Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1936-1938 (Creation)
Level of description
File
Extent and medium
260pp
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury was born in London to Captain Kenneth Howard-Bury and his wife Lady Emily Alfreda Julia Bury, youngest daughter of Charles William Bury, 3rd earl of Charleville. He was educated privately at Charleville Castle, at Eton College and at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He joined the 60th Rifles in 1904 and was posted to India, where he began his life-long love of exploration and mountaineering. He climbed the Tien Shen mountains in Tibet in 1912 and kept a travel diary. A book 'The Mountains of Heaven' from this diary was published in 1990.
In 1912 he inherited Belvedere House, Mullingar, County Westmeath, from his cousin Charles Brinsley Marlay. From this time, Charleville Castle ceased to be used by the family.
He resumed active service during the First World War, commanding the 7th and 9th battalions of the King's Royal Rifles. He served at Arras, the Somme, Passchendale and Ypres where he was captured and remained a prisoner of war at Furstenburg until 1919. Following the war, he returned to mountaineering and led the first expedition to Everest which surveyed the route to the summit for future climbers.
Following the successful expedition to Everest, Howard-Bury was a well-known figure and entered politics. He was MP for Bilston (South Wolverhampton) in 1922 and MP for CHelmsford between 1926 and 1931, when he retired after inheriting Charleville Estate on the death of his mother. During the Second World War, he was appointed an assistant commissioner for the British Red Cross. During this time he met Rex Beaumont, an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at that time in the RAF during the war. They became close friends and together renovated Belvedere House where they lived for the rest of their lives. In 1948, Howard-Bury auctioned most of the contents of Charleville Castle including furniture and paintings.
Howard-Bury died in 1963. He bequeathed Charleville etsate to his cousin, Major William Bacon Hutton Bury, the grandson of the 4th earl of Charleville's elder sister, Lady Katherine Beaujolois Bury and hr husband Edmund Bacon Hutton. He bequeathed Belvedere to Rex Beaumont.
Repository
Archival history
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Original incoming and copy outgoing letters relating to management of the Charleville estate. Matters referred to includes: letter to Rev G Cooney on the arrangements that the new factory on the gaol premises will not require either the front or side walls to be demolished; the conveyance of premises in Tullamore by Salts Ireland Ltd for use as a factory; subscriptions from various individuals and businesses in Tullamore towards the new factory; draft agreement between Esther Molloy, Rev Gerald Cooney, Rev Eric Rennison, John Williams, Francis J Egan, Henry F Brenan, Joseph Kearney, Joseph Clarke, Michael English, Michael Walsh, John Horgan, Thomas J Lawless for the transfer of lands in Spollinstown [Spollanstown] for the purpose of erecting a factory within Tullamore; attempt to trace the title to premises in Church Street, Tullamore (former King's County Infirmary) by solicitors for Offaly County Council.
Includes copy of letter to Colonel Howard Bury about the Salts Ltd factory in Tullamore, "As you have probably heard a new company is being formed in Ireland for the purpose of promoting a spinning factory in this town, and it will be a most important industry, and will give a very considerable amount of employment. There was great difficulty in getting the factory here because there were at least a dozen other towns in the Saorstat who were trying to get it established. As a result, however, of the efforts of various people Tullamore has succeeded. When the English gentlemen who are interested in the promotion of this factory originally interviewed some representative people here in this town they stipulated that they would not consider Tullamore unless they could get the land which they required at a price not exceeding £60 per acre. They pointed out that they could get land for this figure in other parts of the country, and indeed in some places they could get it for nothing. This shows the anxiety there was to get this factory. It was necessary to give an undertaking required, but eventually when negotiations were entered into between the local committee, of which I am Honorary Secretary, with the owners of certain of the lands to be acquired, it was found that considerably larger sums per acre would have to be paid for at least some of the land which was wanted. There are some other claims also which have to be met... (6 July 1937).