Colonel The Right Honourable

The Viscount Charlemont

DL JP CB
Born
James Alfred Caulfeild

(1830-03-20)20 March 1830
Loy House, Cookstown, County Tyrone
Died4 July 1913(1913-07-04) (aged 83)
Drumcairne, County Tyrone
Spouse
Hon. Annetta Handcock
​
​
(1858⁠–⁠1888)​
ChildrenConstance Knox, Countess Ranfurly
Parent(s)Edward Houston Caulfeild
Charlotte Geale

Colonel James Alfred Caulfeild, 7th Viscount Charlemont DL JP CB (20 March 1830 – 4 July 1913) was an Irish Peer and soldier.

Early life

James Alfred Caulfeild was born on 20 March 1830 at Loy House in Cookstown, County Tyrone.[1] He was the son of Edward Houston Caulfeild and Charlotte Geale (a daughter of Piers Geale, a solicitor of Mountjoy Square).[2] His younger brother, Marcus Piers Francis Caulfeild, was a Major in the Mid-Ulster Artillery Militia.[3][4]

His paternal grandparents were Hon. Harriet Crofton (a daughter of Sir Edward Crofton, 2nd Baronet and Anne Crofton, 1st Baroness Crofton) and James Caulfeild (the grandson of Rev. Hon. Charles Caulfeild, the second son of Maj.-Gen. William Caulfeild, 2nd Viscount Charlemont).[3] His maternal aunt, Elizabeth Geale, married Hugh Fortescue, 2nd Earl Fortescue.[2]

He was educated in Germany.[1]

Career

At age 18, he entered the Army and fought with the Coldstream Guards in the Crimean War, becoming a captain.[5][6] He later was made Honorary Colonel in the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.[3]

In 1868, he was Vice-Lord-Lieutenant of County Tyrone and High Sheriff of County Tyrone.[3] He also served as Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for County Tyrone. He served as Comptroller of the Viceregal Household in Ireland between 1868 and 1895 and was considered an "ardent Unionist".[2] He was Comptroller of the Household of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland between 1868 and 1895.[5]

He held the office of Usher of the Black Rod of the Order of St Patrick between February 1879 and 1913. On 12 January 1892, upon the death of his third cousin once removed, James Caulfeild, 3rd Earl of Charlemont, he succeeded as the 7th Viscount Charlemont, County Armagh as well as the subsidiary title, 11th Baron Caulfield of Charlemont, County Armagh. The earldom, which had been created in 1763 for James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont (and 4th Viscount Charlemont), became extinct. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 25 May 1892.[7]

Personal life

Portrait of his only child, Constance, Countess of Ranfurly, at Government House, Auckland, 1903

On 2 February 1858, Caulfield married Hon. Annetta Handcock (1828–1888) at Athlone Church, Athlone. She was a daughter of Richard Handcock, 3rd Baron Castlemaine and Margaret Harris. Together, they were the parents of one daughter:[3]

In the 1890s, Charlemont reportedly bought Coney Island, Lough Neagh, an island in Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland that is about 1 km offshore from Maghery in County Armagh, for £150.[9] The island lies between the mouths of the River Blackwater and the River Bann in the south-west corner of Lough Neagh. He built a summer house there in 1895.[10]

Lord Charlemont died on 4 July 1913 at Drumcairne, just outside Stewartstown in County Tyrone. As he had no sons, the titles passed to his nephew, James Caulfeild.[3]

Descendants

Through his daughter Constance, he was a grandfather of four, including Thomas Uchter Knox, Viscount Northland (father of Daniel Knox, 6th Earl of Ranfurly),[11] and Lady Constance Gaskell, a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary from 1937 to 1953 and Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent from 1953 to 1960.[12]

References

  1. 1 2 Hammond, Peter W., editor, The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1998), page 165.
  2. 1 2 3 "Dublin Memories. THE LATE COLONEL CAULFIELD. SOME INTERESTING REMINISCENCES". The Catholic Press. 28 Aug 1913. p. 4. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003, volume 1, page 751.
  4. ↑ "VISCOUNT CHARLEMONT". The New York Times. 31 August 1949. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  5. 1 2 Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage. Burke's Peerage Limited. 1914. p. 415. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  6. ↑ "SERVED IN CRIMEAN WAR". Evening Despatch. 5 Jul 1913. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  7. ↑ G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume III, page 139.
  8. ↑ Who's Who: An Annual Biographical Dictionary. A. & C. Black. 1904. p. 1298. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  9. ↑ "Coney Island". Coney Island, Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland. Archived from the original on 23 July 2008. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
  10. ↑ Addyman, P. V. (1965). "Coney Island, Lough Neagh: Prehistoric Settlement, Anglo-Norman Castle and Elizabethan Native Fortress: An Interim Report on Excavations in 1962 to 1964". Ulster Journal of Archaeology. 28: 78–101. JSTOR 20627417.
  11. ↑ TIMES, Special Cable to THE NEW YORK (4 February 1915). "EARL'S HEIR WAR VICTIM.; Viscount Northland, Only Son of Lord Ranfurly, Dies in France". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  12. ↑ "Constance Harriet Stuart Knox". webtrees. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
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