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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.]

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.]

Original bundle of letters and papers of the 4th Earl about sewage disposal at Birr, by turbine and sundry other methods; the correspondents include Bindon B. Stoney [see K/24. Not in chronological order.]

Papers about Birr Church of Ireland church and parish, including historical compilations of the rev. Dr Samuel Hemphill, Rector of Birr, covering the period 1612-1903. The compilations consist of a small quarto notebook containing MS. Copies of 1642 depositions concerning the neighbourhood of Birr; another containing a history of Birr Church of Ireland church (taken from vestry books, parish registers, etc), 1760-1903); and two succession lists of Birr incumbents, 1612-1912. The sub-section also includes a series of printed annual reports on the parish and on the diocese of Killaloe and Kilfenora, 1900-10.

Letters and papers of Lord Oxmantown, subsequently 5th Earl of Rosse, as a trustee of the marriage settlement of the 5th Earl of Malmesbury. [Not in chronological order.]

Letters to the 4th Earl from the Chief Secretary, Lord Mayo, and others about representative peerage elections, including that of the 4th Earl himself.

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.]

Patents appointing the 5th Earl Lieutenant and Custos rotulorum of King’s County in succession to his late father,
including two letters from [the Lord Lieutenant], Lord Aberdeen, on the subject (one of them making unsubtle reference to the necessity for the 5th Earl’s committing himself to political support of the government of the day), letters to the 5th Earl giving confidential opinions as to the suitability of various people for appointment as J.P.s, and a tradesman’s account for supplying a Lieutenant’s flag for Birr Castle. [Not in chronological order.]

Family, and family history, correspondence of the Hon. Geoffrey L. Parsons, including: a letter from his father, the 4th Earl, just before the latter’s death; letters from his brother, the 5th Earl, who writes from the Front during the First World
War, and a letter reporting that the 5th Earl has been seriously wounded; letters from Anthony de Brie, a portrait-painter, about his portraits of the 4th Earl and of Parsons’s wife; letters from Dr Otto Boeddicker offering items of antique furniture for sale; and an envelope of newspaper cuttings and other material concerning the family collected by Geoffrey Parsons, c.1915-55. [For letters to Geoffrey Parsons from his uncle, Sir Charles Parsons, see Section R.]

Letters and tradesmen’s accounts to the 5th Earl relating to seeds, shrubs, trees and planting, including 3 letters from Augustine Henry [botanist renowned for his flora-collecting explorations in central and western China], 1908-10. One of
Henry’s letters, dated 26 July 1909, is about [Chinese?] plant specimens at Birr; it has been photocopied by PRONI, T/3498/4.