The Bunbury family have been connected to Ireland at least since Elizabethan times when Thomas Bunbury was appointed one of the executors of the Lismore estate in 1585. Thomas's grandson, Sir Henry Bunbury, was stripped of his title and lands for supporting the Royalist cause during the Cromwell's Dictatorship of the 1650s. While his sons remained in England, Sir Henry's nephews followed a growing trend and emigrated. One made it to Virginia and became a prosperous tobacco baron. Another, Benjamin Bunbury (1642 - 1707), moved it to Ireland where, in 1669, he married Mary, widow of Matthew Sheppard of Owles in Lancashire. Mary appears to have lived to a considerable age - according to Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland 1912, her will was proven in 1741. She bore Benjamin at least five sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Joseph Bunbury, settled at Johnstown, two miles east of Carlow town. The second son, Thomas Bunbury, secured land at Cloghna & Cranavonane near Leighlinrbidge in Co.Carlow. The third son William Bunbury established the family seat at Lisnavagh in Co. Carlow. The fourth son Matthew Bunbury moved to Kilfeakle, Co. Tipperary. The youngest son, also Benjamin Bunbury, inherited Killerig. The daughter, Diana, married Thomas Barnes, one of the Duke of Ormonde's soldiers from Kilkenny.
Thomas Bunbury of Cloghna and Cranovonane was born in 1673. It is not known when he acquired his property in Cranovonane, a townland on the southern slopes of the ridge outside Carlow Town, about midway between Ballinabrannagh and Old Leighlin.
In 1697, the year in which the first Lisnavagh House was built, he married Rose Jackson. She may have been a daughter of William Jackson (d. 1688) of Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, by his wife Susan Beresford. William Jackson's father Richard Jackson became Rector of Whittington, Yorkshire on July 26th 1641. (It may be relevant that a Thomas Bunbury was a signatory to the will of Richard Jackson in 1776. The aforementioned Rose Jackson, daughter of William, would have been a grandaunt of the Richard Jackson of Forkhill, Co. Armagh, who died in 1787).
The Bunburys were already well established in County Carlow - Thomas's father had been High Sheriff of the county in 1695. At some point, Thomas also acquired a property south of Carlow town at Cloghna, just off the N9 somewhere close to Tinryland. Rose Bunbury died at Cranavonane in February 1738 and Thomas followed in 1743. They left two surviving sons - Thomas and Benjamin.
Thomas succeeded to Cloghna in 1743. He died at Cloghna on 9th August 1781 and was buried in Tullow churchyard three days later. Burkes 1912 Gentry claims he left no children but another source I have temporarily mislaid says he was buried with his wife Ann and four children so a trip to Tullow church is in order. I have no further record of this branch but presumably if he did have sons, they predeceased him, for the Cloghna property ultimately passed to his brother Benjamin.
Thomas's brother Benjamin succeeded to Cranovonane and married Rose Mervyn daughter of Dean Mervyn of County Carlow. Benjamin and Rose had a son, Thomas, and daughter, name unknown, who married a Mr. Norris. Rose died at Cranovonane on 20th October 1761.
In about 1751, Cranovonane (sometimes known as Craan) became home to a young man called Edmund Cullen (1717 - 1819). Edmund is said to have descended from a Jacobite soldier. His wife Alice Kinsella (1741-Aug 1793) was a daughter of Dan Kinsella of Kilballyhugh. Edmund and Alice Cullen, both buried at Nurney, had eight children. The eldest son Hugh was father of Cardinal Paul Cullen (1803 - 1878), Bishop of Armagh (1849), Archbishop of Dublin (1852), and Ireland's first Cardinal (1866). The fourth son, Lieutenant Paul Cullen was one of four cousins executed in Leighlin on 21st May 1798. He was apparently court-martialled for refusing to hand his valuable horse over to Sir Richard Butler in return for the £5 a papist's horse was normally deemed to be worth. Any information on this tale would be welcome.
Benjamin Bunbury's son Thomas Bunbury of Cranavonane was a captain in the
British Army. In 1758 he married Mary Milles, a young woman of particularly
strong ecclesiastical stock. Her parents Dr. Jeremiah and Edith Milles were
married when he was 31 and she 19. Dr. Jeremiah Milles (1714-1784)
was a well-connected man. His father, also Jeremiah, was a fellow and tutor
of Balliol College, Oxford, and 42 years the Vicar of Duloe in Cornwall.
Perhaps more importantly Dr. Milles was the nephew and heir of Dr Thomas
Milles, Bishop of Waterford & Lismore, who died in 1740. He was
also a first cousin of the Right Rev. Dr. Richard Pococke, Bishop of Meath.
In later life, Dr. Milles was elected President of the Society of Antiquaries
of London. He collected a large number of books and manuscripts, many of
which are now with the British Museum. Dr. Milles wife Edith, a daughter
of Archbishop Potter of Canterbury (see below), died aged 35 in 1761.
The following summer, Jeremiah was appointed Dean of Exeter, a position
he held until his death at London's Harley Street on 13th February 1784.
He was buried at the church of St. Edmund-the-King, Lombard Street, London,
where an elegant monument by Bacon is inscribed to his memory.
Unfortunately there is no mention of Mary Bunbury (near Milles) on the Potter
family website (http://keithblayney.com/Blayney/Potter.html). It does
mention three sons (Jeremiah, Richard, Thomas) and two daughters (Charlotte,
Harriet) born to Jeremiah and Edith, most of whom seem to have been christened
at St. Peter's Cathedral in Exeter. The eldest son Jeremiah Milles
(1751 -1797) who was Lord of the Manor of Pishobury and married Rose Gardiner
(1757 - 1835) sole daughter and heiress of Edward Gardiner.
On 29th May 1745, 31-year-old Dr. Milles married Edith Potter, the 'amiable, affectionate, and truly pious' 19-year-old youngest daughter of Dr. John Potter DD. (1) From 1737 until his death in October 1747, Dr. Potter was Archbishop of Canterbury. In his earlier life, this son of a Yorkshire linen draper had been chaplain to Queen Anne. Though dignified and firm in his belief, Dr. Potter was not always the most stimulating of companions. The Latin translation of the coronation sermon he preached on the accession of George II was reputedly one of the standard punishments given at Corpus Christi College as late as 1893. (2) Dr. Potter's father-in-law, Colonel Venner, was a grandson of the infamous Thomas Venner hung, drawn and quartered in 1661 for organizing a rising against the new central government of Charles II. Dr. Potter's dashing third son Thomas Potter, was a prominent MP, fashionable dandy and well known member of the Hellfire Club who died young of venereal disease in 1759 shortly after his niece Mary married Thomas Bunbury. Edith's eldest sister Elizabeth married Rev. Thomas Tenison, later Prebendary of Canterbury, but died in childbirth in 1728. Her next sister Martha married George Sayer, later Archdeacon of Canterbury and a lover of Lady Baltimore. (3) The third sister married Rev. Thomas Tanner, sometime Prebendary and Canon of Canterbury and Rector of Hadleigh and Monks Eleigh, Suffolk.
In 1761, both Thomas and Mary lost their mothers. That same year Thomas was High Sheriff for County Carlow. Thomas died at the age of 61 on 11th December 1790. He was buried at St. Mary's in Dublin where a monument on the wall erected by his younger son Hugh Mill Bunbury states that he lived in Clontarf. (4) His widow survived him by 36 years, passing away at Lyncombe in Somerset in March 1826. She was buried at Buckleberry near Chieveley in Berkshire. Between 1760 and 1783,
1. Major Benjamin Bunbury (1760 - 1827) the eldest son.
2. Harrison Charles Bunbury (1764 - 1803), served as 2nd Lieutenant
in the Royal Navy on HMS Sceptre, died unmarried. Probate: 12-5-1803,
Granted GRO ref: PROB 11/1392.
3. Hugh Mill Bunbury (1766 -
1838), Plantation Owner of Guyana, whose family is explored here.
Died in Wandsworth on 2nd November 1838.
4. Colonel Hamilton Welch Bunbury (1772 - 1833), 3rd Buffs, father
of Mary Bunbury who married her cousin Hugh Mill Bunbury and is mentioned
below
5. John Monseer Bunbury, born in 1775, also served in the Royal Navy
but died without issue aged 23 in 1798.
6. General Thomas Bunbury (1787 - 1857), Governor of St Lucia.
The eldest son was Major Benjamin Bunbury (1760 - 1827), the first of the family to reside at Marlstone House, Newbury, Berkshire. According to the National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868), Marlstone was 'a tything and chapelry in the parish of Bucklebury, hundred of Reading, county Berks, 4 miles N.E. of Newbury. The village is inconsiderable, and chiefly agricultural. The chapel-of-ease is an ancient edifice. The principal residence is Marlstone House.' (5) In Mary Milles will of 1826, she urges Benjamin to purchase one third of Maston farm from a Mrs Lawson so that Maston farm can be amalgamated with Benjamin's estate. Benjamin became a Lieutenant in the 66th Foot (Berks) on 25th February 1782, later rising to Major.
In 1791, shortly after his father's death, the bachelor Benjamin had an illegitimate son. As Major Thomas Bunbury (1791 - 1861), this boy grew up to be one of the key envoys behind the Maori peace settlement in New Zealand during the 1840s. On 10th August 1797, Benjamin married Anne Cowling, daughter and co-heiress of Henry Cowling of Richmond, Yorkshire. She bore him a son and heir, Henry Mill Bunbury (1809 - 1886), and a daughter, Anne Elizabeth Bunbury (1803 - 1896), ancestress of the Verstrume-Bunbury family.
Following the death of his first wife in November 1811, Major Benjamin Bunbury was married secondly to Eliza Susannah (or Elizabeth Susan), widow of Colonel Taubman (or Tautman). (6) Eliza had grown up in a villa on Sir Fracis Walsingham's old estate at Foot's Cray Place in Kent, which her father Benjamin Harenc purchased in 1772. In 1822, her brother, also Benjamin, founder of the Bromely Savings Bank, sold the Foot's Cray estate to Nicholas Vansittart, Lord Bexley, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer. (7) Major Bunbury had no further children by this second marriage. Around this time he acquired Marlstone from Mrs. Sarah Ouchterlony.
In August 1827, the Major and his only legitimate son, 18-year-old Henry Mill Bunbury were taking air in a pony chaise some 3 miles from Marlstone House when something spooked their horse resulting in the vehicle being overturned. The two Bunburys were trapped beneath the chaise and subjected to three hours of kicking by the horse before a passer-by came to their rescue. The elder Bunbury lingered speechless for several days, then passed away. He was buried at St Mary's Church, Buckleberry, Berkshire, on 4th September 1827. (8)
Upon his death in 1790, Thomas Bunbury was succeeded at Cranavonane by his fourth son, 19-year-old Hamilton Welch Bunbury (1772-1833), a soldier who rose to become a Colonel in the 3rd Buffs. It is not clear why none of the older brothers - Benjamin, Harrison or Hugh - succeeded. He joined the army as 'Welch Hamilton Bunbury', being appointed an Ensign in the 60th Foot on 24 October 1787, the eve of the French Revolution. He was promoted Lieutenant in the same regiment four years later on 29 March 1791. On Christmas Eve 1794 he transferred to the 128th Foot as a 'Captain-Lieutenant without purchase'. For reasons unknown he was registered as 'William Henry Bunbury' when he was transferred to be Captain-Lieutenant of the 35th Foot on 1 September 1795. He became a Captain without purchasein the same regiment on 13 August 1799. His promotions continued into the new century - Brevet Major (1 January 1805), Major without purchase, 35th Foot (30 April 1805) and Lieutenant Colonel, 3rd East Kent Regiment of Foot, aka The Buffs (31 December 1806). He served in the Peninsula from September 1808 to February 1810, commanding the 1st Battalion of Detachments from February to September 1809. He again fought in the Peninsula from June 1812 to December 1813, seeing action at the Douro, Talavera, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, and Nive. He received the Gold Medal for Talavera. He retired and sold his commission on 16 May 1814, five weeks after the abdication of Emperor Napoleon.
Colonel Bunbury famously received a glass of wine in his face from his nephew, Thomas Bunbury, while having dinner with his brother Benjamin Bunbury and sister-in-law Anne Bunbury at Marlstone House. In 1810, he married Mary Russell, daughter of Durham coal baron Matthew Russell, MP for Saltash. Russell was reputedly the richest commoner in England at the time. In 1817, he instigated the virtual rebuilding of Brancepeth Castle in Durham which his wealthy father had purchased from the Tempests 20 years earlier. Matthew is said to have spent £80,000 a year for several years on the restoration which took place under the guidance of a Scottish architect called Patterson. Matthew's wife Elizabeth Tennyson was an aunt of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) who reputedly composed "Come into the Garden Maude" during a visit to Brancepeth. Once again, the Bunbury name seems to be absent from the annals and I can only find reference to Mary's (presumably elder) sister Emma who married Gustavus Hamilton-Russell, 7th Viscount Boyne, and ultimately succeeded to Brancepeth on the death, without issue, of their brother William Russell. At any rate, Colonel Hamilton and Mary Bunbury had just one child, a daughter born in Bath in 1811 and christened Mary. In 1833, she married her first cousin, Henry Mill Bunbury. Colonel Hamilton Bunbury died that same year and so Cranavonane passed to his daughter. The Colonel was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Parish Church, Buckleberry, Bucks on 8th May 1833.
Born in 1809, Henry Mill Bunbury was the only son of Major Benjamin Bunbury (1760-1827) by his wife Anne Cowling. Henry was only 18 years old when, after his father's awful death, he succeeded to Marlstone House. In 1831 he graduated from Oxford with a BA. Two years later, on 25th Feb 1833, he married his first cousin Mary Diana Bunbury (1811 - 1864) at St. James in Dover. (9) She was the only child of his uncle Colonel Hamilton Bunbury. When the Colonel died that same year, Mary succeeded to the family seat of Cranavonane in Co Carlow.
In 1842, Henry Mill Bunbury was appointed High Sheriff of Berkshire. On 19th March 1842, The Windsor and Eton Express noted : 'Among the addresses of congratulation on the birth of a Prince of Wales presented to her Majesty at the levee, was one from the County of Berks, presented by J.J.Bulkeley, Esq.(late High Sheriff), who was accompanied by Mr.Pusey, M.P., Mr.R. Palmer, M.P., the Rev. Mr. Hitching; and Mr. C. Lane. Henry Mill Bunbury, Esq., the present High Sheriff of the county, was prevented attending the levee by having met with an accident'. Fortunately Henry survived.
Mary Bunbury (nee Bunbury) died aged 53 in February 1864 and was buried
at St. Mary's Church in Buckleberry on 1st March. Two years later, on 13th
February 1866, Henry Mill Bunbury kept the Tennyson connection going
strong when he took as his second wife Ellen Elizabeth d'Eyncourt,
a first cousin of Alfred, the aforementioned bard who had been Poet Laureate
since 1850. The marriage took place at St George's, Hanover Sq, London.
Ellen's father was the Rt. Hon. Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt (1784
- 1861), MP for Lambeth, an eccentric character, eager to establish his
family as one of aristocratic proportions. As such, he Normanized the name
of his family home in Lincolnshire from Beacon Manor to Bayons Manor
and even stretched back through the ages to find a surname (d'Eyncourt)
that would make his own sound more highbrow. He also substantially altered
the manor into an elaborate neo-Gothic castle and had a famous fall out
with his poetic cousin. On 1st January 1808, Charles Tennyson married Ellen's
mother, Frances Mary Hutton, at the Parish Church of Gainsborough,
Lincolnshire. She was the daughter and heiress of the Rev. John Hutton
of Morton, Lincs. Charles died in 1861 and Frances in January 1878. Ellen
Elizabeth was baptised on 7 July 1817 at St Nicholas, Brighton, Sussex.
Ellen's eldest brother Edwin Tennyson d'Eyncourt (1813-1903) became
an Admiral and married Lady Henrietta Pelham-Clinton, daughter of
the 4th Duke of Newcastle. Ellen's second brother (Louis) Charles
Tennyson (1814 - 1896) was a Metropolitan Police Magistrate and married
Sophia, daughter and co-heiress of John Ashton Yates of Dinglehead,
MP. (*) No children were born to Ellen and Henry.
Henry died at Marlstone aged 77 on December 27th 1886 and was buried the following New Year's Day at St. Mary's Church, Buckleberry. (10) At the time of his death, he was still a magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant for the county. His widow died on 12th February 1900 at 60, Euston Square, London, and was buried alongside him on 17th February 1900, the same day a distant cousin, Billy Bunbury of Lisnavagh, was killed in the Boer War.
As Henry Mill Bunbury left no children, Cranavonane passed to his young cousin, Hamilton Joseph Bunbury (1866 - 1949), son of Captain Philip Peter Mill Bunbury and his wife Georgina (nee MacEvoy). Hamilton was born on 14th February 1866 and educated at Downside. He served as a Captain in the 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment and later as a Major in the 4th Battalion HLI. He became a Knight of the Sovereign Order of Malta and, in 1923, served as Privy Chamberlain of the Sword and Cape to His Holiness Pope Pius XI. He died unmarried at Ballygate Cottage, Beccles, Suffolk, on 13th May 1949, and was buried in the local Catholic Church. His only sibling, Mary Alicia Bunbury, also took to the Catholic cloth, becoming a Nun of the Order of the Good Shepherds. She died aged 86 on 12th March 1953.
As to Marlstone House, this passed to Henry's nephew, Louis Hutton Verstrume, son of his only sister Anne Elizabeth Bunbury, on the condition that he and his heirs take the name of Bunbury. Hence the advent of the Versturme-Bunburys. Henry and Anne's illegitimate half-brother, Major Thomas Bunbury, the Peninsula War veteran, received £500 in this will and is mentioned as being the son of Benjamin Bunbury. In 1829, 26-year-old Anne Elizabeth Bunbury married Captain Louis Versturme, son of Sir Louis Versturme, Inspector General of Hospitals. Anne died at Newton Hall, Whittington, Lancashire, on the 24th February 1896 aged 92, leaving a daughter and two sons. By her son Adolphus Verstrume, Anne was ancestress of the Verstrume-Bunbuy family who settled in Kenya in the early 20th century.
Marlstone was seemingly sold in 1896 to Mr. G. Palmer of Reading, father of the Rt. Hon. George W. Palmer. Today, "Marlston House" is a day and boarding school for girls aged 3-13. (See http://marlstonhouse.co.uk)
Thomas and Mary' Bunburys youngest son Thomas was born at Cranovonane,
Co. Carlow, in March 1783. He joined the army at 17 and rose to become a
Lieutenant General in the British Army and Colonel of the 60th Rifles.
He started as an Ensign in the 8th West India Regiment, transferring to
the 54th by exchange in 1808, by which time he had become a Captain. He
served in the West Indies from 1804 - 188 and then returned to help
defeat Napoleon in the continent. In April 1814 he was promoted to Major
in the Glengarry Fencibles and dispatched to America where he remained
until October 1815. In January 1827 he was sent to Portugal for 16 months.
In his later life he served as Governor or Administrator of British Guyana,
where his brother Hugh Mill
Bunbury had large sugar plantations, and as Governor of St Lucia.
He retired as a Major-General and settled down in Kingston, Jamaica.
On 3rd February 1811, Thomas was married at St. James's, Westminster, to
Jane Pearse, daughter of John Pearse of Standon House in Wiltshire
who bore him three sons and a daughter before his death at St. James's,
Westminster, in 1857.
Their eldest son Thomas Charles Bunbury (1812-1894) was born in
Cork, joined the 60th Rifles as a lieutenant in 1832, retired in 1843 and
died unmarried.
Their second son Stonehouse George Bunbury (1818-1880), was also
born in Cork, joined the 60th Rifles in 1833. On 25th May 1850 he was serving
with the 67th when he was married in St. Catharine's Cathedral, Spanish
Town, Jamaica, to Miss. Georgina Dunston Vidal. Her father, who died
of cholera six months after the wedding was John Gale Vidal, a prominent
Jamaican solicitor. Her brother John James Vidal (1820-1869) was
also a prominent attorney and later Sergeant at Arms of Jamaica. She died
three years later on 18th May 1853 aged 30. He died without issue with the
rank of Lieutenant Colonel. (See Vidal Family - http://www.green.gen.name/vidal/D4.htm)
Their third son Harry Bunbury (b. 1819) also served with the 60th
Rifles and is reported not to have married. However, it seems he married Susannah Blewitt Tonkin (or Carter) on 21 August 1849, with whom he had a daughter, Florence Angelina Bunbury, born in Sydney
on 18th August 1850. Florence was baptised on 20th June 1852 (Church of
England) but died of Scarlet Fever at Glebe, Sydney, in 1858.
The daughter Catherine Bunbury, born in 1815, died aged 23 in 1838.
Thus this fledgling branch of the family came to an end.
Thanks to Peter Bunbury, Anthony Bunbury, Ken Baker, Victoria Tindal, Gill Miller, Sharon Oddie Brown, Cefyn Grafton, Mick Purcell, Bob Burnham (editor, The Napoleon Series), Rachel Harper (Marlstone School), Susann Anderson, Hazel Ogilvie, Rachel Finnegan and many others.