When Edward Bellew married Augusta Bryan in 1853 it brought two old, landed Catholic families together; one rich the other stupendously rich.
The Bellews lived in Co Louth since their Norman ancestors arrived in the early 13th century and at Barmeath since the middle of the 17th century. Edward’s father and grandfather, no doubt by chance, both married heiresses and Edward kept up this fortuitous tradition.
The Bryans were, to their chagrin, commoners but were said to be the richest commoners in Ireland. They owned substantial lands in Co Kilkenny and lived at Jenkinstown. Augusta was her father’s heiress. The future seemed bright but, so far, this union has been the apogee of our family story in terms of riches. The family’s fortunes ebbed over the next 267 years. However, my brother and his family are still at Barmeath which is a good result considering the effects of a civil war a hundred years ago, confiscation of land, two world wars and high taxation.
Other families have not fared so well. William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam inherited as 7th Earl of Fitzwilliam upon the death of his grandfather in 1902. “In addition to the main family seat and estate at Wentworth, his £2.8 million inheritance included a 100-room mansion and 90,000 acres at Coollattin in Ireland; a fifty-room house in the heart of London’s Mayfair; eighty racehorses; a further 5,000 acres of land dotted around Yorkshire; a priceless collection of paintings and books and a massive portfolio of shares. The income from his coal holding alone would bring in more than £87,700 a year.” (Black Diamonds, Catherine Bailey, 2007)
Black Diamonds, The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty describes what happens next. It is a genre of writing that made Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes so popular. It’s not exactly that I revel in the misfortunes of others but I do like to read about them, so I’m looking forward to following the Fitzwilliam trajectory.
Great stuff. You will love the Wentworth Woodhouse story. The house remains entirely intact despite Manny Shinwell’s best efforts. As Minister of Coal he successfully fought hard to have an open pit coal mine excavated to within yards of the front door. Apart from the family, the opposition included the local branch of the NUM.
the house was built to get one over on a relation down the road at Wentworth Castle. There was a very large Jacobean house behind the magnificently absurd edifice you illustrate. It is still there connected to the new house. The indoor equestrian centre is being converted to allow 600 people to sit down for weddings and other entertainments.
You may however be disappointed that the family, having very wisely disposed of the house with only 60 acres, remain substantial landowners in the area, the wealth having passed through the maternal line and currently enjoyed by Sir Philip Naylor-Leland.
That’s a bit of a spoiler.
The 7th Earl inherited from his grandfather, the 6th Earl, in 1902. The 7th Earl’s father, Viscount Milton, died in 1877.
Thank you. I have corrected my mistake.
I hope you do not follow the Fitzwilliam trajectory too literally. Eric, the 9th Earl, who followed Peter, the 8th earl who was killed with Kick Kennedy in a plane crash in the south of France in 1948 on their way to a dirty weekend, was for most of his life a hopeless alcoholic, nicknamed by the family ” Bottle by Bottle”. He sometimes used this name himself when introducing himself to strangers.He roamed the house with his Jack Russell terriers, one called Peril. “Come on Peril” he used to shout. Sometimes he staggered into the classes of the girls ( the house had become the Lady Mabel College of Physical Education).The Principal managed to usher him out. It wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted her girls to see.
Oh dear, another spoiler.