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Tuthills, Taylors and Coopers.
The Fascinating Story of the Landowners of Faha,
Newtown and Cooperhill.
The Barony of Pubblebrien in County Limerick, which had been the
patrimony of the O’Briens, Lords of Carrigogunnell, was confiscated at the time
of the Cromwellian Plantation in the 1650s and given to English planters. It
includes the modern parishes of Patrickswell-Ballybrown
and Mungret-Crecora-Raheen and contains the villages of Clarina, Mungret and
Patrickswell. As a result of the
Cromwellian Plantation the landlords dominated Ballybrown for over 250 years,
from the 1650s to the early twentieth century. During this time, virtually all
the land was owned by just five landowners: the Monsells of Tervoe House (who
held the title of Baron Emly from 1874 to 1932); the Massys
of Elm Park (who held the title of Baron Clarina from 1800 to 1952); the
Barkers/Ponsonbys/Ponsonby-Barkers of Kilcooley Abbey, Thurles, County
Tipperary (who held the baronetage of Bocking Hall from 1676 to 1818); the
Coopers of Cooperhill and the Tuthills/Taylors of Faha House. All resided in
the Ballybrown area except the Barkers/Ponsonbys/Ponsonby-Barkers who lived
near Thurles, while only the Coopers and the Tuthills/Taylors received no
title, not even a knighthood.
While the best known of the Ballybrown landlords were Lord Emly and
Lord Clarina, and the largest estate was that of the Barkers, the other two
were also of great interest. The estate of the Tuthills/Taylors at 2,197 acres
was the second largest in Ballybrown, while the Coopers, despite being by far
the poorest of the five, had more famous connections than any of the others. In
addition, after 1844 the Coopers were a branch of the Tuthills, and after 1859,
the Taylors inherited the Tuthill estate so it is appropriate that this article
should deal with these three families together.
The Tuthills.
Like many English settlers in Ireland, including their neighbours the
Monsells, the Tuthills came from the West Country of England, and were a
prominent family in Exeter, the capital of Devon. One of them, Christopher
Tuthill (1650-1712), a native of Minehead in Somerset, came to Ireland in 1685
and settled in Youghal, County Cork. In 1694, he leased Kilmore near Croom and
in 1697 Faha near Patrickswell, which became the two principal centres of the
Tuthill estates in County Limerick. He also seems to have taken possession of
Newtown, the largest townland in Ballybrown, with an area of 1,664 acres. On
his death, he was succeeded by two sons John (1686-1760) and George (1693-1771)
to whom he left Faha jointly. George, described by one historian as ‘an
entrepreneur of considerable acumen’ bought his brother’s share of Faha and in
1737 purchased Kilmore House near Croom which the family had previously held on
lease. At the time of his death, George Tuthill owned a large estate in County
Limerick including Kilmore (Croom), Doorlass (Granagh), Garrytigue (Bruree) and
four townlands with a total area of 2,513 acres in the Patrickswell-Ballybrown
area (then known as the Parish of Kilkeedy): Faha, Newtown, Ballyanrahan East
and Ballyanrahan West.
George
Tuthill was married twice. His first wife was Jane Armstrong whom he married on
30 May 1727 in Kilkeedy Church (now the ruined church in Kilkeedy Cemetery) by
whom he had a son Palmes (1730-57) who died unmarried and before his father,
and two daughters who died as children. After Jane’s early death in 1732,
George Tuthill married Dorothea Villiers in 1740, with whom he had two sons
John and Christopher and three daughters. After George’s death on 13 March 1771
at the age of seventy-six (he was buried in the vestry of Kilkeedy Church), his
estates were divided between his two sons. Christopher (1750-1817) received
Faha, Newtown, and the two Ballyanrahans, while John (1744-1814) received all the
rest and in 1794 assumed the name Villiers-Tuthill in accordance with the will
of his uncle Edward Villiers of Kilpeacon. Shortly after coming into his
inheritance, Christopher Tuthill built Faha House (reputedly in 1773, although
it must have surely taken longer than that to construct). He was also married
twice but had issue only by his second wife, Mary Anne Massy, a daughter of the
second Lord Massy (and therefore a cousin of Tuthill’s neighbour Lord Clarina)
with whom he had two children George and Catherine. George Tuthill (1787-1859)
was the last of his family to reside at Faha. In the 1850s, his estates
consisted of Faha, Ballyanrahan East and Newtown with a total acreage of 2,197,
as Ballyanrahan West had now passed into the hands of Alexander O’Grady Rose.
George Tuthill was married to his first cousin Catherine Greene (1791-1845)
whose mother was another daughter of the second Lord Massy, but they died
childless and both were buried in Kilkeedy Churchyard. Unlike the Monsells and
Massys, the Tuthills were not prominent in political life, the sole exception
being John (1772-1835), a son of John Villiers-Tuthill and first cousin of
George of Faha (died 1859), who unsuccessfully contested Limerick City in an
1816 by-election.
The Taylors.
In 1859, the extinction of the Faha line of the Tuthill family
resulted in their estates passing into the hands of the Taylors of Hollypark,
Kilcornan, near Curragh Chase. On 5 September
1815, in Kilkeedy Church, George Tuthill’s sister Catherine (1788-1873) had married
her cousin Richard Taylor (died 1849) of Hollypark, and on George’s death, his
lands in Faha, Newtown and Ballyanrahan East were inherited by Catherine’s sons
George and William Taylor. Unlike the Tuthills, the Taylors had long been a
politically prominent family in County Limerick. They had come to the area in
1703 when they purchased lands at Kilcornan and played a dominant role in the
politics of the Borough of Askeaton for some seventy years. Between 1692 and
1760, five Taylors over three generations had represented Askeaton in the Irish
Parliament. Catherine Taylor,
daughter and co-heir of Edward Taylor (last of the family’s MPs), married the
second Lord Massy and was thus grandmother of
both George and Catherine Tuthill. Although this politically active
branch of the Taylors had become extinct with Edward’s death in 1760, Catherine
Tuthill had married into a less prominent branch of the family and indeed her
husband Richard, through mismanagement, principally gambling, had in 1836 managed to lose his estate at Hollypark to his
cousins the de Veres of Curraghchase. Subsequently, the Taylors recovered their
estates in Kilcornan and were fortunate to be able to add their Ballybrown
inheritance to them. After 1859, Catherine Tuthill’s sons George Taylor
(1831-1907) and William ran their estates in Kilcornan and Ballybrown for some
fifty years. According to the 1901 census, George, a widower was then living at
Hollypark with his daughters Catherine and Georgina, his unmarried siblings
William and Mary Anne and a few servants. As George’s son and heir had died in
1886, his property was inherited by his daughters, and on the death of Georgina
Taylor (1881-1937), the estate was sold, although by this time, the lands in
Ballybrown had been bought out by the tenant farmers.
The Coopers.
The Coopers of Cooperhill were also descended from the Tuthills. In
the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a Cooper family was established in
Cooperhill, whose connection to the notorious Máire Rúa O’Brien (1615-86)
of Leamaneh Castle in the Burren (who had married as her third
husband a Cromwellian officer named John Cooper) is probably a colourful
legend. Samuel Cooper of Cooperhill (1717-79) is buried at Kilkeedy Churchyard,
as is James Cooper (1752-1824), probably his son, who was married to Honora Dickson (1758-1844), a first cousin of
Reverend Richard Dickson (1776-1867), Church of Ireland rector of Kilkeedy
parish for an incredible 68 years (1799-1867). During the eighteenth century,
Cooperhill House was built, probably around 1791, though one source gives 1741
as the correct date. After James Cooper died in 1824, his widow Honora occupied
Cooperhill until her own death twenty years later. James and Honora Cooper left
no heirs, so in her will, she left the estate to James Cooper Tuthill
(1825-1906), whose grandfather Richard (1725-1800) was a first cousin of
Christopher of Faha (died 1817) and had married another of the Dicksons. When James inherited Cooperhill in 1844, he
took the surname Cooper-Cooper in accordance with Mrs Honora
Cooper’s will. Out of this exceedingly complex heritage, James Cooper was to
create a distinctive legacy for his family through his numerous descendants.
James Cooper was master of Cooperhill for 62 years (1844-1906). His
tiny estate of 524 acres brought in a very small income and by the standards of
his landlord neighbours, he was a comparatively poor man. His poverty was greatly exacerbated by his
having an enormous family. On 10 August 1847, he married Mary Pickering
(1828-77) and they had a total of eighteen children, of whom five sons and ten
daughters lived beyond childhood. Due to their poverty, the boys were not
allowed to wear shoes until they were twelve and the girls went to balls in
turn, as they did not have enough ball gowns to go around. Nevertheless, the
Coopers were an Ascendancy family, proud and high spirited and they lived in
considerable style in the fine old Cooperhill House, surrounded by a huge
demesne on the banks of the Shannon. The family was marked by tragedy for nine
of the Cooper children died of tuberculosis before they reached the age of
forty and one was killed in the First World War. However, the ten Cooper girls
were renowned for their beauty and high spirits and appeared in the glittering
London Season (a splendid series of balls, receptions and other social events
held every Summer and centred on the Royal Family and Court) in search of
suitable husbands. Most of Cooper sisters married well and their famous and
flamboyant descendants played major roles in the crowded history of the
twentieth century.
Famous Relations of the Coopers.
The eldest daughter Jane (1848-86) was married to Alfred Perceval
Graves (1846-1931) a writer, folklorist and song-writer (he wrote the ballad
‘Father O’Flynn’), whose father Charles (1812-99) was Church of Ireland Bishop
of Limerick (1866-99) and a distinguished antiquarian and mathematician while
his aunt Clarissa Graves was married to German historian Leopold von Ranke
(1795-1886), considered to be the father of modern historical research methods.
Alfred and Jane had five children including Philip (1876-1953), journalist and
writer, who in a series of articles in the Times exposed the notorious
Russian anti-Semitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which claimed to reveal a
Jewish plot for world domination and was admired by Hitler among others) as a
forgery. One of Jane’s granddaughters Diana Graves was briefly married to
British actor Michael Gough (1916-2011), who later played the role of Batman’s
butler and mentor Alfred Pennyworth in the four Batman films of the Tim
Burton/Joel Schumacher franchise (1989-97). After Jane’s death, Alfred Graves
married again and by his second wife (a grand-niece of Leopold von Ranke) was
the father of the celebrated poet and novelist Robert Graves (1895-1985),
author of I Claudius and numerous other works. One of the greatest
literary figures of the twentieth century, Robert Graves served with the
British Army in the First World War and was stationed in Limerick from December
1918 to February 1919. In his famous autobiography Goodbye to All That
(1929), Graves mentions the supposed descent of the Coopers from Máire Rúa
O’Brien and describes a visit he made to his uncle Robert Cooper at Cooperhill
in February 1919. He stayed the night in Cooperhill House (surely one of the
greatest writers ever to visit Ballybrown) during which he caught
pneumonia. Later Alfred Perceval Graves wrote his own autobiography
entitled To Return to All That (1930), in which he petulantly
contradicted some of Robert’s claims, including the apocryphal connection of
the Coopers to Máire Rúa O’Brien.
Grace Cooper (1850-1928) spent much of her life
in India. She married firstly Thomas William Gribble (1841-80),
Postmaster-General of Bengal and secondly Sir Charles Pontifex (1831-1912), who
had a long and distinguished legal career in India, including service as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India and legal
adviser to the Secretary of State for India. She had no children by either
husband.
Honoria
Cooper (1852-1932) married as her second husband Captain William Spencer
Beaumont of the 14th Hussars and later became mother-in-law to one
of the most formidable women of her time. One of Honoria’s
sons Dudley John Beaumont (1877-1918) was married to Sibyl Mary Collings (1884-1974),
who ruled the tiny island of Sark in the Channel Islands from 1927 to 1974. The
Dame of Sark, as she was known, ruled the island under a hereditary feudal
system that dated back to 1563 and during the German occupation of the Channel
Islands (1940-45), gave inspirational leadership to her 500 subjects. The
autocratic Dame also designed a flag for Sark and banned motor traffic, a rule
that still applies there. After her
death, she was succeeded by her grandson John Michael Beaumont, the current
Seignuer of Sark, so that the island is still ruled by a descendant of Honoria Cooper (although
representative government was finally introduced in 2008).
Sarah Cooper (1857-87) married William Hone and
was the mother of Joseph Maunsell Hone (1882–1959), critic, biographer, and publisher who played a major role
in the Irish Literary Renaissance and was a close friend of W.B. Yeats, whose
biography he wrote. Hone had less happy relations with James Joyce, with whom
his publishing company Maunsell & Co. Ltd had a long dispute over the
publication of Joyce’s collection of short stories Dubliners which was
finally published by Grant Richards in 1914.
Susannah Cooper (1861-1945) was married to Edouard Majolier,
(1858-1908) a wealthy French Quaker and they made their home in London.
Although they had six children, Edouard was
fond of both drink and women and supported a mistress and children who also
lived in London near his first family. Susannah’s eldest daughter Mary
(1887-1973) was married to the notorious Francis MacNamara
(1884–1946), an eccentric Irish landlord and poet, of Ennistymon House, County
Clare and they had four children. The rakish MacNamara
deserted his wife and children and they ended up living for long periods with
the even more outrageous Augustus John (1878-1961), one of the most brilliant
British painters of the age, and his mistress Dorelia McNeill. Two of Susannah
Cooper’s MacNamara granddaughters became major
celebrities: Nicolette Devas (1911-87) was an author and artist and successively
married two artists: Anthony Devas and Rupert Shephard, while Caitlin Thomas
(1913-94) had a famously turbulent marriage with the drunken, womanising Welsh
poet Dylan Thomas (1914-53).
When James Cooper died in 1906, he was succeeded by his eldest surviving
son Robert (1866-1946), who had served in the Royal Navy and attained the rank
of Commander. In 1919, Commander Cooper hosted his nephew Robert Graves at
Cooperhill who observed that the Cooper hay was being burnt and cattle driven
away at the outset of the War of Independence. Nevertheless, Commander Cooper
was popular locally and in 1989, his surviving children (he had a total of six)
recalled growing up in Cooperhill with fondness. His younger brother John
(1869-1914) also served in the British navy, but was killed at the Battle of
Coronel off the coast of Chile on 1 November 1914, when HMS Monmouth was
torpedoed by German warships.
Batt Laffan and the Duke of Westminster.
In the 1920s, Cooperhill House was sold by Commander Cooper to
Bartholomew (Batt) Laffan (1879-1947), a well-known farmer from Killonan near
Limerick City, who had served as Chairman of Limerick
County Council from 1921 to 1925, during the War of Independence and Civil War.
Within a few years, it was purchased by Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of
Westminster (1879-1953), one of the richest and most influential men in the
world, owner of a vast area of Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico in
London, a playboy who married four times and was the lover of Coco Chanel, and
an extreme Right-wing and anti-Semitic political figure. Few more flamboyant
characters have ever had an association with Ballybrown. The Duke made a
present of Cooperhill to his eldest daughter Lady Ursula Grosvenor (1902-78)
and her husband William Patrick Filmer-Sankey (1900-85) and they lived there
for some years until their divorce in 1940. Following the Duke’s death,
Cooperhill estate, comprising 550 acres, was sold in 1955 to help defray the
enormous death duties (inheritance tax) on his estates and was purchased by
Cement Limited. Thereafter it was turned into a model farm and was visited in
1958 by future Taoiseach Sean Lemass, then Minister for Industry and Commerce.
Cooperhill House, described as being in good repair at the time of its sale in
1955 had become more dilapidated by 1958 and was eventually demolished.
Bibliography.
·
Gerard Beggan, In the Barony of Pubblebrien. Patrickswell and
Crecora. History of a Co. Limerick village and its Environs (Limerick: Privately Printed, 1991).
·
W. Bruce Bannermann, Miscellanea Genealogica Et
Heraldica: Fourth Series, Vol. 3, (London: Elibron Classics, 2001).
·
Sir Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History
of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (Several editions, London: Harrison and
Sons).
·
Nicolette Devas, Susannah’s Nightingales (London:
Collins and Harvill Press, 1978).
·
Nicolette Devas, Two Flamboyant Fathers (London:
Collins, 1966).
·
Alfred Perceval Graves, To Return to All That, An
Autobiography (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1930).
·
Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That, An Autobiography
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1929).
·
Sibyl
Collings Hathaway, Dame of Sark, an Autobiography (New York: Coward-McCann,
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·
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Article reproduced by kind permission of the author, Dr Matthew Potter