Rentals of the Lord Leconfield Irish Estates

Context

Creator(s): Wyndham family, Barons Leconfield and Egremont

• Administrative History ↴

  George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751 –1837) of Petworth House in Sussex and Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, was a British peer, a major landowner and art collector. The eldest son and heir of Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont (1710-1763), in 1763 he succeeded to his father's titles and estates at Petworth in Sussex, Egremont in Cumbria, Leconfield and also estates at Orchard Wyndham in Somerset. In 1774, he added O'Brien to his name on inheriting extensive estates in Ireland from his uncle Percy Wyndham-O'Brien, 1st Earl of Thomond. His eldest natural son, George Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield (1787–1869), was a British soldier and peer. The earldom of Egremont became extinct on the death of the 4th Earl of Egremont in 1845 and this George Wyndham was adopted as the heir to the substantial Egremont estates, including Petworth House in Sussex. In 1859 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Leconfield, of Leconfield in the East Riding of the County of York. During the Irish Famine, Col. George Wyndham was often in residence in his County Clare estate near Ennis. In late 1849 and early 1850, a series of seven anonymous essays and illustrations concerning the famine appeared in the Illustrated London News under the title "Condition of Ireland: Illustrations of the New Poor Law." Here the narrator writes of Col. Wyndham that "Colonel Windham . . . is not tired of his fellow-creatures, and does not seek to exterminate them. Not a roofless house did I see here." His property was a "little oasis of humanity in the desert of misery." George Wyndham married Mary Fanny Blunt in 1815. He died in March 1869, aged 81, and was succeeded in the barony by his eldest surviving son Henry.

• Archival History ↴

  Received 24 August 1976 from the Leconfield Estate office Co.Clare

• Immediate Source Acquisition ↴

  Donation