appoint lawyers and solicitors to vacant positions. Land agency firms grew in popularity whereby several estates were administered from one central office in cities such as Dublin and Cork”. Later in the pamphlet there is a note that by 1880, the firm of Hussey and Townsend collected £250,000 in annual rents from eighty-eight estates with some 3,000 tenant farmers in the south of Ireland.” (8)
It is not known when he started, but for many years Horatio was Agent to Sir Arthur Smith-Barry (9) who in 1870 owned over 8600 acres of land in Co Tipperary. The records of the Royal Cork Yacht Club show that Horace was living in Cordangan Manor just south of Tipperary in 1856 (10) when he would have been 26, and this suggests that he lived here on account of his commitments as agent. Francis Guy’s County & City of Cork Directories for 1884 and 1891 show him as resident at Cordangan Manor. ‘Slater’s Royal National Directory of Ireland, 1894’ records under the heading 'Munster Parishes - Tipperary. Commercial - "Townsend Horatio H. agent for A. H. Smith-Barry, St. Michael Street, and this presumably is his business address. In his book ‘Evening Memories’ William O’Brien, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary and Member of Parliament referred to Horatio on page 431 as “Barry's Tipperary agent — the most astute of a firm of land-agents, Messrs. Hussey and Townsend, who had exercised their sinister trade with pre-eminent ruthlessness throughout the Land War in the South.”
Page 280 of ‘An Officer of the Long Parliament’ refers to “Horatio Hamilton Townsend of Woodside” which he would have inherited on the death of his father in 1864. However in none of his numerous entries in Francis Guy’s Directories is there any reference to this. Perhaps this is not surprising for the directories show several other addresses relating to him.
Page 437 of Francis Guy’s 1875-76 Directory records that Horatio was a County Cess Collector for East Muskerry and gives his residence as ‘Almorah Villa, Queenstown’. The List of Shareholders in the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada published in London in October 1875 also records Horatio as living at ‘Almorah Villa, Queenstown’. His cousin William Hotham Townsend [6B18] was an investor in the same company.
The 1884 Directory shows Horatio on page 105 as a Justice of the Peace living at Cordangan Manor whilst page 113 of the 1891 Directory records that he was a Poor Law Guardian in Schull along with his kinsmen John FitzHenry Townshend [250] and Richard Townshend [254] but, once again, resident at Cordangan. In the Postal Directory of the 1891 Directory Horatio is listed on page 214 as resident in Queenstown.
The report of proceedings, lists of committees, delegates, etc in June 1892 of the Munster & Connaught Unionist Convention for Provinces of Leinster shows ‘H.H. Townsend Esq. JP Cordangen Manor, Tipperary’ as a member of the General Committee and a representative for the County of Tipperary. Several of his kinsmen were also listed as members – Richard Harvey Townsend [534], Thomas Courtenay Townsend [5B02], Charles Eyre Townshend [5B14], Uniacke Townsend [5C00], Charles Loftus Townsend [5C01] and Horace Webb Townsend [634].
Page XIX of the 1896 Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society lists Horatio as a member along with his kinsmen Richard Baxter Townshend [5D15], Horace Townshend [5D23], Charlotte Payne-Townshend [5D27] and Edward Richard Townsend [6C04].
Slater’s Directory 1894 records under the heading ‘County Magistrates for the Province of Munster. Co Cork.’ - “Townsend Horatio Hamilton, 9 The Crescent, Queenstown” and under the heading ‘County Magistrates for the Province of Munster. Co Tipperary’ - “Townsend Horatio Hamilton, St. Michael Street, Tipperary.” Further entries record ‘Munster Parishes - Cordangan, Co Tipperary. Private residents’ - “Townsend Horatio H. JP. Cordangan manor” and ‘Munster Parishes - Queenstown. Local Magistrates., Court House, Scott's square’ - “Townsend Horatio H. 9 The Crescent.”
The last entry in the 1894 Directory, under the heading ‘Munster Parishes - Schull. Private Residents’, reads - “Townshend HH. JP Coasheen cottage”. It is assumed that he moved to Schull following his marriage to Bessie Fleming in 1894; her family came from Newcourt, Skibbereen.
Horatio's death is recorded in the diary of Agnes Townsend [334] - 'Oct 23 1895 Dear Hamilton Townsend died'. He is buried in the old Schull graveyard and a photograph of his tombstone is to be found in his 'Scrapbook'.
Horatio's second wife married secondly Mr Somerville-Large and had issue.
Horatio’s son, George Hugh Chetwood Townsend [6B36], inherited Cordangan Manor . The April 1911 Irish Census records George as a Land Agent aged 39 living at Cordangan Manor, Tipperary, with his wife, mother in law, three visitors and seven domestic staff. The house consisted of 18 rooms, a coach house, four stables and 29 other outbuildings.
'Pooles of Mayfield' p 226 refers.
See Eliza (Dizie) Townsend [5D05] and John Sealy Townsend [333] for other Fleming connections.
(1) The entry for Woodside in the University of Galway Landed Estates Database records "Occupied by John Carleton in 1814 and by the Reverend E.M. Carleton in 1837. By the early 1850s the house was occupied by Horace Townsend and held by him in fee. It was valued at £40.”
(2) The entry for Cordangan in the University of Galway Landed Estates Database records " Cordangan was a Cooke family residence in the 18th and 19th centuries, occupied by John Cooke in 1814 and in the early 1850s by Thomas Cooke. The property was held from the Smith Barry estate and in the mid 19th century the buildings were valued at £26. In 1906 in the possession of Lord Barrymore and valued at £53.”
(3) Elizabeth died at Queenstown on 29 March 1892. Page 884 of The Calendar of Wills and Administration 1858-1922 in the National Archives of Ireland records that Letters of Administration of the personal estate of "Elizabeth Townsend late of Queenstown", who died on 29 March 1892, were granted at Cork on 22 April 1892 to "Horatio Hamilton Townsend of the same place Esquire the Husband". Effects under £100.
(3a)U.H. Hussey de Burgh's ‘Landowners of Ireland 1878' records "WARE, NATHANIEL WEBB, J.P., Woodfort, Mallow. Cork 1717 acres £948."
(3b) The entry for Ware (Woodfort) in the University of Galway Landed Estates Database records "The Wares were Elizabethan settlers in county Cork. Early generations married members of the Newman, Baldwin and Webb families. By the mid 18th century the family were resident at Woodfort. In 1785 Thomas Ware of Woodfort married Mary Beamish of Willsgrove, county Cork and had four sons. At the time of Griffith's Valuation Thomas Ware held land in the parish of Mourneabbey, barony of Barretts. In 1825 Nathaniel Webb Ware married Elizabeth Stawell of Crobeg, Doneraile. The estate of Thomas Ware at Farranivane and Lisnabauree, barony of Kinalmeaky, was advertised for sale in January 1851. In the 1870s Nathaniel Webb Ware of Woodfort owned 1,717 acres and the representatives of Thomas Ware of Mallow owned 1,122 acres in county Cork. In the 1850s the representatives of William Ware were among the principal lessors in the parish of Kinneigh, barony of East Carbery. Over 500 acres of his estate was offered for sale in the Landed Estates Court in July 1862."
(4) The entry for Woodfort in the University of Galway Landed Estates Database records "Described in 1750 as "an handsome house, with elegant plantations" inhabited by Simeon Marshal, Surveyor General of Munster. Occupied by Ousley esq in the 1770s this house was the home of Richard Perry in 1814 and of T. Ware in 1837. It was valued at £30 at the time of Griffith's Valuation and still held by Thomas Weir from Charles Haynes. Later the home of the Carroll-Leahy family. This house now functions as Mount Alvernia Hospital.”
(5) Entry in the diary of Agnes Townsend [334] - 'July 31st 1894 Bessie Fleming married to Mr. H.H.T.'
(6) The entry for Fleming in the University of Galway Landed Estates Database records "The Fleming estate in county Cork amounted to over 3000 acres in the 1870s. Lionel B. Fleming was one of the principal lessors in the parishes of Aghadown and Kilmoe, West Carbery, at the time of Griffith's Valuation."
(7) The entry for Newcourt in the University of Galway Landed Estates Database records "At the time of Griffith's Valuation, Lionel Fleming held this property in fee, when it was valued at £22. Both Lewis, in 1837, and Leet in 1814, noted it as the seat of Beecher Fleming. It is shown on Taylor and Skinner's 1783 map apparently the residence of a Tenson family. It was owned by the representatives of Beecher Fleming in 1906 when it was valued at £28 5s. Bence-Jones notes that this house is now demolished though a farm exists at the site."
(7a) James Redmond Barry served on the Fisheries Commission at the same time as Henry Owen Townsend [223] and attended the dinner organized by Henry in 1839 in honour of Daniel O’Connell, the famous Irish political leader who campaigned for Catholic emancipation. He was also involved in setting up the Agricultural and Country Bank in Skibbereen in April 1835 along with Richard Townsend [221] and Colonel Thomas Somerville, husband of Henrietta Augusta Townsend [234].
(8) During the latter half of the 19th century twelve members of the Townsend family were land/estate agents – Robert Uniacke FitzGerald Townsend [531], William Tower Townshend [535], Thomas Courtenay Townshend [5B02], William Charles Townshend [5B05], James Richard Townshend [5B06], William Uniacke Townsend [5B01], Charles Eyre Coote Townshend [5B14], Charles Uniacke Townshend [5C00], Charles Loftus Uniacke Townshend [5C01], Thomas Loftus Uniacke Townshend [5C02], Horatio Hamilton Townsend [6B05], George Hugh Chetwood Townsend [6B36].
(9) Arthur Hugh Smith-Barry (1843-1925), 1st Baron of Barrymore, Fota House, Fota Island, Queenstown, Co Cork, Ireland. Anglo-Irish Conservative politician who entered Parliament as one of two representatives for County Cork in 1867, a seat he held until 1874.
(10) "Horace H Townsend of Cordangan, Co Tipperary admitted member 1856". He was still a member in 1886.