24 May 2016

Hamilton John Agmondesham Cuffe 1848-1934

From the Francis Hayter Album

Case Study: Hon. H. J. A. Cuffe

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It took me about two minutes to realise I didn’t have to do any research on this very distinquished gentleman and therefore I will leave it up to you and my friend Google, suffice it to say you will find everything you ever wanted to know if you Google his full name.

I’ve copied the following article from ‘Find a Grave’ website and from that I gather this photo might have been taken when he was a young midshipman in the Royal Navy, he is very young in this photo and the hat on the table is a giveaway!

Birth:     30 Aug 1848
Death:     4 Nov 1934

5th Earl of Desart, County Kilkenny, Ireland. Knight of the most Illustrious Order of St Patrick. Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. Member of the Most Honourable Privy Council of Great Britain. His Majesty's Lieutenant for the County Kilkenny, Ireland.

Hamilton John Agmondesham Cuffe, 5th Earl of Desart, KP, KCB, PC was an Irish peer and barrister. He was the second son of John Cuffe, 3rd Earl of Desart and his wife, Elizabeth, the third daughter of John Campbell, 1st Earl Cawdor.

In his early life he was a midshipman in the Royal Navy before becoming a barrister in 1872. In 1877 he was appointed as a secretary to the Judicature Committee and as a solicitor to The Treasury a year later. In 1894 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath and as Treasury Solicitor that year, as well as Queen's Proctor and Director of Public Prosecutions. On inheriting the earldom of Desart from his elder brother, William (who died without heirs male) in 1898, he was promoted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.

In 1909, Dysart was created Baron Desart in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, which enabled him to sit in the House of Lords. In 1913, he was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed a Knight of St Patrick in 1919.

Participated as an Unionist delegate to the 1917-18 Irish Convention. He was also appointed Lord Lieutenant of Kilkenny in 1920, a post he held until the Irish Free State was formed in 1922, when all lord lieutenancies of Ireland (bar those of Northern Ireland) were abolished.

On 19 July 1876, Lord Desart married his second cousin, Lady Margaret Joan Lascelles (1853–1927), the second daughter of Henry Lascelles, 4th Earl of Harewood. They had two daughters: Joan & Sybil.

As Lord Desart was the last male descendant of the 1st Earl and died without male heirs in 1934, his titles became extinct.

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Hamilton John Agmondesham Cuffe, 5th Earl of Desart
by Walter Stoneman
© National Portrait Gallery, London
© Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

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Dawn Scotting
pandora[at]kc.net.nz

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