John's Place, Birr, County Offaly

Francis Marsh Wellesley Biddulph [1802-1868]

The eldest son of Francis Biddulph of Vicarstown and Mary Marsh was born in 1802 and christened Francis Marsh Wellesley Biddulph. The origins of the name Wellesley are unclear.  The Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, of Dangan Castle, had not yet achieved his later fame. The Peninsular Wars began in 1807 and the Battle of Waterloo did not take place until 1815. The Biddulphs were not at this time a military family, that came later, and his mother’s father, Francis Marsh, was a barrister.

There appears to be, however, a tenuous connection between the Biddulphs and the Wellesleys. Nicholas Biddulph of Rathrobin and Fortal had married Patience Colley, daughter of Thomas Colley, in 1736.  Nicholas Biddulph and Francis Harrison Biddulph of Vicarstown were 1^st cousins once removed.

Richard Colley of Castle Carbury, changed his name to Wesley when he inherited Dangan Castle, Trim, County Meath, from his cousin Garret Wesley in 1728. The name later became Wellesley, and Richard became the grandfather of Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington. What is not known is whether Thomas Colley, the father of Patience, and Richard Colley, were related.

This connection must remain speculative until it is further researched.

Francis attended Trinity College Dublin in 1821.

He married Lucy Bickerstaffe in 1845.

On the 2d inst., at St. Bride’s church, Liverpool, by the Rev. H. Stewart, M.A., Francis M. Biddulph, Esq., of Rathrobbin Castle, King’s County, Ireland, to Lucy, second daughter of the late Robert Bickerstaff, Esq., formerly of Preston, in the County Of Lancaster.

They had seven children.

Annie Adela Waller Biddulph was born on the 25^th March 1847. Annie was married twice. Her first husband was John Willcocks of Chapelizod, County Dublin. They had three children. John died in 1918, and Annie remarried John Ouseley Bonsall Murphy. She died in 1926 and is buried in the Willcocks family plot in Chapelizod.

Francis Biddulph was born and died an infant in 1848.

Middleton Westenra Biddulph was born on the 17^th August 1849.  He married Vera Josephine Flower in St. Luke, Chelsea, in 1891. They had no children. Middleton rebuilt Rathrobin. He too died in 1826.

Assheton Biddulph was born on the 12^th of October 1850. He married Florence Caroline Boothby, and they lived in Moneyguyneen near Birr. They had five children.

Franc Digby Biddulph was born on the 22^nd April 1853. He married Louisa Maria Susannah Rossborough-Colclough, of Tintern Abbey, New Ross, County Wexford, and took the Colclough name. They had two children.

Gertrude Louisa Biddulph was born on the 22^nd September 1856. She too was married twice. She married George Carpenter Anderson in 1879, and they had five children. George died in 1887. She subsequently married Dr. Nevill Potow Cadell and they had one son, Assheton Biddulph Cadell, who died at Ypres in 1916. Gertrude died in Sussex in 1945.

Florence Biddulph. Of whom nothing is known.

In 1841 there was an attempt on the life of Francis Marsh Biddulph. Mr. Biddulph had ejected two of his tenants, related to the prisoners, Michael Doherty and Michael Colgan, who were on trial for their lives charged with attempted murder. Both were young men. Two previous trials had failed to reach a result. At the third trial Michael Colgan was described as ‘respectably dressed in a blue coat, light waistcoat, and a blue scarf.’ Michael Doherty ‘wore the ordinary attire of a decent countryman.’

The two men were acquitted, and Francis Biddulph was himself suspended from his position as a local magistrate, as he had advised the prisoners to flee the country and so escape justice. The trial, known as The Biddulph Case, was covered extensively in the newspapers and would repay further investigation.

Francis died in 1868 and was buried in Ballyboy, County Offaly. His tombstone was recorded as standing in 1998, with the coffin visible.  His wife, Lucy died in England in 1896.

Biddulph - March 27, to the inexpressible grief of his sorrowing wife and family, F.M. Biddulph, Esq., Rathrobbin, King's County, aged 65.

Bernard family vault, Kinnitty Church of Ireland, Co. Offaly

Francis Harrison Biddulph of Vicarstown [1774-1827]

Francis Harrison Biddulph was the only surviving son of Francis Biddulph and Eliza Harrison of Vicarstown. He married Mary Marsh, the daughter of Francis Marsh, barrister-at-law, in Stradbally, Laois, in 1797. They had fourteen children, thirteen of whom survived to adulthood.

His daughter Elizabeth, born in 1799, is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery, County Dublin. She died in 1893. Although her gravestone states that she is his eldest daughter, he had another daughter, Anne, who was born in the previous year, 1798. She married Simon Biddulph, son of Sir Theophilus Biddulph, 5^th Bt.  Her husband died young.

Death: Died Friday se'nnight, at the house of his aunts, the Misses Biddulph, where he was visit for his health, Captain Simon Biddulph, of the 25th regiment, the 30th year of his age. [Hampshire Chronicle, Mon. 05 May 1823, p.4]

A third daughter, christened Mary after her mother, was born and died an infant in 1801. Another daughter, born in 1803, was christened again Mary. Frances Biddulph, born abt 1804 or later, married Mathew Meredith of Lillart, Clonaslee, Queen’s County in 1847 in St Peter’s Church.

The first son of Francis and Mary was christened Francis Marsh Wellesley Biddulph. Born in 1802, he married Lucy Bickerstaffe in 1845.

Their second son, Nicholas Marsh Biddulph, was born on the 20^th December 1805.  He married Elizabeth Maria Steele, both of the parish of Donnybrook, at Gretna Green, in 1824.

Their daughter, Margaret Anne Biddulph, was born at Elm Villa, Irishtown, on October 1826.

William Francis Biddulph, born in 1809, died young.

Harriet Biddulph, born on the 8^th of November 1810, is believed to have gone to America and married there, as did Jane Biddulph, born the 8^th of May 1812.

Sarah, born the 11^th of December 1814, went to Australia.

Charlotte was born on the 9^th of December 1815, and her sister Patience in 1817.

Caroline was born on the 16^th May 1819. She died in Kingstown [Dun Laoghaire], County Dublin on the 28^th of May 1874.

Deaths. Biddulph - May 28, at 84 Upper George's-street, Kingstown, Miss Caroline Biddulph, daughter of the late Francis Harrison Marsh Biddulph, Esq.

Francis Harrison Biddulph was the Registrar of the Court of Exchequer from 1805 until his death in 1827. There appears to have been an inquiry into his raising his charges without applying for permission.

Mr. Francis Harrison Biddulph was appointed to this situation in the year 1805. His duties are stated to be, “to attend the sitting to the Court of Exchequer; to take down notes of the decrees, rules and orders,  in Equity causes by the said Court, which he does in a rough book kept by him for that purpose; to see that such rules, orders and decrees as are made and pronounced, are properly posted from such rough book, in the rule books and books of hearings, which books are kept as records of the office; (these rules and decrees he compares;) to receive and file notices, and list of Equity motions; to peruse and examine all drafts of decrees, to see that they contain the proper recitals; to amend such drafts, conformable to the notes of hearings, and to the decrees pronounced by the Court previous to such decrees, being signed and settled by the Chief Remembrancer; and to inrol all final decrees.”

His emoluments arise from fees, and a salary of 100l. paid by the Chief Remembrancer. On the amount of the fees, Mr. Biddulph has not enabled us to speak with any certainty; he states that he has kept no regular account of them; but he estimates, rather vaguely, the amount of his net annual emoluments at from 900l. to 1,000l. per annum, after deducting from his receipts 160l. a year for disbursements. [EPPI 1818 Vol. 10, 140. Fourth Report of Commissioners of Duties, Salaries and Emoluments, in Courts of Justice].

According to Burke’s  he had a protracted dispute from 1811 to 1824 in regard to the Rathrobin and Fortal estates with Sir Robert Waller on the death of his cousin Margaret, Mrs Bernard.  Having died childless, Margaret Biddulph, wife of Thomas Bernard, left the moiety of her estates to her cousin Elizabeth, Lady Waller.

He eventually succeeded by compromise to the Rathrobin portion, while Fortal went to his cousin Nicholas Biddulph, of Congor.

After the death of Francis in 1827 the family ceased to have any connection with Vicarstown. Francis and his father are buried in Curaclone graveyard. In his will he requested a simple headstone with their names and dates upon it. This does not appear to have survived. His widow Mary died in August 1861, at no. 3 Kingstown Parade, Kingstown, County Dublin and is buried with two of her daughters in Carrickbrennan graveyard.

Mary, Caroline, and their mother Mary Biddulph widow of Francis Biddulph of King's County, late Registrar of the Court of Equity.... buried at Carrickbrennan [Monkstown], County Dublin. [The Irish Genealogist].

Cumberland Square, Birr, King's County

Francis Biddulph of Vicarstown [1727-1806]

 Francis Biddulph was born on the 21st June 1727, the son of John Biddulph and an unknown mother. He married Eliza Harrison, the daughter of William Harrison of Leeds, Yorkshire, in 1765. Francis was a Justice of the Peace. The family lived in Vicarstown House, Queen’s County. The house was probably constructed by Francis. They had eight children, three of whom died in infancy, Patience, Frances Margaret Sarah and Nicholas John. The surviving children were Elizabeth, Mary, a second Patience, Francis and Harriet. It was not unusual at the time, with the high infant mortality rate, macabre though it may seem to us now, to christen a new baby with the name of a dead child, as happened here with Patience.

Elizabeth, who was born in 1766 and Francis’ eldest daughter, married Richard Grattan in St. Mark’s, Dublin in 1788. They too had eight children.

A second daughter, Mary Anne, born three years later in 1769, married William Scott in Vicarstown in 1785.

Patience Biddulph married Henry T. Warner in 1801. They had seven children.

The first and only surviving son of Francis and Eliza, Francis Harrison Biddulph, was born in 1774. He married Mary Marsh in 1797. They had 14 children.

Harriet Biddulph, the youngest daughter of Francis and Eliza, was born in 1781. She married the Reverend Richard Clarke, Rector of Geashill, King’s County, on 26th January 1799.

Life in the rural area of Vicarstown was not without its excitements.

Maryborough – April 8. Yesterday came on a trial before the Hon. Justice Crookshank, and a respectable Jury of the Queen’s county, a cause wherein Thomas Fitzgerald, of Corbally, Esq. was prosecutor, and Francis Biddulph, of Vicarstown, Esq. was Defendant. It was an issue out of the King’s Bench, to try whether certain expressions therein stated, were used with an intention to provoke the said Thomas Fitzgerald to fight a duel with the said Francis Biddulph – when after a full investigation of the matter, in said information stated, Mr Biddulph was honourably acquitted. [Dublin Evening Post 15 April 1797].

The following year, 1798, a year of insurrection, the house itself was attacked.

Saturday night last, a banditti attacked the house of Mr. Francis Biddulph, of the Queen's county, with a view to plunder it, but meeting with a spirited resistance, they decamped, after wounding a female servant in the house, and destroying some of the furniture, and breaking the windows. [Mirror of the Times, Sat, March 3, 1798, Issue 10]

The Express and Evening Chronicle gives a more graphic account of events.  It seems that this may have been the catalyst for the family leaving Vicarstown House forever.

On Sunday night the 24^th ult, a most daring banditti, at about eight o’clock in the evening, attacked the house of Francis Biddulph Esq., of Vicarstown, in the Queen’s County, Ireland, where they secured all the servants; but Mr. Biddulph, with his wife and daughter  having time to get up stairs, he made such a resistance, though they carried on their attack for upwards of an hour, that he deterred them from forcing a door which he had fortunately erected on the stairs; they fired several shots at Mr. Biddulph, and wounded a servant-maid in the shoulder, hit Mrs Biddulph with slugs in the clothes, filled the upper rooms with a number of bullets broke all the windows and furniture in the house; so that the gentlemen and his family are now obliged to go and reside in a town. [Express  and Evening Chronicle, St, Mar 3, 1798. Issue 538].

Francis Biddulph died on 11^th September 1806. His widow Eliza survived him. She died in 1827, the same year as their son Francis. Francis and his son are buried in Curaclone graveyard near Vicarstown. There is no headstone.

The Barracks, Birr, Offaly