James Dillon was born in Clara in 1788 to Simon and Catherine Dillon. His father, Simon, was involved in property and his mother ran a shop and also had extensive property on New St. In the 1820s and 1830s he was politically active in opposing tithes, supporting Daniel O'Connell and the cause of Catholic Emancipation. He was appointed coroner for King's County in July 1836. In 1847, the county was split into two districts and he was assigned the Tullamore district serving the northern half of the county. He had married Alice Kelly in the 1820s and they had 10 children, 6 daughters and 4 sons. He died at the age of 71 in 1859 while on the way to Edenderry to undertake another inquest. He was succeeded in the post by William A. Gowing of Tullamore.
Born in 1846, the eldest son of 9th Lord Digby, he was educated at Harrow and then joined the Coldstream Guards, where he made his career, rising to the rank of Colonel and serving in the Sudan from 1885 to 1889. He also served as M.P. for Dorset from 1876-1885. On the death of his father in 1889, he resigned his commission and came home to Minterne. In 1893 he married Emily Beryl, daughter of Col. the Hon. Albert Hood and they had three sons and three daughters.
He became involved in local affairs, accepting the appointment as Chairman of the Board of Herrison Hospital, Charminster and serving as a J.P. and local magistrate, Chairman of the Dorchester Agricultural Society and honorary Colonel in the Dorset Regiment. He planted the rhododendron gardens at Minterne and sponsored plant expeditions to China and the Himalayas, breeding his own varieties in his glass houses and becoming a member of the Royal Horticultural Society.
The house at Minterne suffered from damp and dry rot, and in 1906 he fulfilled his promise to his wife to build a new house. He employed the architect Leonard Stokes, who had built Post Offices and was famously difficult to get on with. However, Lord Digby’s friendly and practical approach charmed him and he produced a marvellous design for his only country house which is still comfortable to live in.
He took an active interest in his estate at Geashill, and was saddened when the Irish Land Act of 1903 resulted in the end of the link with a number of his tenants, some of whom had been on the Digby estate for generations.
A nationalist political party founded by William O'Brien in 1898, in Westport, Co. Mayo, its main objective was to force landlords to break up large uncultivated grasslands, surrender them to the Congested Districts boards, and redistribute them to tenants of smaller agricultural holdings. By 1900 it had 462 branches in 25 counties.
Edward Kenelm Digby was born in 1894, the eldest son of 10th Baron Digby. After Eton and Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards in 1915. He fought at the battles of Aubers Ridge and Loos in 1915 and was promoted to second-in-command at the age of 21, after his CO was killed. He took part in the battle of the Somme in 1916, when tanks were first used; 11 officers of his battalion were killed on one day in September 1916 and all the others were wounded except him. In 1917 he fought at Passchendaele and played a major role in the occupation and final defeat of Germany in 1918.
On his return home, he married Constance Pamela Bruce, daughter of 2nd Baron Aberdare in 1919 and inherited Minterne from his father when he died in 1920. He couldn’t afford to live at Minterne, so he took the post of Military Secretary to the Governor of Australia from 1920 to 1923. With his bank balance restored, he came back to Minterne, where he bred Channel Island cattle and established a thriving dairy herd. On the outbreak of war in 1939, Minterne was taken over by a naval hospital, and the family moved to Cerne Abbas. During the war, he and Lady Digby delivered the milk around Cerne Abbas.
Following in his father’s footsteps, he bred rhododendrons and azaleas, sponsored collecting expeditions abroad. He was appointed President of the Royal Show in 1949, and President of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1959. He was Lord Lieutenant of Dorset from 1952 until his death. He was appointed Gentleman at Arms 1939, and a member of the Household Body Guard in 1952, resigning on grounds of ill-health. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1960.
He died in 1964 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward Henry Kenelm, 12th Baron Digby.