Showing 24 results

Correspondence and other papers of the 4th and 5th Earls of Rosse on subjects other than astronomy, including estate and other King’s County affairs, the 4th Earl’s contributions to public life as a representative peer, Chancellor of T.C.D., etc, etc.

Letters and papers, mainly of the 4th and 5th Earls, concerning the marriage settlement (1906) of Lady Muriel Parsons/Grenfell, daughter of the 4th Earl, with subsequent, related papers. [Not in chronological order. See also H/114.]

Bundle of deeds and copy deeds constituting a re-settlement of the Rosse estate by the 4th and 5th Earls (1898), with sequel releases and appointments of new trustees of the settlement.

Box containing six miscellaneous letters and papers of or about junior branches of the Parsons family, [all of them probably the children of the Hon. Laurence Parsons, youngest brother of the 3rd Earl – see J/29], including an epitome of the settlement made on the marriage of one of the Hon. Laurence Parsons’s daughters, 1878; together with numerous case papers and court orders concerning the lunacy of the Hon. Laurence Parson’s eldest son, Capt. Laurence Hardress Hector Parsons (d. 1924), 1897-1924.

Letters, tradesmen’s accounts, inventories of plate, specifications, tender and other papers of the 4th and 5th Earls, all concerning the contents of Birr Castle or improvements and alterations to Birr Castle and demesne and
to houses and cottages owned by the estate – the installation of motors and turbines, plumbing, lighting, heating, redecorating, ‘hacking off’ plaster-work, etc. [Not in chronological order. For other inventories of plate, etc, see H/8 and T/83.]

Letters and papers, mostly of the 4th and 5th Earls and Dr Otto Boeddicker, concerning Parsons family history and genealogy, including information about the Oxmantown/Phoenix Park property, sold by the elder branch of the Parsons family to the crown in 1672. Of particular interest is a paper entitled ‘How the Parsons, Earls of Rosse, got the Titles of Baron and Viscount of Oxmantown’.

Includes letters about Disestablishment, Poor Law reform, Orangeism, Conservative registration, Home Rule and the Irish Land question. Also includes letter from M. McCormack, CC, Kinnitty to Lord Rosse concerning agrarian dispute in Kinnitty parish between Francis Foley and Delaney at Newtown (3 March 1911).

Formal invitations to the 4th and 5th Earls – to civic functions in Belfast, and to Edward VII’s and George V’s coronations.

Letters and papers of the 4th Earl about Parsonstown/Birr: the Castle – his youthful recollections of it, extensions to it 1867-72 [see also M/25], a magazine portrait of his way of life there, 1898, and magazine obituaries of him, 1908; an incident which took place on the road between Banagher and Parsonstown and in which the 4th Earl and his party were stopped and temporarily put in gaol by a drunken R.I.C. man, 1868; the Parsonstown Barracks, 1869, 1899 and N.D.; the Parsonstown Town Commission and Commissioners, 1870 and 1885; admissions to the demesne of privileged locals, 1876-1910; and one of the bridges in the Birr Castle demesne, and the Rivers Brosna and Camcor, 1880 and 1896. The correspondents include Gladstone, W.E. Forster and Lords Strathnairn and Roberts. The sub-section also includes a small account book recording local subscriptions to the Parsonstown Defence Association, the Property Defence Association, the legal fund of the Irish Land Committee, and the Field and Rossmore Testimonials, c.1882.

Original bundle of letters and papers concerning the 4th Earl’s patents for a machine which he had invented for removing leaves and other matter from turbines, 1901-4; together with notes on his experiments with electro-plating, 1908. [Not in chronological order.]