(587) Bernard of Castle Bernard now Kinnitty Castle (Co. Offaly)

The origins of this family are obscure, but they seem not to be related to the Bernards of Castle Bernard (Co. Cork); certainly not closely. They were evidently settled in Co. Carlow by the early 17th century, and there are references in deeds and other documents to members of the family living in or around the town of Carlow (then known as Catherlough) from 1619 onwards at properties including Straw Hill, Clonmulsh (spelled in a bewildering variety of ways) and Oldtown. It seems, however, not to be possible to construct a coherent genealogy before the time of Thomas Bernard (c.1655-1720), who served as High Sheriff of Co. Carlow in 1708, by which time the family clearly had gentry status. Thomas married, about 1688, a widow called Deborah Humfrey, who was the daughter of Matthew Sheppard of Killerick (Co. Carlow) and his wife Mary Franck. Deborah already had five sons from her first marriage, but together they produced three more sons and two daughters over the next decade or so. Thomas seems also to have owned land in Queen's County (now Co. Leix*), and his eldest son, Charles Bernard (c.1688-1732) settled there. His two younger sons, Franks (c.1689-1760) - who derived his name from his maternal grandmother's maiden name - and Joseph (1694-1763), shared the Carlow property between them. Franks Bernard subsequently leased an estate called Castletown at Kinnitty in King's County (now Co. Offaly*), which became the nucleus of the later Castle Bernard estate, but he lived mainly in Carlow and probably sold Castletown to his nephew, Thomas Bernard (c.1719-88), the eldest son of his brother Joseph. It was probably this Thomas or his son and namesake, Thomas Bernard (c.1747-1815), who replaced the ancient tower house at Castletown with a more modern residence, changed the name to Castle Bernard, and commenced the landscaping of the grounds. 

Thomas (d. 1815), 'a gentleman of large fortune' was succeeded by his only son, another Thomas Bernard (1769-1834), who was active in the militia during the 1798 uprising and became MP for King's County in 1802, holding the seat for thirty years until the extension of the franchise at the Great Reform Act weakened his hold on the constituency. He was married twice, and on both occasions his bride was of higher social status, his first wife being the daughter of a baron and his second wife the sister of an earl. After being rejected by the electorate in 1832 he seems to have decided to devote his energies to the rebuilding of Castle Bernard, and he obtained designs from the Pain brothers for a substantial and fashionably Gothic house. Unfortunately he did not live to enjoy it, for he died in 1834, barely a year into construction, and the house had to be completed under the direction of his widow, Lady Catherine Bernard, who was also left to bring up four sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Thomas Bernard (1816-82), pursued a career in the army which was cut short after the explosion of a gun while he was out shooting occasioned the amputation of his right hand. He was initially regarded as a benign landlord, but his reputation deteriorated over time as he sought to reduce the population of his estates. In 1867 he became the Lord Lieutenant of King's County, an appointment which he retained until his death. He never married, and his death precipitated something of a crisis in the affairs of the family. 

Thomas had had three younger brothers, all of whom predeceased him. Francis (1818-46) died unmarried; Richard Wellesley (1822-77) had no children; and John Henry Scroope (1820-56) died from the effects of his service in the Crimea, having produced a son and daughter. However, by the 1880s it was clear that the son, Thomas Scroope Wellesley Bernard (1850-1905) was unlikely to be a good steward of the family estate, since he had dissipated a not inconsiderable inheritance, and his uncle chose instead to leave Castle Bernard to his niece, Margeurite (1852-1910), and her husband, Capt. Caulfeild French (1839-1910), although T.S.W. Bernard was in remainder in the event of their having no issue. Capt. French proved to be a harsh and adversarial landlord, who paid a lower wage for a longer day than was usual on neighbouring estates, on one occasion prompting a general strike by his labourers. He and his wife died without issue within a couple of months in the summer of 1910, whereupon the remainder in the will of Thomas Bernard (d. 1882) came into effect. Although T.S.W. Bernard had died five years earlier, he had left his entire estate to his widow, Monica Gertrude Bernard (1857-1948), with remainder to their four daughters, and the family now came to live at Castle Bernard. During the troubled years of the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, Mrs Bernard became alarmed for their safety and arranged for troops to be stationed at the house to offer them some protection. Unfortunately in 1922 the troops were withdrawn and irregular republican forces took advantage of the opportunity to burn the house down in July 1922. Compensation was subsequently claimed and the house was successfully rebuilt in 1928-30, the Bernards coming back into residence until shortly before Mrs Bernard's death, but in 1946 it was sold to Lord Decies, subsequently passing into public ownership and being converted to institutional use in the 1950s.

* The historic names of these two counties were changed in the 20th century for political reasons. I have used the modern names where they describe geographical locations, but retained the contemporary names where they refer to public offices, since to talk about the 'High Sheriff of Co. Offaly' would be anachronistic.

Castle Bernard, Kinnitty, Co. Offaly (now Kinnitty Castle)

The site has a long occupation history, going back to an Anglo-Norman motte and bailey castle, which stood about 200 yards south of the present house. This was destroyed in 1207 and rebuilt, possibly in stone, in 1213. It later became one of the five chiefry castles of the O'Carroll family, and probably took the form of a tower house. It has long been demolished, but several ogee-headed windows inserted into the stableyard wall in the 19th century may be survivals from it. 

The Bernard family became associated with the site, then known as Castletown, in the early 18th century, when Franks Bernard leased a small estate here. Either he or more probably his nephew Thomas Bernard (d. 1788) acquired the freehold and built the modest T-plan house which forms the south-east corner of the present building. This property, which was already called Castle Bernard by the beginning of the 19th century, was described by Arthur Atkinson in The Irish Tourist (1815) as 'one of the most interesting romantic villas in that part of Ireland', though his praise seems to have been based less on the architecture than on its 'retired beauties', notably its setting on a plain below the Slieve Bloom mountains next to the River Camcor, and 'the planting which forms an embroidery to this demesne'.

Castle Bernard: the north front of the house in the early 20th century. Image: National Library of Ireland.

A later Thomas Bernard (1769-1834), who was MP for King's County for thirty years, greatly expanded the estate and decided at the end of his life to enlarge and entirely transform the house into a Tudor Gothic mansion better fitting the name 'Castle Bernard'. He chose as his architects the Pain brothers (James and George Richard) from Limerick and Cork, whose designs were influenced by both the castle-style buildings they had erected for John Nash in the 1810s, and the Tudor Gothic buildings of Sir Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison. It

Quinville House, Co. Clare

seems likely that George Richard Pain was chiefly responsible for the design of Castle Bernard. The elevations are taller and more compact than some of the Pain brothers' earlier houses, such as Dromoland (Co. Clare) or Mitchelstown (Co. Cork), and are very similar in overall effect to the house they built at Quinville (Co. Clare) in 1827, although they were working here on a rather larger scale. Thomas Bernard died only a year after construction began, and the house was completed for his widow, as their eldest son did not come of age until 1837. The Georgian house was retained but the new house, which was nearly twice as wide, was built in front of its main elevation. The new north front was the focus for the stylistic impact: it was given battered basement walls, canted bays, steeply-pitched gables and a complex roofline with pinnacles and tall chimneystacks. At the north-west corner the house sprouted an octagonal tower crowned with machicolation and pinnacles that has Guy's Tower at Warwick Castle in its distant ancestry and Charleville Castle as a closer relation. The side elevations by contrast are fairly plain, with only hood-moulds over the large mullioned and transomed windows and crenellated parapets that are raised into a gable in the middle. All the new elevations were executed in a fine blue-grey limestone that is attractive in sunshine but rather dour in wet or gloomy weather. The older part of the house at the back was given a Gothic dress and rendered to mask the red sandstone of which it was originally built. It is thought that the house was built by Henry, Mullins & MacMahon, whose archive (now in the Irish Architectural Archive) includes some alternative designs, including one with a porte-cochère and another with a circular rather than a polygonal tower.

Castle Bernard: the house after the fire, 1922.

On 23 July 1922 the house was burnt by irregular republican forces, who gave the occupants half an hour to leave but only allowed them to remove personal possessions. Seven fires were then set in different parts of the building, and the interiors, furniture and pictures were completely destroyed, although the external walls largely remained standing. The Bernard family sought compensation of £42,000 for their losses but were eventually awarded a total of £24,000, which they thought would allow a 'partial reinstatement'. In the event, the whole house was restored in 1928-30 to the designs of Joseph John Bruntz (1881-1954) of Edenderry (Co. Offaly), but no attempt was made to recreate the lost decorative schemes, and the simplest new internal decoration was applied. 

Kinnitty Castle: the reconstructed house in 2007. Image: Sarah777 on Wikimedia

Entering through the porch on the north front, the visitor ascends to the level of the principal rooms by a flight of steps the full width of the entrance hall, and passes through a screen of three narrow arches into a central vestibule lit by a stained glass window, which acts as the central circulation space of the house. The rooms to the west of the hall and vestibule were entirely reshaped by Bruntz, who created a new double-aspect drawing room here (now used as a dining room). On the other side of the vestibule is the top-lit staircase hall, which has a new timber staircase of the 1920s, and also the entrance to the former billiards room (now the main drawing room). The room in the north-east corner of the house is now furnished as a library but used as a bar area. Here and in the central vestibule the walls are panelled with robust oak panelling which has the look and feel of 1830s work and may have been salvaged after the fire. The room functions and decoration have been much altered to suit the present use of the house as an hotel.

Kinnitty Castle: the former billiards room (now drawing room). Image: Trip Advisor

Kinnitty Castle: the library/bar. Image: Trip Advisor

As noted above, development of the grounds began in association with the 18th century house. A map of 1809 shows a small area around the house had been landscaped, but this was greatly expanded later, and by 1859 the estate was receiving so many picnic parties that visitors were  required to obtain a ticket in advance. Much of the attraction of the demesne is due to the way the River Camcor or Castletown River winds through the estate, passing just to the east of the house, where it is crossed by a (now derelict) suspension footbridge built between 1838 and 1850 for Thomas Bernard (1816-82). Another bridge, further south, carries an approach drive from the north entrance to the estate, where there is a grand carriage archway flanked by curtain walls which conceal a porter's lodge on one side and contain a postern gate on the other. On stylistic grounds, this north lodge is likely to be by the Pain brothers. The entrance screen replaced an earlier pair of lodges, which may have been contemporary with the main (south) lodge. This is thought to date from about 1811, and to be associated with a scheme by Samuel Beazley for a school and park entrance, for which he exhibited designs at the Royal Academy in that year. The lodge was extended to either side with additional gables c.1885, but the original building was a rather pretty Gothick design with a pair of blank quatrefoils either side of an ogee-headed doorcase set in a concave surround with clustered colonnettes that derive ultimately from the pattern books of Batty Langley. 

Kinnitty Castle: the south lodge, perhaps originally of 1811 but extended in 1885. Image: Buildings of Ireland.

Kinnitty Castle: the pyramidal mausoleum.

South-east of the village of Kinnitty, Thomas Bernard (1769-1834) built a mausoleum in the form of a crisp four-sided pyramid, supposedly influenced by his travels in Egypt.

Descent: Franks Bernard (c.1689-1760); sold? to nephew, Thomas Bernard (c.1719-88); to son, Thomas Bernard (c.1747-1815); to son, Thomas Bernard MP (1769-1834); to son, Thomas Bernard (1816-82); to niece, Margeurite (1852-1910), wife of Capt. Caulfeild French (1839-1910); to her brother's widow, Monica Gertrude Bernard (1857-1948); who sold 1946 to Arthur George Marcus Douglas de la Poer Beresford (1915-92), 6th Baron Decies; sold 1951 to Irish Government for conversion to an Agricultural College; sold 1995 for conversion to an hotel. 

Bernard family of Castle Bernard (now Kinnity Castle)

Bernard, Thomas (c.1655-1720). Parentage unknown, born about 1655. High Sheriff of Co. Carlow, 1708. He married, c.1688, Deborah (d. 1732), daughter of Matthew Shepherd (d. 1663)* of Killerick (Co. Carlow) and widow of Edward Humfrey (d. 1686) of Clonagh (Co. Carlow), and had issue:

(1) Charles Bernard (c.1688-1732), of Bernard's Grove (now Blandsfort, Co. Leix); High Sheriff of Co. Carlow, 1718; married, 12 December 1711 at Marton (Ches.), Rachel Stringer of Nantwich (Ches.), and had issue three sons and three daughters; will proved in 1732;

(2) Franks Bernard (c.1689-1760) (q.v.);

(3) Elizabeth Bernard (c.1690-1755); married 1st, 1712, Henry Rudkin, and had issue two or three sons and five daughters; married 2nd, 1738, William Doyle (d. 1758); died 1755;

(4) Joseph Bernard (1694-1763) (q.v.);

(5) Ann Bernard (d. 1737); married 1st, 1722, Gayton Mainwaring and had issue one son; married 2nd, Thomas Barnes of Grange (Co. Kilkenny); died 1737.

He lived at Oldtown and Clonmulsh (Co. Carlow).

He died in 1720; his will was proved 19 May 1721. His widow died about 1732; her will was proved 5 May 1732.

* Matthew Sheapheard married Marie Franck at Saxelby (Leics) on 27 October 1654 and emigrated to Ireland soon afterwards. This explains how the unusual forename Franks entered the family.

Bernard, Franks (c.1689-1760). Second son of Thomas Bernard (c.1655-1720) of Oldtown and Clonmulsh (Co. Carlow) and his wife Deborah, daughter of Matthew Shepperd of Killerick (Co. Carlow) and widow of Edward Humfrey of Clonagh (Co. Carlow), born about 1689. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin (matriculated 1705). He married, c.1708?, Elizabeth [surname unknown] (fl. 1761) and had issue:

(1) Franks Bernard (c.1708-82); married 1st, c.1727, Susanna (d. c.1735), probably the daughter of Thomas Bunbury, and had issue six sons and two daughters; married 2nd, 1735, Mary Grantham (d. 1742) and had further issue two sons*; will proved 1782;

(2) Susan Bernard;

(3) Mary Bernard; married, 1737, James Butler, and had issue one son;

(4) Anne Bernard (d. 1762); married Edward Pickering of Carlow; died 1762;

(5) Deborah Bernard.

He leased a small estate at Castletown (later the nucleus of the Castle Bernard estate) in the early 18th century, but seems to have lived chiefly at Clonsmulsh (Co. Carlow), and probably sold Castletown to his nephew Thomas Bernard (c.1719-88).

His date of death is unknown; his will was proved in 1760. His widow was living in 1761 but her date of death is unknown.

* It is uncertain whether a further marriage in 1750 between Franks Bernard jr. and Margaret Bonham was a third marriage of Franks (d. 1782) or a first marriage of his son Franks (c.1730-96). 

Bernard, Joseph (1694-1763). Third son of Thomas Bernard (c.1655-1720) of Oldtown and Clonmulsh (Co. Carlow) and his wife Deborah, daughter of Matthew Shepperd of Killerick (Co. Carlow) and widow of Edward Humfrey of Clonagh (Co. Carlow), born 1694. High Sheriff of Co. Carlow, 1730. He married, 1717 (licence 5 December), Mary (fl. 1763), daughter of John Edwards (d. 1728) of Old Court (Co. Wicklow), and had issue:

(1) Thomas Bernard (c.1719-88) (q.v.);

(2) John Bernard (c.1720-89); an officer in the Royal Navy (Lt., 1745; last recorded service, 1752); settled at Carlow (Co. Carlow); married, 20 July 1767 at St Andrew, Holborn (Middx), his cousin Frances, daughter of Sir Gilbert Pickering, 3rd bt., and had issue one son and three daughters; he also had an illegitimate son, born prior to his marriage; died at Carlow, 19 November and was buried there, 26 November 1789; will proved in the PCC, 31 October 1791;

(3) William Bernard (d. c.1790), of Straw Hill (Co. Carlow); High Sheriff of Co. Carlow, 1773-74; married, perhaps c.1755, his cousin Mary Bernard, and had issue at least two sons and two daughters; died after 8 February 1789; will proved 2 June 1790;

(4) Jane Bernard (c.1724-98); married, c.1744, William Galbraith (c.1704-54) of Carlow, merchant, and had issue three sons and two daughters; died 30 April 1798 and was buried at Carlow, where she is commemorated by a headstone erected by her daughter;

(5) Mary Bernard (c.1733-1804); married 1st, 1759 (settlement 28 November), Thomas Bennett (c.1732-78), of Ballynloghan and Viewmount (Co. Carlow), and had issue two sons and six daughters; married 2nd, 1782 (settlement 27 April), Mathew Humphrey (b. c.1730?) of Ratheadon (Co. Carlow); died 6 January 1804 and was buried at Loram Cemetery, Carlow;

(6) Deborah Bernard (fl. 1763); married, c.1759, William Rourke, and had issue at least two sons and one daughter; living in 1763;

(7) Jemma Bernard (fl. 1782); married, 1774 (licence 28 September), Rev. Robert Moffat (c.1745-c.1819) of Park Place (Co. Longford), vicar & rector of Cashel and Rathcline, 1780-c.1813 and of Tashinny and Abbeyshrule, c.1813-19?, and had issue one son and five daughters; living in 1782 but death not traced;

(8) Elizabeth Bernard (fl. 1789); married [forename unknown] Latrys and had issue five sons and one daughter; living in 1789;

(9) Ann Bernard (c.1731-1801); married, 1765, Humphrey Mitchell (fl. 1801), possibly the man of this name who was Clerk of the Barrow Navigation in 1787, and had issue one son; died suddenly, while at cards, 17 November 1801, and was buried at Carlow.

He lived at Clonmulsk (Co. Carlow) and inherited Straw Hill from his father.

He died about October 1763; his will was proved 26 November 1763. His widow's date of death is unknown.

Bernard, Thomas (c.1719-88). Eldest son of Joseph Bernard (1694-1763) of Straw Hill (Co. Carlow) and Castletown (Co. Offaly), and his wife Mary, daughter of John Edwards of Old Court (Co. Wicklow), born about 1719. He married 1st, 1740 (settlement 26 May), Jane, daughter of Adam Mitchell of Rathgibbon and widow of Joseph Palmer, and 2nd, c.1762, Mary, widow of Thomas Bernard (d. 1757) of Cloghristick (Co. Carlow), and had issue:

(1.1) Mary Bernard (b. c.1741), born about 1741; married 1st, 1759 (settlement 21 March), James Dillon (d. 1778) of Carlow (Co. Carlow) and had issue one son and one daughter; married 2nd, before 1789, Rev. Edward Palmer;

(1.2) Grace Bernard (c.1744-1836); married, 1767, Philip Going (1741-1820) of Monaquil, son of Robert Going of Traverston, and had issue two sons and three daughters; died March 1836;

(1.3) Susannah Bernard (1745-1819); married, 1769, Bigoe Armstrong (1745-73), son of Archibald Armstrong (b. 1716), and had issue two sons; died July 1819;

(1.4) Thomas Bernard (c.1747-1815) (q.v.);

(1.5) Barbara Bernard (c.1749-90), born about 1749; married, 1769 (contract 19 September) at Birr (Co. Offaly), Robert Lauder of Moyclare (Co. Offaly), High Sheriff of King's County, 1775-76, and had issue two sons and three daughters; died October 1790;

(1.6) Jane Bernard (b. c.1750), born about 1750; married, 1772, Rev. John Smith (d. 1813), vicar of Ballingarry and Uskean (Co. Tipp.), 1776-1809, and had issue three sons and five daughters;

(1.7) Jemima Bernard (c.1755-1825); married George Clarke of Birr; died in Dublin, December 1825.

He probably purchased Castletown from his uncle.

He died in 1788; his will was proved in 1788. His first wife's date of death is unknown. His second wife died before 1768, leaving four children by her first husband, to whom Franks Bernard was appointed guardian.

Bernard, Thomas (c.1747-1815). Only son of Thomas Bernard (c.1719-88) and his wife Jane, daughter of Adam Mitchell of Rathgibbon and widow of Joseph Palmer, born about 1747. High Sheriff of King's County, 1785-86. He married 1st, 15 April 1768, Mary, second daughter of Jonathan Willington of Castle Willington (Co. Offaly) and 2nd, 16 April 1780 at St Mary, Dublin, Margaret (c.1740-1811), daughter and co-heir of Nicholas Biddulph (d. 1762) of Rathrobin and Portal, and widow of Alexander Cornewall (d. 1779) of Lishmote (Co. Limerick), and had issue, with two further daughters who died young:

(1.1) Thomas Bernard (1769-1834) (q.v.);

(1.2) Mary Bernard (c.1770-1804); married, 29 April 1796, as his first wife, Col. Sir Robert Waller (1768-1826), 2nd bt., but had no issue; died 16 July 1804;

(1.3) Barbara Bernard (c.1772-1845) married, 1800 (against her father's wishes, and was disinherited as a result), John Poe (c.1773-1857) of Solsborough (Co. Tipp.), but had no issue; died at Avranches (France), 24 June 1845.

He inherited Castletown from his father and renamed it Castle Bernard.

He died at Birr (Co. Offaly), 8 May 1815; his will was proved in 1815. His first wife died before 1780. His second wife died 31 March 1811.

Bernard, Thomas (1769-1834). Only son of Thomas Bernard (c.1747-1815) and his first wife Mary, daughter of Jonathan Willington of Castle Willington (Co. Offaly), born 1769. High Sheriff of King's County, 1798-99; MP for King's County 1802-32; Colonel of the King's County (Offaly) Militia, 1823; Governor of King's County, 1828-31. He married 1st, 10 September 1800 at Kilboy (Co. Tipp.), Elizabeth (d. 1802), daughter of Henry Prittie (1743-1801), 1st Baron Dunalley, and 2nd, 29 July 1814 at St Michan, Dublin, Lady Catherine Henrietta (c.1792-1844), second daughter of the Hon. Francis Hely-Hutchinson MP (1769-1827) and sister of John Hely-Hutchinson (1787-1851), 3rd Earl of Donoughmore, and had issue:

(2.1) Frances Margaret Bernard (1815-50), eldest child, born 1815; married, 17/18 September 1846 at Kinnitty, as his first wife, Samuel Hamilton Goold-Adams (c.1814-84) of Salisbury (Co. Tipp), fourth son of Michael Goold-Adams (1778-1817) of Jamesbrook (Co. Cork), and had issue one daughter; died March 1850;

(2.2) Thomas Bernard (1816-82) (q.v.);

(2.3) Margeurite Bernard (1817-42), third child, born 1817; died unmarried at Leamington Spa (Warks), 12 October 1842, and was buried in the family mausoleum at Kinnitty;

(2.4) Francis Bernard (1818-46), born December 1818; educated at Trinity College, Dublin (matriculated 1836) King's Inns, Dublin (admitted 1838) and Lincoln's Inn (admitted 1842); died unmarried in Rome (Italy), 27 December 1846; will proved, 1847;

(2.5) John Henry Scroope Bernard (1820-56) (q.v.); 

(2.6) Richard Wellesley Bernard (1822-77), born 25 March or 10 June 1822; educated at Trinity College, Dublin (matriculated 1838; BA 1844), Lincoln's Inn (admitted 1840) and King's Inns, Dublin (called to the Irish bar, 1844); barrister-at-law; served as a volunteer officer in the Austrian service; in the 1850s he was noted as a sportsman and particularly for his prowess in steeplechasing, but he sold his stud of horses on joining the army at the outbreak of the Crimean war, where he fought at Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman; an officer in the King's County Militia Rifles (Ensign, 1846; Lt., c.1848; Capt., 1855; Maj. c.1870; Lt-Col, 1872-77; Deputy Ranger of the Curragh of Kildare, 1868-77; JP for Co. Kildare; Chamberlain at the Vice-Regal Courts of the Dukes of Abercorn and Marlborough, c.1872-77; married, 31 August 1859 at Cheltenham (Glos), Ellen Georgina (1826-1907), daughter of Lt-Col. Henry Williams and widow of Col. the Hon. Henry Handcock (d. 1855), but had no issue; died following a heart attack at Straffan station (Co. Kildare), 24/25 September 1877 and was buried at Kinnitty, where he is commemorated by a memorial brass; will proved 19 February 1878 (effects under £5,000).

He inherited Castle Bernard from his father in 1815, and rebuilt the house after 1832, the works being completed by his widow.

He died in Dublin, 18 May 1834. His first wife died 20 April 1802. His widow died in London, 21 June and was buried at Weedon Lois (Northants), 29 June 1844.

Bernard, Thomas (1816-82). Eldest son of Thomas Bernard (1769-1834) and his second wife, Lady Catherine Henrietta, second daughter of the Hon. Francis Hely-Hutchinson MP and sister of John Hely-Hutchinson, 3rd Earl of Donoughmore, born September 1816. An officer in the army (Ensign, 1835; Lt., 1839; Capt. 1844; retired on half-pay, 1847); Col. of King's County Royal Rifles, 1855-82; High Sheriff of King's County, 1837-38, 1842-43; Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of King's County, 1867-82 (DL from 1842). In 1845 he was injured by the explosion of a gun he was reloading, which necessitated the amputation of his right hand. A Conservative in politics, he stood unsuccessfully for election to Parliament in King's County. in 1841 and 1852. Although initially regarded as a benevolent landowner and employer, he became increasingly unpopular because of measures to depopulate his estate. He was unmarried and without issue.

He inherited Castle Bernard from his father in 1834. At his death the estate passed to his niece and her husband, Capt. & Mrs. Caulfeild French, with remainder to her brother, T.S.W. Bernard.

He died 13 December and was buried at Kinnitty, 18 December 1882.

Bernard, John Henry Scroope (1820-57). Third son of Thomas Bernard (1769-1834) and his second wife, Lady Catherine Henrietta, sister of John Hely Hutchinson, 3rd Earl of Donoughmore, born May 1820. An officer in the army (Ensign, 1839; Lt., 1840, Capt. c.1846) who served with the Turkish Contingent in the Crimea (Maj.). He married, 31 May 1849 at St Peter, Dublin, Maria Eveline Cecile Nathalie Claire Di Chiarmonte Manfredonia D'Altamura (c.1826-83), daughter of Edouard Racine, and had issue:

(1) Thomas Scroope Wellesley Bernard (1850-1905) (q.v.);

(2) Margeurite Adeline Bernard (1852-1910), born 24 December 1852; married, 15 June 1875 at the Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle, Capt. Caulfeild French JP DL (1839-1910) of Castle Bernard, High Sheriff of King's County, 1887-88; eldest son of William John French of Ardsallagh (Co. Meath), but had no issue; died 18 July 1910 and was buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin; will proved in Dublin, 24 August 1910 (estate £14,052).

His widow went by the name of Cecile Clyde, was bankrupted in 1873, and later became the headmistress of a private school for girls in Hove (Sussex), which was wound up after her death.

He died in Dublin, 12 September 1857, of a fever caught while serving in the Crimea. His widow died 7 October and was buried at Brompton Cemetery (Middx), 12 October 1883.

Bernard, Thomas Scroope Wellesley (1850-1905). Only son of John Henry Scroope Bernard (1820-57) and his wife Maria Eveline Cecile Nathalie Claire Di Chiarmonte Manfredonia D'Altamura, daughter of Edouard Racine, born at Youghal Lodge, Nenagh  (Tipperary), 18 October 1850. An officer in the army (Ensign, 1868; Lt., 1871; Capt., 1880; retired 1882) and later in the Essex Militia (Capt., 1882; retired 1883) and South Lancashire Regiment militia battalion (Capt., 1890; Maj., 1893); JP for Co. Offaly. A Unionist in politics, he stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in the Birr constituency in 1885 and 1886. A freemason from 1876. As a young man, he evidently lived considerably beyond his means and eroded his fortune, to the point where his uncle decided not to entrust him with the Castle Bernard estate. He married, 2 December 1880 at Gowran (Co. Kilkenny), Monica Gertrude (1857-1948), sixth daughter of William Henry Darby (d. 1880) of Leap Castle (Co. Offaly), and had issue:

(1) Margeurite Cecil Elizabeth Bernard (1882-1958), born 11 October 1882; married, 25 October 1906 at St James, St Peter Port (Guernsey), Charles Johnston Alexander (1873-1946) of Marina, Norton, Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), eighth son of Robert Henry Alexander (1838-1901) of Stoke Newington (Middx), and had issue one daughter; died 9 January 1958; will proved 4 March 1958 (estate £31,174);

(2) Monica Charlotte Emily Bernard (1886-1975), born at Nenagh (Co. Tipp.), 9 May 1886; married, 1922, as his second wife, Leonard Cornwall Maguire (b. 1887) of Stow-on-the-Wold (Glos), veterinary surgeon (bankrupt 1934), son of James Maguire, but had no issue; died 24 August 1975; will proved 12 December 1975 (estate £32,505);

(3) Kathrine Anne Bernard (1889-1954), born at Nenagh (Co. Tipp.), 11 March 1889; married, 20 October 1923 at St Philip, Kensington (Middx), Lt-Col. James Stuart Harper MC (1885-1943), son of Joseph Harper of Ceylon, and had issue one daughter; died 26 June 1954; will proved 22 September 1954 (estate £43,292);

(4) Maude Mary Gertrude Bernard (1900-65), born at St Peter Port (Guernsey), 6 May 1900; died unmarried in Dublin, 16 January 1965; will proved 28 June 1965 (estate £20,874).

He was in remainder to the Castle Bernard estate after the death of his uncle in 1882, but lived in a cottage at Nenagh (Tipperary) and later at Weston House, Thames Ditton (Surrey) and in St Peter Port. Castle Bernard was occupied by his sister and his brother-in-law, Capt. French. At his death he left his entire property to his widow, who subsequently inherited Castle Bernard on the deaths of Capt & Mrs French in 1910.

He died 1 February, and his body was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, 10 February, but later moved to Thames Ditton, where it was reinterred, 11 March 1905; his will was proved in Dublin, 10 May 1905 (estate £14,759). His widow died 6 May and was buried at Thames Ditton, 8 May 1948; her will was proved in Dublin, 10 August 1948 (estate in Ireland, £145) and in England, 24 September 1948 (estate in England, £9,642).

Principal sources

Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland, 1912, p. 41; J.A.K. Dean, The gate houses of Leinster, 2016, pp. 310-11; R. McKenna, Flights of fancy: follies, families and demesnes in Offaly, 2017, pp. 310-29; A. Tierney, The buildings of Ireland: Central Leinster, 2019, pp. 426-29; 

https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~marlow95/genealogy/bernard/;

Location of archives

No significant accumulation is known to have survived, and many records may have been lost in the fire at Castle Bernard in 1922.

Coat of arms

None recorded.

Can you help?

• Can anyone provide photographs or portraits of the people whose names appear in bold above, for whom no image is currently shown?
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 25 October 2024.

(586) Bernard (later Gibson) of High Hall

This family traces its origins to a Huguenot (French protestant) emigré called David Bernard, who fled from France to England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and in 1688 made his way to Jamaica, where his descendants became plantation owners and participated in the civil government and the militia. A later David Bernard (1757-1804), who had interests in the Bona Vista, Eden and Hermitage estates in St James' parish in Jamaica, alongside three brothers, married Judith Bowen (d. 1846) and produced a large family of twelve children, almost all of whom were minors when he died. His widow seems to have decided to leave her husband's business interests in the hands of his brothers and to take her children in England. She settled in Bristol, where Charles Edward Bernard (c.1775-1842), her late husband's nephew, was then just establishing himself in medical practice. David's eldest son, Joseph Bowen Bernard (1787-1820) later returned to Jamaica to manage his interests there, but the genealogy below begins with Charles Bernard (1789-1826), the second son, who remained in England. Having been educated at Cambridge, and with an income from his share in the family's Jamaican plantations, Charles adopted the lifestyle of an English gentleman and did not follow a profession. In 1812 he married into an established Worcestershire gentry family, the Bakers of Waresley House, who themselves had Bristol mercantile connections, and produced four sons and three daughters.

Frampton Lodge. Image: Stephen Richards. Some rights reserved.

The Jamaican estates which supported the family may have provided a comfortable income, but they did not provide Charles with any significant capital, and it is probably for this reason that he rented a number of different houses for fairly short periods, including Sufton Court (Herefs.) and Tibberton Court (Glos). The family ended up at Frampton Lodge, Frampton-on-Severn (Glos), a plain three-storey seven-bay house at the north end of the green in an attractive village, which would have provided comfortable accommodation for the growing family.

Like his father, Charles Bernard died young, and soon afterwards his widow made a more permanent home at Over Ross (now Ross Court), Ross-on-Wye, although this was evidently still a rented property. Here her family grew up. The eldest son entered the army in 1832 but left it six years later, on marrying into a Northumberland gentry family; he later farmed in Wiltshire. The second and third sons went to Oxford and pursued careers in the church and the law, while the youngest son, Edward Westland Bernard (1822-98) was articled to a Bristol solicitor and later practised at Stourbridge (Worcs). Both the Oxford-educated sons did well in their chosen careers. After Oxford, Mountague Bernard (1820-82) went to Lincoln's Inn, became a barrister, and from 1859 was back in Oxford as its first professor of international law and diplomacy. His expertise found practical expression in Britain, Europe and America, and he was brought into the Privy Council in 1871. His achievements were notable, but were made at the expense of his health, and he died unmarried of over-work aged 62. Mountague held high church, Tractarian, views, which could not have been more different to those of his elder brother, the Rev. Thomas Dehany Bernard (1815-1904), who was an Evangelical with a particular interest in mission work. 

Thomas seems to have been academically gifted, and won the Ellerton Theological Prize in 1838 and the Chancellor's Prize in 1839 for an essay on 'The Classical Taste and Character compared with the Romantic'. After Oxford, he went straight into the church, and for the next twenty years held livings in Essex. He then secured the living of St Swithin, Walcot (Som.), which included a significant portion of the city of Bath, and soon afterwards was appointed to a canonry in Wells Cathedral. In 1841, he married Caroline, the younger daughter of Benjamin Linthorne, a merchant engaged in the Newfoundland trade who (although bankrupted as a young man) had made enough money by 1833 to buy the High Hall, Pamphill estate in Dorset.  Linthorne had no sons, and bequeathed his estate to his two daughters. High Hall was occupied by the elder daughter, Anne (d. 1885), who remained unmarried but was noted for her generosity in fostering orphaned children, of whom no less than thirteen passed through her hands after her father's death. When Anne died in 1885, her sister Caroline and her husband, the Rev. Thomas Dehany Bernard, inherited her moiety of the High Hall estate. They at once commissioned a remodelling of the house by Crickmay & Son of Weymouth (Dorset), and once that had been completed, Thomas retired from his living at Walcot and came to live at High Hall. He retained his canonry of Wells until 1901, however, and also his position as Chancellor of the Cathedral, which he held until his death in 1904. 

Thomas and Caroline had nine children, but only two sons. The elder, who was heir to High Hall, was the Rev. Edward Russell Bernard (1842-1921), who followed a similar career path to his father, becoming a prebendary at Salisbury Cathedral in 1886, a resident canon in 1889, and Chancellor of the Cathedral, 1894-1911. He also served as a chaplain to Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V, and wrote a volume of essays about what could be learned from the moral teaching of other faiths. He married a daughter of William Nicholson of Basing Park, the distilling magnate, and had three daughters, but his only son died in infancy. At his death, Edward therefore left High Hall to his widow, who survived to the great age of ninety-four, with remainder to their daughters. All three of the daughters married, and two of them went overseas: the eldest, Isabel (1881-1967) to Colombia, where her husband, Frank Tracey (1871-1963), had mercantile interests, and the youngest, Caroline (1889-1961) to Italy. By 1939, however Frank Tracey and his wife had retired to High Hall, where they lived until their deaths in 1963 and 1967 respectively. Since they had no children, the High Hall estate then passed to the last surviving sister, Christina (1885-1973), the widow of Maj. Ralf Sumner Gibson (1882-1954), whose son Charles Edward Dehany Gibson (1917-79) took up residence in the house with his wife, son and daughter, who remain the current owners.

High Hall, Pamphill, Dorset

The core of the house was built about 1670 for Samuel Gilly (d. 1678), who in 1668 married Arabella, the younger sister of Ralph Bankes of Kingston Lacy House. There was such a close stylistic affinity between the two buildings as they were first built that it seems highly probable that High Hall was designed and built by the contractor at Kingston Lacy, Sir Thomas Fitch, or his brother John Fitch (who bought the house in 1691). High Hall was conceived as an elegant freestanding rectangular box of two storeys over a high basement, with a tall tiled hipped roof. 

High Hall, Pamphill: the south front in 2013. Image: © Michael J. Hill

The main south front (now the garden front but originally the entrance side), is of five bays (grouped 1-3-1), with a very fine stone doorcase. The construction was almost entirely of brick, with sparing Portland stone dressings, so that even the angle quoins and the panelled chimneystacks were executed in brick. The house was originally linked to Kingston Lacy by a long avenue, of which some vestiges remain.

High Hall, Pamphill: the north front in 2013. Image: © Michael J. Hill

The north side of the house, originally the garden front, is also of five bays, here evenly spaced, and does not have a central doorcase. Inside, the basic plan of the house has probably not changed very much since it was built, although the functions and decorations of the rooms have been extensively altered. 

High Hall, Pamphill: room functions in the main block in the mid 20th century.

In the 18th century, perhaps in the 1720s, a new staircase was constructed on the south side of the house, almost certainly by the Bastard brothers of Blandford Forum, as it has their distinctive under-curling handrail terminal. The dining room was also redecorated, with two tiers of bolection-moulded panelling. Rather later, c.1750, alterations were made to the windows on the south front, which were enlarged by cutting down through the stone cill bands and giving the ground floor windows blank arched heads, while double-hung sashes replaced the original cross-windows throughout. The brickwork was rendered and lined to suggest the house was built of ashlar blocks. A red brick stable block was also built, with a pedimented central projection and a clock turret. There is said to be a scratched date of 1751 on the plasterwork inside.

Further changes were made to the house in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for Canon Thomas Bernard (1815-1904) and his son, Canon Edward Bernard (1842-1921). In 1885, George R. Crickmay & Son added a single-storey extension onto the west side of the house, with a broad curved bow on the south front and a new entrance on the north side. This allowed the house to be 'turned around' and given a more appropriate orientation, with the original hall on the south front becoming the drawing room, and the former drawing room on the north side becoming a new inner hall. At the same time, Waring & Gillow created new Adamesque interiors in the new wing and main block. A generation later, a tactful new service wing was built onto the east side of the house to the design of Gotch & Saunders in 1909-10.

Descent: Samuel Gilly (d. 1678); to widow, Arabella Gilly (1642-1724), who sold 1691 to John Fitch (1642-1705); to son, William Fitch (d. 1743); to son, Rev. Henry Fitch (d. 1768); to son, Henry William Fitch (c.1742-1807); to Charlotte Poore (1748-1829) of Salisbury; sold 1833 to Benjamin Linthorne (1774-1859); to daughters, Anne Mary Caroline Linthorne (1810-85) and Caroline (1816-88), wife of Canon Thomas Dehany Bernard (1815-1904); to son, Canon Edward Russell Bernard (1842-1921); to widow, Ellen Isobel Bernard (1859-1953); to daughter, Isabel Audrey (1881-1967), wife of Frank Tracey (1871-1963); to sister, Anne Christina (1885-1973), wife of Maj. Ralf Sumner Gibson (1882-1954); to son, Charles Edward Dehany Gibson (1917-79); to widow, Mrs. Susan Gibson (b. 1926).

Bernard and Gibson families of High Hall

Bernard, Charles (1789-1826). Second son of David Bernard (1757-1804)*, planter, of Eden estate, St James (Jamaica) and his wife Judith Bowen (d. 1846), baptised in St James, Jamica, 18 January 1789. His mother brought her large family (of five sons and seven daughters) to England after the death of her husband. Educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (matriculated 1807). He married, 24 February 1812 at Hartlebury (Worcs), Margaret Anne (1789-1872), daughter and co-heiress of John Baker (1761-1809) of Waresley House (Worcs), and had issue including:

(1) Charles Bernard (1814-85), baptised at Hartlebury, 17 October 1814; an officer in the army (Ensign, 1832; Lt., 1837; ret. 1838); married, 9 August 1838 at St Andrew, Newcastle-on-Tyne (Northbld), Sarah (1811-82), daughter of Col. Robert Bell (1772-1851) of Fenham Hall (Northbld.), and had issue at least three daughters; died 9 May and was buried at Broad Hinton (Wilts), 13 May 1885; will proved 2 July 1885 (effects £2,015);

(2) Rev. Thomas Dehany Bernard (1815-1904) (q.v.);

(3) Margaret Anne Bernard (1817-65), baptised at Arlingham (Glos), 11 April 1817; died unmarried at Over Ross, 24 October 1865; administration of goods granted, 12 April 1866 (effects under £3,000);

(4) Ellen Bernard (1818-98), baptised at Arlingham, 10 July 1818; lived at Over Ross with her widowed mother and unmarried sisters; died unmarried, 16 February 1898; will proved 17 March 1898 (estate £61,510);

(5) Rt. Hon. Mountague Bernard (1820-82), born 28 January and baptised at Tibberton (Glos), 13 February 1820; educated at Sherborne School, Trinity College, Oxford (matriculated 1838; BA 1842; BCL, 1845; MA 1859; DCL 1870) and Lincolns Inn (admitted, 1842; called, 1846); barrister-at-law; a Tractarian in religion, he was one of the founders of The Guardian newspaper**, 1846; a jurist and international lawyer who was in increasing demand in Britain, Europe and America for his expertise; first Professor of International Law & Diplomacy, University of Oxford, 1859-74; a Professorial Fellow of All Souls College, 1870-82; one of the commissioners who signed the Treaty of Washington, 1871; Privy Councillor, 1871; author of A Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War (1870), many published lectures and other works; died at Over Ross, 2 September 1882; will proved 9 April 1883 (effects £93,643);

(6) Edward Westland Bernard (1822-98), born 8 October and baptised at Frampton-on-Severn (Glos), 29 October 1822; articled clerk to Cooke & Co. of Bristol, solicitors, 1840; solicitor in Stourbridge, in partnership with William Blow Collis from 1850; married, 4 October 1855 at St Nicholas, Worcester, Henrietta Clifton (1825-77), daughter of Clifton Wintringham Loscombe, of Pickwick House, Corsham (Wilts), but had no issue; lived latterly at The Hermitage, St. Leonards-on-Sea (Sussex) but died at Ahrweiler (Germany), 7 November 1898; will proved 8 December 1898 (estate £33,158);

(7) Mary Caroline Bernard (1827-45), baptised at Frampton-on-Severn, 14 February 1827; died unmarried at Over Ross, 10 December 1845; administration of goods granted 12 April 1872 (effects under £1,500).

He owned a moiety of the Eden estate, St James (Jamaica), but lived at a series of rented houses in England, including Sufton Court (Herefs), Tibberton Court and Frampton Lodge (Glos), and a house at Oldcastle (Carmarthens.). His widow lived latterly at Over Ross near Ross-on-Wye (Herefs).

He died at the house of his cousin, Dr Charles Edward Bernard in Clifton, Bristol (Glos), 28 September 1826, but his burial has not been traced; his will was proved in the PCC, 23 January 1827. His widow died at Hereford, 24 January 1872; her will was proved 18 June 1872 (effects under £3,000).

* David was one of four brothers who were active in Jamaica in the late 18th century, the others being Charles Bernard, William Rhodes Bernard and Daniel Bernard.

** Not to be confused with the Manchester Guardian, founded in 1822, which is the newspaper known as The Guardian today.

Bernard, Rev. Thomas Dehany (1815-1904).  Second son of Charles Bernard (1789-1826) and his wife Margaret Anne, daughter and co-heiress of John Baker of Waresley House (Worcs), born 11 November 1815 and baptised at St Andrew, Clifton, Bristol (Glos), 7 March 1816. Educated privately and at Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1833; BA 1837; MA 1840; Chancellor's Prize, 1839). Ordained deacon, 1840 and priest, 1841. Vicar of Great Baddow (Essex), 1841-46; rector of Terling (Essex), 1846-63; rector of Walcot (Som.), 1863-87; a canon of Wells Cathedral, 1868-1901 and Chancellor of the Cathedral, 1879-1904. He belonged to the Evangelical wing of the Church of England, was noted for building churches and schools (paying personally for new buildings for Wells Cathedral Grammar School), and was the author of several religious works. He married, 2 September 1841 at Wimborne Minster (Dorset), Caroline (1816-88), second daughter of Benjamin Linthorne (1774-1859) of High Hall, Pamphill (Dorset), and had issue:

(1) Rev. Edward Russell Bernard (1842-1921) (q.v.);

(2) Harriet Anne Bernard (1845-1912), baptised at Gt Baddow, 5 October 1845; married, 2 June 1898 at Hinton Parva (Dorset), as his second wife, Ven. Edward Henry Winnington-Ingram (1849-1930), archdeacon of Hereford, 1910-23, eldest son of Rev. Edward Winnington-Ingram of Ribbesford House (Worcs), rector of Stanford-on-Teme (Worcs), but had no issue; died 8 February 1912; will proved 18 March 1912 (estate £14,021);

(3) Caroline Emma Bernard (1847-1930), baptised at Harrow (Middx), 4 July 1847; died unmarried at Sway (Hants), 6 March 1930; will proved 5 May 1930 (estate £10,454);

(4) Margaret Alice Bernard (1850-1934), baptised at Terling (Essex), 1 September 1850; died unmarried at Sway (Hants), 15 July 1934; will proved 25 August 1934 (estate £6,775);

(5) Arthur Montague Bernard (1851-1927), of The Lodge, Copdock (Suffk), born 25 December 1851 and baptised at Terling, 7 March 1852; educated at Trinity College, Oxford (matriculated 1871; BA 1875) and Inner Temple (admitted 1875; called 1878); barrister-at-law; JP and County Alderman for Suffolk; married, 2 June 1881 at Feniton (Devon), Katharine Mary (1853-1927), daughter of Rev. William Francis Gore of Sydney (Australia), and had issue two sons and three daughters; died 22 January 1927; will proved 12 March 1927 (estate £18,111);

(6) Evelyn Mary Bernard (1853-1939), baptised at Terling, 4 December 1853; married, 3 February 1876 at St Andrew, Walcot (Som.), Lt-Col. Arthur Clitheroe Ward (1841-1928), son of Lt-Gen. William Crofton Ward, and had issue one son and two daughters; died at Sway (Hants), 15 June 1939; will proved 4 September 1939 (estate £1,592);

(7) Agnes Jane Bernard (1855-1937), baptised at Terling, 6 May 1855; married, 17 January 1882 at St Andrew, Walcot (Som.), Ven. Charles d'Aguilar Lawrence (1847-1935), archdeacon of Suffolk, 1901-17 and canon of Bury St Edmunds, 1917-35, but had no issue; died at Sway, 24 February 1937; will proved 10 May 1937 (estate £8,191);

(8) Katharina Ellen Bernard (1856-1938), baptised at Terling, 3 August 1856; amateur artist; died unmarried, 27 June 1938; will proved 5 September 1938 (estate £13,016);

(9) Mary Elizabeth Bernard (1858-1939), baptised at Terling, 7 March 1858; amateur artist; died unmarried at Sway, 5 January 1939; will proved 13 March 1939 (estate £23,556).

He inherited a moiety of High Hall in right of his wife in 1859, and made his home there.

He died 7 December 1904 and was buried at Wells Cathedral; his will was proved 3 January 1905 (estate £62,808). His wife died 9 September 1888; her will was proved 29 October 1888 (effects £11,342).

Bernard, Rev. Edward Russell (1842-1921). Elder son of Rev. Thomas Dehany Bernard (1815-1904) of High Hall, Pamphill, born 12 July and baptised at Gt. Baddow (Essex), 4 September 1842. Educated at Harrow and Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1861; BA 1866; MA 1868). Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1866-78 and an examiner in theology at both Oxford and Cambridge, 1889-91. Ordained deacon, 1867 and priest, 1869. Vicar of Tarrant Monkton (Dorset), 1870-76 and of Selborne (Hants), 1876-89; prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral, 1886; canon residentiary of Salisbury Cathedral, 1889-1911 and Chancellor of the Cathedral, 1894-1911. He was at least twice offered more senior ecclesiastical preferment, but declined advancement. A chaplain in ordinary to Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V. Author of Great Moral Teachers (1906). He married, 4 September 1878 at Privett (Hants), Ellen Isabel (1859-1953), eldest daughter of William Nicholson DL of Basing Park (Hants), and had issue:

(1) Isabel Audrey Bernard (1881-1967), born and baptised at Froxfield (Hants), 8 November 1881; founder of the British Club in Bogotá; appointed MBE, 1920; she and her husband retired to High Hall on leaving Colombia before 1939; married, 14 February 1914 at Wimborne Minster (Dorset), Frank Tracey (1871-1963) of Bogotá and Medellín (Colombia), merchant, son of Michael Tracey of Sale (Ches.), merchant, but had no issue; buried at Hinton Parva (Dorset), 24 May 1967; will proved 30 June 1967 (estate £30,628);

(2) Anne Christina Bernard (1885-1973) (q.v.); 

(3) Caroline Mary Bernard (1889-1961), born 6 September and baptised at St Mark, North Audley St., Westminster (Middx), 9 October 1889; married, 27 January 1923, Romeo Spani-Molella (1878-1960), barrister, and had issue one son; died 12 July 1961 and was buried at Campo Cestio Cemetery, Rome (Italy); will proved 5 September 1961 (estate in England, £13,313);

(4) Charles William Bernard (b. & d. 1891), privately baptised by his father, 4 February 1891; died in infancy.

He inherited High Hall from his father in 1904, and at his death left it to his widow for life. He built the service wing on the east side of the house in 1909-10.

He died 22 April 1921; his will was proved 9 August 1921 (estate £25,905). His widow died 27 November 1953 and was buried at Wells, 30 November 1953; her will was proved 9 June and 14 August 1954 (estate £36,291).

Bernard, (Anne) Christina (1885-1973). Second daughter of Canon Edward Russell Bernard (1842-1921) and his wife Ellen Isabel, eldest daughter of William Nicholson of Basing Park (Hants), born 5 September and baptised at Selborne, 11 October 1885. She married, 27 June 1916 at Wimborne Minster, Maj. Ralf Sumner Gibson (1882-1954) of Bracken Hill, Wrington (Som.), third son of Rt. Rev. Edgar Charles Sumner Gibson, Bishop of Gloucester, and had issue:

(1) Charles Edward Dehany Bernard (1917-79) (q.v.);

(2) Anne Barbara Gibson (1921-97), born 5 November 1921; died unmarried, 17 June 1997; will proved 27 August 1997.

She was co-heir of High Hall, Pamphill on the death of her mother in 1953.

She died 4 July 1973; her will was proved 21 November 1973 (estate £38,577). Her husband died 11 March 1954; his will was proved 7 May 1954 (estate £12,963).

Gibson, Charles Edward Dehany (1917-79). Only son of Maj. Ralf Sumner Gibson (1882-1954) and his wife (Anne) Christina, second daughter of Canon Edward Russell Bernard, born 19 April 1917. Founder of Wimborne Minster Civic Society. He married, 1964, Susan Veronica Whitelegge (b. 1926), and had issue:

(1) Jonathan Ralf Dehany Gibson (b. 1965); educated at St. John's College, Oxford (MA) and University College, London (PhD 1998); senior lecturer in English department at Open University; married, 1994, Lindsey D. Clarke (b. c.1975), and had issue two sons;

(2) Charlotte Jane M. Gibson (b. 1969); married, 2001, Michael R. Burleigh (b. 1962), and had issue one daughter.

He inherited High Hall, Pamphill on the death of his mother in 1973.

He died 9 April 1979; administration of his estate (with will annexed) was granted 12 December 1979 (estate £421,213). His widow is now living.

Principal sources

Burke's Landed Gentry, 1952, p. 166; M. Hill, East Dorset country houses, 2013, pp. 366-67; M. Hill, J. Newman & Sir N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Dorset, 2nd edn, 2018, p. 443.

Location of archives

It is likely that papers remain in the possession of the family.

Coat of arms

None recorded.

Can you help?

• Can anyone provide photographs or portraits of the people whose names appear in bold above, for whom no image is currently shown?
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 18 October 2024 and updated 19 October 2024.

(585) Bernard of Castle Bernard, Earls of Bandon

Bernard of Castle Bernard,
Earls of Bandon

The origins of this family are unusually obscure. Bennett's History of Bandon (1869) states that they derived from a family of this name settled at Acorn Bank in Westmorland, but there seems to be no evidence for the existence of such a family. All that can be said for certain is that Francis Bernard (d. 1659), with whom the genealogy below begins, was an English settler who purchased Castle Mahon (Co. Cork) - later renamed Castle Bernard - in 1639. Although his descendants consistently spelled their name as 'Bernard', his will names him as Francis Barnard, and the Visitation of Essex for 1612 has a pedigree for a Barnard family of Margaretting who used the same coat of arms as the Bernards of Castle Bernard, and among whom the forename Francis was in regular use. It is therefore likely that there was a connection between Francis Bernard (d. 1659) and the Barnards of Margaretting, but unfortunately I have failed to demonstrate it since the parish registers for Margaretting do not survive before 1627. Perhaps someone with more time to go through wills, deeds and other records will be able to make the connection.

Francis Bernard's wife is said to have been Elizabeth Freke, and there is long subsequent history of intermarriage between the Bernards of Castle Bernard and the Frekes of Castle Freke, which has led to some confusion about which marriages took place in which generation, and the relationships between the parties. Elizabeth is usually said to have been the daughter of Arthur Freke (b. 1604), but the dating evidence suggests that she was more probably his sister. Francis Bernard had seven daughters before his wife finally produced a son and heir, Francis Bernard (c.1640-90), who married Mary Freke in 1661 and produced two sons and six daughters over the next few years.

At the time of the Jacobite invasion of Ireland, Bandon was a largely Protestant town in an area generally controlled by the Jacobites. Francis Bernard and his two sons were all on the list of Protestant landowners attainted by the 'Patriot' Parliament in 1689, and in 1690 the Jacobites occupied Bandon, rounded up and held captive the male inhabitants, and attacked Castle Mahon. The Bernards and their servants defended the castle and successfully repulsed the attack, but at the expense of the death of Francis Bernard, who was killed during the attack. His elder son, Francis Bernard (1663-1731), who had trained as a lawyer in Dublin and London, soon recovered the family estates, and over the next forty years pursued a successful legal career. He was also active in politics, and held a seat in the Irish parliament for some twenty-five years, but since he was a Tory and therefore out of office for most of his lifetime, his political career was less successful that his legal one, which saw him rise to be Prime Serjeant-at-Law and a justice of the common pleas. In 1697, he married Alice Ludlow, from another Tory family, and they had at least six sons and one daughter. Between 1700 and 1725, his profits from the law enabled him to buy large amounts of land, much of it forfeited by those who had supported James II against William III, like the Earl of Clancarty. His holdings included the town of Macroom, where he obtained the right to hold a market in 1712, and much land in west Cork, but also land at Kinsalebeg (Co. Waterford). About 1715-25 he undertook a major remodelling of the house at Castle Mahon, which was then renamed as Castle Bernard.

Prospect Hall, Kinsalebeg

When Francis died in 1731, he was succeeded at Castle Bernard by his eldest son, Francis Bernard (1698-1783), but Prospect Hall, his seat at Kinsalebeg, passed to his sister, Anne Foulkes (d. 1754) before descending in turn to his younger sons, Stephen Bernard (1701-61) and Arthur Bernard (1706-67), both of whom died without issue. It was then reunited with the main estate held by their elder brother. Francis had became a widower at the age of 30 and soon afterwards moved to England after a dispute with his neighbours over the planting of some trees on common land. In 1745 he bought Bassingbourn Hall in Essex (demolished in the early 19th century and apparently unrecorded), and made his home there, but later in life, he seems to have became mentally ill and obsessed by the idea that he would die in poverty. To save money, he gave up Bassingbourn and took cheap lodgings with an apothecary in Westminster, where he became a recluse. He left a rather strange will that hints at mistrust of his relatives, but which named neither an executor nor a residuary legatee, and the courts seem to have decided that his nearest male relative should inherit his extensive property. This was his nephew, James Bernard (1729-90), the only surviving son of his brother, North Ludlow Bernard (1705-53), who became MP for County Cork in 1781. James had a large family by his first wife, but in 1789 he married a much younger clergyman's daughter, 'to whose tender embraces' as the Gentleman's Magazine delicately put it, 'it is feared, he fell a sacrifice', for he had a severe stroke and died in the summer of 1790.

The ownership of the Bernard estates now descended to his eldest son, Francis Bernard (1755-1830), an ambitious man whose political views were not very consistently held, and who seems to have been something of a tyrant in his household. His chief concern was to secure a peerage, an objective in which he was successful in 1793, when he became Baron Bandon. He was advanced to a viscountcy in 1795 and in 1798 his father-in-law, the 2nd Earl of Shannon, persuaded the Lord Lieutenant to recommend to the government that he should be raised to an earldom, although this did not finally happen until after the passage of the Act of Union, when the newly-minted Earl of Bandon was also made one of the first 28 Irish representative peers entitled to sit in the House of Lords in London. Lord Bandon celebrated his ascent into the nobility by largely rebuilding Castle Bernard to the designs of a Cork architect much influenced by the style of James Wyatt. 

At his death in 1830, the 1st Earl was succeeded by his eldest son, James Bernard (1785-1856), 2nd Earl of Bandon, who had pursued a political career in the House of Commons before coming into the title. He was the owner of the estates during the period of the Great Famine of 1845-49, and was obliged to grant substantial rent reductions in 1849. He introduced the practice of employing gentlemen-agents (including the Rev. Samuel Beamish, the Rev. Joseph Jervois, and the 3rd earl's younger brother, Henry Boyle Bernard (1812-95) of Coolmain Castle) to manage the estates, which amounted by the 1880s to some 41,000 acres, divided into two large groupings known as the Eastern and Western Estates. The agents brought a certain amateurishness to estate management, which may not have served the best interests of the estate at a time when it was facing unprecedented economic challenges. The 2nd Earl married Albinia, daughter of the Archbishop of Cashel, and had three sons and a daughter who survived to adulthood. His second son, the Hon. Charles Brodrick Bernard (1811-90), became bishop of Tuam in 1867, while his eldest son Francis Bernard (1810-77), 3rd Earl of Bandon succeeded to the estates in 1856. 

The 3rd Earl married the daughter of a Shropshire landowner, and produced one son and six daughters. The son, James Francis Bernard (1850-1924), 4th Earl of Bandon, was both politically more astute and more business-minded than his immediate predecessors. He was resident on his estates, and engaged as his land agents Richard Doherty senior and junior, and their business partner George Thomas Jones, and worked with them to reorganise the estate, much of which was sold to tenants under the 1903 Land Act. As a result of their efforts, the 4th Earl seems to have enjoyed a fairly good reputation as a landowner in the late 19th and early 20th century. The scale of the estate insulated it from the most severe economic repercussions of the agricultural depression and rising taxation, and the Earl and Countess continued to entertain generously. During the Civil War, however, Castle Bernard was burned to the ground on 21 June 1921 by an IRA raiding party led by Sean Hales, while the Earl himself was kidnapped and held prisoner for a few weeks before being returned to Bandon and released. The house and many of the contents had been destroyed, and Lord Bandon later settled in England. Although he had been unharmed during his captivity, the stress of the experience seems to have taken a toll on his health, and he died just three years later. Since he had no children, the earldom devolved on a great-great-grandson of the 2nd Earl, Paddy Bernard (1904-79), 5th Earl of Bandon, who was then in training to join the Royal Air Force. He was the first peer to serve in the recently-formed service, and he went on to have a distinguished career, retiring as an Air Chief Marshal. He also inherited the ruins of Castle Bernard, but much of the estate that had not already been sold under the Land Act was left to other relatives. He used the compensation paid for the destruction of Castle Bernard to build a smaller house close to the ruins, which remains in the possession of his descendants, but as he had no male heir, the earldom and associated peerages became extinct on his death.

Castle Bernard, Bandon, Co. Cork

The origins of Castle Bernard lie in a great square tower house of the O'Mahony family on the south bank of the River Bandon, which was known as Castle Mahon. Although much altered, this survives in the west wing of the later house, and retains its original battered base and a pointed window on the north front. It was acquired in 1639 by Francis Bernard but it was only given its present name in the early 18th century, when another Francis Bernard (1663-1731), initiated work on a new house to the designs of Benjamin Crawley, with John Coltsman of Cork as stonemason. Work evidently began around 1715, and was in full swing when the surviving estate ledgers begin in 1719. It involved adding wings to the old tower house, encasing the whole in brick with Corinthian pilasters, quoins and platbands in Portland stone. Around 1725, a formal garden was created by William Fennell, with terraces, a canal, cascades, jets d’eau and statuary. This was no doubt swept away later in the 18th century when it had become unfashionable.  The one visible survival of the 1720s work is a brick-built range west of the house with elliptical first-floor windows.

In 1794 Michael Shanahan of Cork prepared designs for a new house at Castle Bernard for the 1st Earl of Bandon, who was raised to the peerage in 1793 and became an earl seven years later. He no doubt wanted a grander house befitting his new status. Shanahan provided a modest estimate of £9,200 for the total cost. His scheme involved pulling down the additions to the original tower house, and instead erecting a new neo-classical block to its east. with a linking corridor between the two. The new main block was of two storeys over the basement and had a nine-bay entrance front. The garden front was similar but had a substantial full-height bow occupying the three centre bays. The design was influenced by Castle Coole (Co. Fermanagh), built in 1790-97 to the designs of James Wyatt, with whom Shanahan had worked at Downhill (Co. Derry) in the 1780s. The walls of the new block were rendered and the windows were simple voids in the neo-classical manner, with no architraves. Perhaps to save money, a bolection-moulded doorcase was reused from the 1720s house. The block was intended to have a pair of matching wings, but only that to the west was built. 

Castle Bernard: the house from the south-east in the late 19th century, photographed by Robert French. The old tower can be seen in the background. Image: National Library of Ireland.

The plan of the 18th century block closely followed that of Castle Coole. The entrance hall had a screen of Portland stone pilasters and columns, and delicate plasterwork on the walls and ceilings. It originally opened to a central transverse corridor with a cantilevered Portland stone staircase at one end, but an arcaded screen wall was later inserted, presumably to reduce draughts. Either side of the hall were the drawing room and dining room, each 36 x 24 ft and 18 ft high, while across the corridor from the hall was an elegant oval saloon, which projected into the bow on the garden front. These rooms were sparely decorated with plaster friezes in the style of James Wyatt. Work on fitting up the interior was evidently completed in 1802.

Castle Bernard: the house from the north-west in the late 19th century. Image: National Library of Ireland

The neo-classical house had a short life in unaltered form, for between 1836 and 1855 the 2nd Earl of Bandon commissioned an unknown architect to apply a rather half-hearted Gothic dress to the classical body, and to improve the connection between the main block and the old castle. The entrance front was given square turrets at the corners and a battlemented parapet, but this was only taken part of the way around the sides of the house. The west wing, incorporating the old tower house, was enlarged, raised in height, and given tall battlemented parapets and bartizans. To the right of the entrance front, three large Gothic windows were created that suggest the presence of a great hall, but actually only look into an open service court. The garden front was altered less, and no great changes were made to the interior, which retained its classical decoration. Probably at the same time, new offices, stables, and a racquet court were built to the west of the house, further extending what had become a rambling  composition. The final changes to the house were made in the 1870s, when the Georgian sash windows were taken out, and the window openings were given plain architraves and filled with rather heavy Perpendicular-style tracery.

Castle Bernard: the ruins of the house now sit on the edge of Bandon Golf Course.

The Bernard family remained in residence until June 1921 when the IRA raided the house, took the elderly 4th Earl captive, and set the house on fire. Lady Bandon is said to have stood on the lawn watching the house burn, defiantly singing 'God save the King'. Lord Bandon was held captive for the next three weeks before being released at the gates of the now-ruined Castle Bernard, but he never recovered from the experience and died in 1924. Although some compensation was received by the family, Castle Bernard was not rebuilt, and the 5th Earl, who was a distant cousin of his predecessor, constructed a modest bungalow behind the ruin. The earldom became extinct at his death in 1979, but although members of the family still live on the estate, the land in front of Castle Bernard is now a golf course. The ruins have decayed over the last century in a fairly picturesque way, but are now cordoned off because of the increasing danger of collapsing masonry.

Bernard family of Castle Bernard, Earls of Bandon

Bernard, Francis (d. 1659). Parentage unknown, but it is likely that he was closely related to Francis Barnard of Margaretting (Essex), Gentleman Porter of the Tower of London in the late 16th century, who used the same coat of arms. He married Elizabeth (b. c.1607), perhaps daughter of William and sister of Arthur Freke of Rathbarry Castle (Co. Cork), and had issue:

(1) Elizabeth Bernard (fl. 1657); married Captain James Burrell and had issue one daughter; living in 1657, when she was mentioned in her father's will;

(2) Mary Bernard (fl. 1657); married 1st, Thomas Poole (1615-<1657) of Mayfield, Knockaveale (Co. Cork), and had issue two sons and two daughters; married 2nd, before 1657, Capt. John Freke (fl. 1670) of Garretstown and Knockanameele (Co. Cork), and had further issue six daughters; living in 1657, when she was mentioned in her father's will;

(3) Ellinor Bernard; married Capt. William Holcombe of  Ballinaboe (Co. Cork), and had issue four daughters; apparently survived her husband and received lands in lieu of his arrears of pay for service in the army before 1649;

(4) A daughter; married [forename unknown] Wiltshire, and had issue at least two daughters; probably died before 1657;

(5) Catherine Bernard (d. c.1695); married Francis Beamish (d. 1679) of Kilmalooda (Co Cork), and had issue four sons and three daughters; died about 1695, when administration of her goods was granted;

(6) Alice Bernard; married Lt. John Langton (fl. 1668) of Kilbrogan, son of Ansolme Langton of Gloucestershire, and had issue three sons and three daughters; probably died before 1657;

(7) Anne Bernard (fl. 1657); unmarried in 1657;

(8) Francis Bernard (c.1640-90) (q.v.).

He inherited Castle Mahon from his father.

He died 29 December 1659, and his will was proved in 1660. His wife's date of death is unknown.

Bernard, Francis (c.1640-90). Only son of Francis Bernard (d. 1659) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William? Freke of Rathbarry Castle, born c.1640. High Sheriff of Co. Cork, 1676. He married, 1661 (settlement 5 December), Mary, daughter of Capt Arthur Freke (b. 1604) of Castle Freke, and had issue:

(1) Francis Bernard (1663-1731) (q.v.); 

(2) Maria Bernard; married 1st, 1692, Eusebius Chute (d. by 1716) of Chute Hall, Tulligaron (Co. Kerry), son of Richard Chute, and had issue five sons and one daughter; married 2nd, 1717 (contract 28 October), Francis Brewster of Brewsterfield (Co. Kerry), son of Sir David Brewster;

(3) Arthur Bernard (1666-1735) [for whom see my post on the Bernards of Palace Anne]

(4) Anne Bernard (d. 1754); married Robert Foulkes of Youghal, but apparently had no issue; inherited Prospect Hall, Kinsalebeg (Co. Waterford) from her brother Francis in 1731 and bequeathed it to her nephew, Stephen Bernard (1701-61);

(5) Elizabeth Bernard; married Rev. Samuel Wilson (c.1655-1710), rector of Castleisland (Co. Kerry), 1682-1710 and Chancellor of the diocese of Ardfert, 1684-1710, son of Samuel Wilson of Shrewsbury (Shrops.), and had issue at least one son;

(6) Mary Bernard; married Edward Adderley (c.1665-1730) of Innishannon, son of Edward Adderley;

(7) Katherine Bernard; married, 15 October 1703, Col. John Gifford of Atherne, and had issue at least one son;

(8) Dorothy Bernard; married 1688, Thomas Adderley (d. c.1691).

He inherited Castle Mahon from his father in 1659 and came of age in about 1661.

He was killed defending his castle against Jacobite forces, 15 April 1690; his will was proved a few days later and a further grant of administration of his goods was granted 2 May 1691. His wife's date of death is unknown.

Bernard, Francis (1663-1731). Eldest son of Francis Bernard (c.1640-90) and his wife Mary, daughter of Capt. Arthur Freke of Castle Freke, born 1663. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin (matriculated 1680; BA 1683), Middle Temple (admitted 1683) and King's Inns (admitted 1683). Attainted by the Jacobite 'Patriot' Parliament, 1689, but was restored to his estates by King William III. Recorder of Clonakilty, 1692, and of Kinsale, 1693; Chief justice of the palatinate of Tipperary, 1704; Seneschal of the Liberty of Tipperary, 1704-15; a Trustee of the Linen Manufacture for the Province of Munster, 1711; Solicitor-General of Ireland, 1711-14; Prime Serjeant, 1725-26; and a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland, 1726-31. Tory MP for Clonakilty, 1692-93 and for Bandon, 1695-99, 1703-13 and 1715-25 in the Irish parliament. A freemason from 1731. He married, 1697, Alice (1675-1741), reckoned 'a furious Tory if not a degree beyond it' in 1716, daughter of Stephen Ludlow and granddaughter of Sir Henry Ludlow of Maiden Bradley (Wilts), and had issue:

(1) Francis Bernard (1698-1783) (q.v.);

(2) Stephen Bernard (1701-61), born 17 July 1701; educated at Trinity College, Dublin (matriculated 1718; BA 1728), Middle Temple (admitted 1721) and King's Inns, Dublin (called to Irish bar, 1727); barrister-at-law; MP for Bandon, 1727-60; recorder of Kinsale, 1734; inherited Prospect Hall, Kinsalebeg in 1754 from his aunt, Anne Foulkes, 'a handsome seat', where he made 'good improvements'; died unmarried in France, possibly at Tarbes*, 6 September 1761; will proved in Dublin, 1761;

(3) North Ludlow Bernard (1705-68) (q.v.);

(4) Arthur Bernard (1706-67), born 1 September 1706; educated at Trinity College, Dublin (matriculated 1723; BA 1728); inherited Prospect Hall from his elder brother; died May 1767 and was buried at Kinsale;

(5) William Bernard (d. 1774); married, 1736, his first cousin, Henrietta Bernard (b. 1712) of Palace Anne; died 2 December 1774 and was buried at Kinsale;

(6) John Bernard (d. 1768); buried at Bandon, 15 April 1768;

(7) Elizabeth Bernard (1703-43), born 21 February 1703; married 1st, Rt. Hon. James Caulfield (1682-1734), 3rd Viscount Charlemont, and had surviving issue two sons and one daughter; married 2nd, 9 October 1740, Thomas Adderley (c.1713-91) of Innishannon (Co. Cork), MP for Charlemont (Co. Armagh), 1752-60, Bandon, 1761-68 and Clonakilty, 1776-91 (who m2, 1769, Margaretta, only daughter and co-heir of Edmund Bourke of Urrey (Co. Mayo), and had further issue two sons and a daughter; died in childbirth, 30 May 1743.

He recovered possession of Castle Mahon in 1690 and expanded the estate after 1700, chiefly through purchases from the Commissioners for the sale of forfeited estates. He remodelled the house c.1715-25, renaming it Castle Bernard. In 1712 he was granted the privilege of holding a market at Macroom (Co. Cork). In 1724 he bought much of Kinsalebeg near Youghal.

He died suddenly in Dublin, 29/30 June 1731, and was buried in the family vault at Ballymodan, Bandon; his will was proved in Dublin, 1731. His widow died 16 May 1741.

* He is often said to have died at Tarbes in 1757, but I have followed the History of the Irish Parliament which says he was still sitting as an MP in 1759 and gives his date of death as 1761.

Bernard, Francis (1698-1783). Eldest son of Francis Bernard (1663-1731) and his wife Alice, daughter of Stephen Ludlow, born 25/28 September 1698. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford (matriculated 1716) and King's Inns, Dublin (member by 1724). MP for Clonakilty, 1725-60 and Bandon, 1766-76, but he moved to England in 1735 and never returned to Ireland. Although he  was repeatedly said to have a 'very large fortune' he came to believe that he would die in poverty, and so became a recluse, taking lodgings in an apothecary's house in the Haymarket, London, 'and never stirs from thence'. He married, 26 March 1722 at St Anne, Dublin, Lady Anne (1700-28), daughter of Henry Fitzmaurice Petty (1675-1751), 1st Earl of Shelburne, but had no surviving issue.

He inherited Castle Bernard from his father in 1731 and Prospect Hall from his brother Arthur in 1767. In 1745 he purchased Bassingbourn Hall, Takeley (Essex). He left his estates to his nephew, James Bernard (1729-90), son of North Ludlow Bernard.

He died in London, 19 March, and is said to have been buried at Takeley (Essex), 21 March 1783, but has a tomb stone at Ballymodan, Bandon; his will was proved in the PCC, 10 April 1783. His wife predeceased her father and husband, and was buried at St Mary, Dublin, 2 February 1727/8.

Maj. North Ludlow Bernard 

Bernard, North Ludlow (1705-53*).  A younger son of Francis Bernard (1663-1731) and his wife Alice, daughter of Stephen Ludlow, born 15 April 1705. An officer in the Dragoons (Lt., 1724; Capt., 1739; Maj. by 1751, when he sold his commission on his second marriage, apparently at the insistence of his wife). His portrait was painted by Johann Zoffany. His second marriage was regarded as something of a mesalliance by the royal family and his wife's aristocratic circle, and was presumably a love match. He married 1st, c.1726, Rose, daughter of John Echlin of Echlinville, Ardquin (Co. Down) and 2nd, 4 September 1751, Mary (1707-69), daughter of Richard Fitzwilliam (c.1677-1743), 5th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Meryon, of Mount Merrion House (Co. Dublin), and widow of Henry Herbert (1688-1750), 9th Earl of Pembroke & Montgomery, and had issue:

(1.1) Charles Bernard (c.1727-63), born about 1727; Provost of Bandon; died about February 1763;

(1.2) James Bernard (1729-90) (q.v.);

(1.3) Alice Bernard (d. 1792); married, 29 September 1751 at Ballymodan, Captain William Beamish RN (c.1714-72) of Willsgrove, Cork, and had issue six sons and two daughters; died in Mallow (Co. Cork) in 1792; her will was proved in Dublin, 1792;

(1.4) Eliza Bernard (fl. 1789); married, 14 January 1766 at Ballymodan, Richard Sealy (d. 1789) of Richmount, Bandon, and had issue at least three sons; living in 1789;

(1.5) Mary Bernard; married, 26 August 1756 at Ballymodan, Isaac Hewitt (d. 1789) of Clancoole, Bandon.

He was buried at Ballymodan on 13 December 1753. His first wife's date of death is unknown. His widow died 13 February 1769; her will was proved in the PCC, 11 March 1769.

* His date of death is often given as 1768, but this seems to be incorrect, as the Dublin press reported his death in December 1753. The entry for his burial in the Ballymodan parish register was, however, incorrectly transcribed as 'Norwich Ludlow Bernard'. His name generally seems to have caused trouble: his widow refers to him as 'Thomas Bernard' in her will and his daughter Alice Beamish's descendants knew him as 'William North Ludlow Bernard', although they reused the names North and Ludlow in that family over several generations.

Bernard, James (1729-90). Second son of North Ludlow Bernard (1705-68) and his first wife, Rose, daughter of John Echlin of Echlinville, Ardquin (Co. Down), born 8 December 1729. MP for Co. Cork, 1781-90. He married 1st, 1755, Esther (d. 1780), daughter of William Smyth of Headborough (Co. Waterford), granddaughter of Sir Percy Smyth of Ballynatray (Co. Waterford) and widow of Robert Gookin (d. 1752) of Courtmacsherry, and 2nd, 5 September 1789, Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. John Sullivan (d. 1786) of Clonakilty (Co. Cork), and had issue:

(1.1) Francis Bernard (1755-1830), 1st Earl of Bandon (q.v.);

(1.2) Elizabeth Bernard; died young;

(1.3) Rose Bernard (1758-1810), born 8 March 1758; married 1st, 13 November 1773, Rt. Hon. Lt. Col. William Hull (later Tonson) (1724-87), MP for Tuam, 1768-76 and Rathcormack, 1776-83, and later 1st Baron Riversdale, illegitimate son of Richard Tonson MP, and had issue eight sons and two daughters; married 2nd, 18 October 1792 at Rathcormack, apparently as his second wife, Capt. James Millerd (d. 1804), and had further issue one son; died at Lisnegar (Co. Cork), 26 May 1810;

(1.4) Esther Bernard (1759-1824), born 17 March 1759; married, 2 December 1775, Sampson Stawell (1741-1819) of Kilbrittain Castle (Co. Cork), Col. of the Bandon Cavalry, and had issue eight sons and two daughters; died 18 May 1824;

(1.5) Charles Bernard (1760-63), born 12 August 1760; died young and was buried at Ballymodan, 5 February 1763;

(1.6) Mary Bernard (c.1761-1825); married, 1778, Sir Augustus Louis Carré Warren (1754-1821), 2nd bt., of Warrens Court (Co. Cork), MP for the City of Cork, 1783-90, son of Sir Robert Warren, 1st bt., and had issue two sons and two daughters; died 14 November 1825;

(1.7) Charlotte Bernard (1763-1835), baptised at Ballymodan, Bandon, about 1 September 1763; married, 3 September 1785, Hayes St. Leger (1755-1819), 2nd Viscount Doneraile of Doneraile Court (Co. Cork), MP for Doneraile, 1776-87, and had issue one son and two daughters; died 2 September 1835;

(1.8) Elizabeth Bernard (1764-1840), baptised at Ballymodan, Bandon, 25 December 1764; married, 1785, Richard Acklom (1763-1812) of Wiseton Hall (Notts), eldest son of Jonathan Acklom, and had issue one son (who died young) and one daughter (later the Countess Spencer); died at Leamington Spa (Warks) and was buried at Brington (Northants), 25 March 1840; will proved in the PCC, 1 April 1840.

He inherited Castle Bernard, Prospect Hall and Bassingbourn Hall (Essex) from his uncle, Francis Bernard, in 1783, but sold Bassingbourn soon afterwards.

He evidently suffered a stroke before the 1790 election and lost the use of his arms and legs, presenting 'a dismal spectacle' when he took his seat in Parliament, and he died a few weeks later; buried at Ballymodan, Bandon, 25 July 1790; his will was proved 30 July 1790.  His first wife died in 1780. His widow's date of death is unknown.

Bernard, Francis (1755-1830), 1st Earl of Bandon. Eldest son of James Bernard (1729-90) and his first wife, Esther, daughter of William Smyth of Headborough (Co. Waterford) and widow of Robert Gookin, born 26 November 1755. Colonel of Bandon Independent Company of Volunteers, 1782 and an officer in the Bandon Cavalry (Capt., 1796). MP for Ennis, 1776-83 and Bandon Bridge, 1783-90 in the Irish parliament. He was raised to the Irish peerage as 1st Baron Bandon, 30 November 1793, and further promoted to be 1st Viscount Bandon, 6 October 1795 and 1st Earl of Bandon and Viscount Bernard, 29 August 1800. He was one of the initial 28 Irish representative peers in the House of Lords elected after the Act of Union, and sat on the Tory benches, 1801-30. He owed his advancement in the peerage to his political connections (especially his father-in-law) but these 'were not matched by his personal gifts'. He did not pursue a consistent line in politics and was often offensive in his manner and personal conduct, not least to his wife. He married, 12 February 1784, Lady Catherine Henrietta (1768-1815), only daughter of Richard Boyle, 2nd Earl of Shannon, and had issue:

(1) James Bernard (1785-1856), 2nd Earl of Bandon (q.v.);

(2) Hon. & Very Rev. Richard Boyle Bernard (1787-1850), born 4 September 1787; educated at St John's College, Cambridge (matriculated 1805; MA 1807; DD, 1821) and Lincoln's Inn (admitted 1809; called 1812); MP for Bandon Bridge, 1812-15, but resigned to take holy orders; ordained deacon and priest, 1815; rector of Glankeen (Co. Tipperary), 1817-22, Dean of Leighlin (Co. Carlow), 1822-50 and rector of Shankill (Co. Dublin), 1826-33; author of A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland etc. in 1814 (1815); an active promoter of charities and a supporter of the Church Education Society; died unmarried at Leighlin, 2 March 1850;

(3) Hon. Francis Bernard (1789-1813), born 27 February 1789; an officer in the army (Ensign, 1807; Lt., 1808), who served in the Peninsular War; died at Coimbra (Portugal), 24 January 1813;

(4) Lady Henrietta Catherine (aka Catherine Harriet) Bernard (1790-1850), born 7 July 1790; died unmarried, 1 December and was buried at Swindon (Glos), 9 December 1850; administration of goods granted to 4th Earl of Bandon, 10 June 1884 (estate £8,421);

(5) Hon. William Smyth Bernard (1792-1863), born 13 September 1792; an officer in 1st Dragoon Guards (Ensign, 1809; Lt., 1810; Capt., 1815; Br. Maj., 1815; retired on half-pay, 1816; hon. Lt-Col, 1851); High Sheriff of Co. Cork, 1820-21; Provost of Bandon, 1827-28, 1829-30; MP for Bandon, 1832-35, 1857-63; JP for Co. Cork; married, 31 May 1831 at Brinny (Co. Cork), Elizabeth, daughter of Lt-Col. Henry Gillman of Clancoole, Bandon, but had no issue; died 6 February 1863;

(6) Lady Charlotte Esther Bernard (1794-1846), born 28 January 1794; married, 14 June 1816 at Innishannon (Co. Cork), her first cousin, Hayes St. Leger (1786-1854), 3rd Viscount Doneraile, and had issue one son; died at Doneraile House (Co. Cork), 7 February 1846;

(7) Lady Louisa Anne Bernard (1795-1851), born 24 December 1795; died unmarried at Cheltenham (Glos), 26 May and was buried at Swindon (Glos), 31 May 1851; administration of goods granted to 4th Earl of Bandon, 10 June 1884 (estate £8,421);

(8) Hon. Henry Boyle Bernard (1797-1815), born 5 December 1797; an officer in the Horse Guards (Cornet, 1814); killed at the Battle of Waterloo, 26 May 1815;

(9) Hon. Elizabeth Bernard (c.1799-1800); died in infancy and was buried at Ballymodan, 10 January 1800;

(10) Hon. Charles Bernard (b. & d. 1803);

(11) Hon. Charles Ludlow Bernard (1805-61), born 12 April and baptised at Ballymodan, Bandon, 10 May 1805; died unmarried at Thornbury (Co. Cork), 21 January 1861.

He inherited Castle Bernard and Prospect Hall from his father in 1790, and extensively remodelled the house at Castle Bernard. He sold Prospect Hall and his lands at Kinsalebeg in 1825.

He died suddenly on his 75th birthday, 26 November 1830; his will was proved in Dublin, 8 February 1831. His wife died 8 July 1815 and was buried at Ballymodan (Co. Cork).

2nd Earl of Bandon

Bernard, James (1785-1856), 2nd Earl of Bandon. Eldest son of Francis Bernard (1755-1830), 1st Earl of Bandon, and his wife Lady Catherine Henrietta, only daughter of Richard Boyle, 2nd Earl of Shannon, born 14 June 1785. Educated at St John's College, Cambridge (matriculated 1805; MA 1806). He was known as Viscount Bernard from 1800 until he succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Bandon, 26 November 1830. He was elected Tory MP for Youghal, 1806-07, 1818-20, Co. Cork, 1807-18, and Bandon, 1820-26, 1830, on the interests of his grandfather and uncle, the 2nd and 3rd Earls of Shannon. Lord Lieutenant of Co. Cork, 1842-56; Recorder of Bandon; and an Irish representative peer, 1835-56. President of the Cork Art Union and County Grand Master of the Orange Order. He was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Oxford (DCL, 1832) and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, 1845, and is said to have made strenuous efforts during the Great Famine to secure relief for the people of Ireland. He married, 13 March 1809 at Cashel Cathedral (Co. Tipp.), Mary Susan Albinia (1787-1870), daughter of the Hon. & Most Rev. Charles Brodrick, Archbishop of Cashel, and had issue: 

(1) Francis Bernard (1810-77), 3rd Earl of Bandon;

(2) Hon. & Rt. Rev. Charles Brodrick Bernard (1811-90) (q.v.);

(3) Hon. Henry Boyle Bernard (1812-95), of Coolmain Castle (Co. Cork), born 6 February and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), 7 February 1812; educated at Eton, Balliol College, Oxford (matriculated 1831) and Lincoln's Inn (admitted 1834); agent to the Castle Bernard estate; JP for County Cork; Conservative MP for Bandon, 1863-68; an officer in the South Cork Light Infantry militia (later 3rd battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers) (Col., 1854-76; hon. Col., 1876-95); married, 18 January 1848 at St Luke, Cork, Matilda Sophia (c.1827-92), youngest daughter of Lt-Gen. Charles Turner, but had no issue; died 14 March 1895;

(4) Lady Catherine Henrietta Bernard (1813-87), born 11 November and baptised at St James, Paddington, 15 November 1813; lived in London; died unmarried, 20 June, and was buried at Brompton Cemetery, 24 June 1887; will proved in Dublin, 16 October 1893 (effects £21,372);

(5) James Bernard (b. & d. 1815), born 11 June and baptised at St James, Paddington, 27 June 1815; died in infancy, 7 November 1815.

He inherited Castle Bernard from his father in 1830 and remodelled it in the Gothic style.

He died 31 October and was buried at Ballymodan church, Bandon, 7 November 1856, where he was commemorated by a monument. His widow died 23 April and was buried at Bandon, 29 April 1870.

Bernard, Francis (1810-77), 3rd Earl of Bandon. Eldest son of James Bernard (1785-1856), 2nd Earl of Bandon, and his wife Mary Susan, daughter of the Most Rev. the Hon. Charles Brodrick, Archbishop of Cashel, born in London, 3 January, and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), 13 October 1810. Educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford (matriculated 1827; BA 1830; MA 1834; hon. DCL, 1864). Conservative MP for Bandon, January-July 1831, 1842-56. He was known as Viscount Bernard from 1830 until he succeeded his father as 3rd Earl of Bandon, 31 October 1856. A representative peer for Ireland, 1858-77; Lord Lieutenant of Co. Cork, 1874-77. He married, 16 August 1832, at St Nicholas, Brighton (Sussex), Catherine Mary (1811-73), eldest daughter of Thomas Whitmore MP of Apley Park (Shrops.), and had issue:

(1) Lady Mary Catherine Henrietta Bernard (1837-1920), born in London, 2 August and baptised at St Mary, Paddington (Middx), 3 August and again at St Nicholas, Brighton, 7 October 1837; married, 30 July 1863 at Bandon, Col. Richard William Aldworth (1825-99) of Newmarket Court (Co. Cork), High Sheriff of Co. Cork, eldest son of Richard Oliver Aldworth (1794-1887) of Newmarket Court, but had no issue; died 10 January 1920; administration of her goods granted to 4th Earl of Bandon, 3 June 1920 (estate in England, £1,207);

(2) Lady Louisa Albinia Bernard (1841-1928), baptised in Paddington (Middx), 10 April and baptised at St Mary, Paddington, 12 April 1841; lived with her unmarried sisters at 78 Chester Sq., Westminster; died unmarried in London, 25 September 1928, and was buried at East Finchley Cemetery; will proved 12 November 1928 (estate £5,554);

(3) Lady Charlotte Esther Emily Bernard (1843-1934), born in Kensington (Middx), 5 April and was baptised at St Mary, Paddington, 6 April 1843; lived with her unmarried sisters at 78 Chester Sq., Westminster; died unmarried, 13 July and was buried at St Marylebone Cemetery, 17 July 1934; will proved 19 September 1934 (estate £4,501);

(4) Lady Emma Harriet Bernard (1844-1929), born in August and said to have been baptised 26 October 1844; lived with her unmarried sisters at 78 Chester Sq., Westminster; died unmarried in London, 18 October 1929 and was buried at East Finchley Cemetery; will proved 13 December 1929 (estate £6,251);

(5) Lady Adelaide Mary Lucy Bernard (1846-84), said to have been born in Cork and baptised 2 September 1846; married, 11 November 1873 at Ballymodan church, Bandon, as his first wife, Sir Henry Monson de la Poer Beresford-Peirse (1850-1926), 3rd bt., of Bagnall (Co. Waterford) (who m2, 23 January 1886, Henrietta OBE (d. 1926), only daughter of Sir Matthew Smith-Dodsworth, 4th bt., of Newland Park and Thornton Watlass (Yorks), and had further issue one daughter), son and heir of Henry William de la Poer Beresford-Peirse (1820-59) of Bedale and Hutton Bonville (Yorks), and had issue five sons and two daughters; died 29 September 1884 and was buried at Bedale (Yorks);

(6) James Francis Bernard (1850-1924), 4th Earl of Bandon (q.v.);

(7) Lady Kathleen Frances Bernard (1853-1921), born at Castle Bernard, 14 November 1853; married, 2 June 1885 at St Paul, Wilton Place, Knightsbridge (Middx), Alfred William George Gaussen (1855-1910) of Chelsea, son and heir of Frederick Charles Gaussen, barrister-at-law, and had issue one daughter; died 22 February 1921; administration of goods granted to her daughter, 4 August 1921 (estate £2,362).

He inherited Castle Bernard from his father in 1856 and carried out alterations c.1870.

He died 17 February 1877 and was buried at Bandon; his will was proved at Cork 30 April 1877 (effects under £18,000). His wife died 13 December 1873.

4th Earl of Bandon

Bernard, James Francis (1850-1924), 4th Earl of Bandon. Only son of Francis Bernard (1810-77), 3rd Earl of Bandon, and his wife Catherine Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas Whitmore MP of Apley Park (Shrops.), born 12 September 1850. Educated at Eton. ADC to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1874-76 and State Steward to the Lord Lieutenant, 1876-77; High Sheriff of Co. Cork, 1875; Hon. Col. of the Royal Cork Artillery; Chairman of Bandon Board of Guardians and Bandon Town Commissioners; JP for Co. Cork. He succeeded his father as 4th Earl of Bandon, 17 February 1877, and was an Irish representative peer, 1881-1924, who sat on the Conservative benches. Lord Lieutenant of Co. Cork, 1877-1921. He was appointed a Knight of the Order of St Patrick, 1900. On 21 June 1921 he was kidnapped by armed men who came to burn Castle Bernard, and held captive for 3 weeks before being released; his agent was shot and wounded in his home a few days later. He had the reputation of being a good landlord, and was one of the first to take advantage of the Irish Land Act 1903 to sell land to his tenants. He was a freemason from 1869 and served as Grand Secretary, 1875-95 and Provincial Grand Master for Munster. He married, 22 June 1876 at St Michael, Chester Sq,, Westminster (Middx), the Hon. Georgiana Dorothea Harriet CBE (1853-1942), only child of George Patrick Percy Evans-Freke, 7th Baron Carbery, of Laxton Hall (Northants), but had no issue.

He inherited Castle Bernard from his father in 1877, but the house was burned to the ground by the IRA in 1921. He also owned Coolkelure, Dunmanway (Co. Cork), which became his widow's Irish home.

He died in London, 18 May, and was buried at Laxton (Northants), 29 May 1924; his will was proved 26 September 1924 (estate £105,760). His widow died 29 June and was buried at Laxton, 3 July 1942; her will was proved 30 November 1942 (estate £13,394).

Rt. Rev. & Hon. C.B. Bernard 

Bernard, Hon. & Rt. Rev. Charles Brodrick (1811-90). Second son of James Bernard (1785-1856), 2nd Earl of Bandon, and his wife Mary Susan, daughter of the Most Rev. the Hon. Charles Brodrick, Archbishop of Cashel, born 4 January 1811. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford (matriculated 1829; BA 1832; MA 1834; BD and DD, 1866). Ordained deacon, 1835 and priest, 1836. Curate of Desertserges (Co. Cork), 1835-40; rector and prebendary of Kilbrogan, 1840-67; Bishop of Tuam (Co. Galway), Killala and Achonry, 1867-90. He married, 25 July 1843 at St John, Paddington (Middx), Hon. Jane Grace Dorothea (c.1810-92), daughter of Percy Evans-Freke and sister of 7th Lord Carbery, and had issue:

(1) Percy Brodrick Bernard (1844-1912) (q.v.);

(2) James Francis William Charles Boyle Bernard (1847-84), born 22 December and baptised at St Swithin, Walcot, Bath (Som.), 25 December 1847; an officer in the South Cork militia (Lt., 1868; Capt.); married, 25 April 1876 at Ballinasloe (Co. Galway), Emily Georgina (d. 1885), third daughter of Maj. Henry Ireland Gascoigne of Mackney, Ballinasloe, and had issue one son and one daughter; died 31 July 1884; administration of goods granted 12 September 1885 (effects £240).

He lived in the bishop's palace at Tuam.

He died at Tuam, 31 January 1890, but was buried at Bandon; his will was proved 26 March 1890 (effects £19,223). His widow died 5 June 1892; administration of her goods was granted 23 September 1892 (effects £6,355).

Bernard, Percy Brodrick (1844-1912). Elder son of Rt. Rev. the Hon. Charles Brodrick Bernard (1811-90), Bishop of Tuam (Co. Galway) and his wife, the Hon. Jane Grace Dorothea, daughter of Percy Evans-Freke, born 17 September 1844. Educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford (matriculated 1863; BA 1868). An officer in the South Cork Light Infantry militia (later the 3rd battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers) (Capt. 1866; retired 1882); JP and DL for Co. Galway. Private Secretary to the Duke of Abercorn and Duke of Marlborough as Lords Lieutenant of Ireland, 1874-80; Unionist MP for Bandon, 1880, but resigned two months after his election. He stood for parliament again in the South County Dublin constituency, 1906, but withdrew before the poll in favour of Walter Long, Chief Secretary for Ireland. A director of the Dublin United Tramways Co., the Great Southern & Western Railway Co. and the Grand Canal Co. in Ireland. He was a freemason from 1866. He married 1st, 11 April 1872 at St Paul, Wilton Place, Knightsbridge (Middx), Isabel Emma Beatrice (d. 1876), daughter of John Newton Lane, of Kings Bromley Manor (Staffs); 2nd, 6 February 1880 at Tuam Cathedral (Co. Galway), Mary Lissey (1850-98), only daughter and heiress of Denis Kirwan of Castle Hacket (Co Galway); and 3rd, 2 June 1900 at St Mark, North Audley St., Westminster (Middx), Evangeline (1867-1950), second daughter of Henry Hoare of Iden Park, Staplehurst (Kent), a partner in Hoare's Bank, and had issue:

(1.1) Ronald Percy Hamilton Bernard (1875-1921) (q.v.);

(2.1) Frances Mary Bernard (1880-1970), born 18 November 1880; married 1st, 22 February 1900 (div. 1916 on the grounds of his adultery) at St Peter, Eaton Sq., Westminster (Middx), George Arthur Paley (1874-1941) of Ampton Hall (Suffk), son of John Paley of Langcliffe (Yorks) and Ampton, and had issue two sons; married 2nd, 28 September 1916 at St Peter, Drogheda (Co. Louth), Major Henry Hastings Brooke (1882-1920) of Ardeen, Shillelagh (Co. Wicklow), younger son of Rt. Hon. Francis Theophilus Brooke; died in London, 3 March 1970; will proved 15 January 1971 (estate £910);

(2.2) Sir Denis John Charles Kirwan Bernard (1882-1956), born 22 October 1882; educated at Eton and Royal Military College, Sandhurst; an officer in the army (2nd Lt., 1902; Lt., 1906; Maj., 1916; Lt-Col., 1917; Col., 1923; Brig., 1931; Maj-Gen., 1933; retired as Lt-Gen., 1939), who served in the First World War and was awarded the DSO, 1917; on general staff in India, 1930-34; ADC to King George V, 1932; Director of Recruiting and Organisation, War Office, 1934-36; Col. of Royal Ulster Rifles, 1937-47; Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Bermuda, 1939-41; DL for Co. Galway; appointed CMG 1919 and KCB, 1939; inherited Castle Hacket (Co. Galway) from his half-brother in 1921; died unmarried, 25 August 1956;

(2.3) Mary Winifred Bernard (1886-1960), born 27 October 1886; married, 27 July 1920 at St Peter, Eaton Sq., Westminster, Lt-Col. Robert Leach Galloway DSO (1884-1970) of Lough Gur Grange, Kilmallock (Co. Limerick), son of Col. Frank Galloway of Leamington Spa (Warks), but had no issue; died 21 April 1960; will proved in Dublin, 30 January 1961 (estate £1,166);

(2.4) Percy Arthur Ernald Bernard (1889-1922), born 17 February 1889; an officer in the Royal Army Service Corps (2nd Lt.; Lt., 1916; retired as Capt., 1919) who served as an driver with a motor ambulance unit in the First World War; died at Montana (Switzerland), 22 February 1922; will proved 23 May 1922 (estate £2,978);

(3.1) Morogh Wyndham Percy Bernard (1902-77), born 5 February 1902; educated at Wellington College; married, 15 April 1929 at St Baldred, North Berwick (East Lothian), Hon. Diana Pearl (1902-79), second daughter of Henry Charles Clement Dundas (1873-1935), 7th Viscount Melville, and had issue one daughter; lived at The Old Glebe House, Shankhill (Co. Dublin); died 16 February 1977. 

He lived at Castle Hackett (Co Galway), and also had a house called Collegues at Booterstown (Co. Dublin).
He died 18 July 1912 at Booterstown (Co. Dublin) and was buried at Tuam; his will was proved at Tuam, 8 October 1912 (estate £15,905). His first wife died 1 May 1876. His second wife died 1 August 1898; her will was proved at Tuam, 4 October 1898 (effects £9,402). His widow married 2nd, 5 November 1919 at St. Catherine's, nr. Bath (Som.), Hon. Charles Hedley Strutt (1849-1926) of Blunt's Hall, Witham (Essex), second son of John James Strutt (1796-1873), 2nd Baron Rayleigh, lived latterly at Sunningdale (Berks), and died 17 February 1950; her will was proved 29 April 1950 (estate £28,426).

Bernard, Ronald Percy Hamilton (1875-1921). Only son of Percy Brodrick Bernard (1844-1912) and his first wife, Isabel Emma Beatrice, daughter of John Newton Lane of Bromley Manor (Staffs), born in Dublin, 18 March 1875 and baptised at Castleknock (Co. Dublin). Educated at Eton and Royal Military College, Sandhurst. An officer in the Rifle Brigade (2nd Lt., 1895; Lt., 1898; Capt., 1901; retired 1910; returned to army, 1915; Maj., 1916; retired at Lt-Col.), who served in the Boer War. He married, 5 January 1904 at St Paul, Wilton Place, Knightsbridge (Middx), Lettice Mina (1880-1969), daughter and co-heiress of Capt. Gerald Cecil Stewart Paget (1854-1913) of The Hatch, Bray (Berks), and had issue:

(1) twin, Percy Ronald Gardener Bernard (1904-79), 5th Earl of Bandon (q.v.);

(2) twin, Hon. Charles Brodrick Amyas Bernard (1904-77) of Kelsale (Suffk), born 30 August 1904; educated at Wellington College; granted style and precedence of an earl's son, 1925; an officer in the army (2nd Lt., 1924; Lt., 1926; Capt., 1935; A/Maj., 1939), who served in the Second World War and was mentioned in despatches, but was cashiered following a court martial, 26 November 1940; married, 13 July 1937, the Hon Ursula Margaret (1910-63), daughter of Odo Richard Vivian (1875-1934), 3rd Baron Swansea, but had no issue; died 28 February 1977 and was buried at Kelsale; will proved 28 April 1977 (estate £423,140);

(3) Lady Cynthia Lettice Margaret Bernard (1905-2000), born 5 December 1905; granted style and precedence of an earl's daughter, 1925; amateur pilot (licence, 1947); married 1st, 21 July 1925 (div. 1936 on the grounds of her adultery with Prof. Archibald M. Low) at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), Major Francis Christisson Darby Tothill RA (1901-92) (who m2, 1936, Muriel Frances Butt (1908-79)), son of Adm. Sir Hugh Tothill of Bradford on Avon (Wilts), and had issue one daughter; married 2nd, 9 December 1947, Air Comm. Lionel Guy Stanhope Payne, CBE, MC (1894-1965), son of Peter George Stanhope Payne, barrister at law; died 15 May 2000; will proved 7 July 2000.

He lived at Bury Green House, Waltham Cross (Essex).

He died 2 February 1921 and was buried at Cheshunt Cemetery (Herts); his will was proved 7 May 1921 (estate £1,991). His widow married 2nd, 27 May 1922, Hon. Charles Christopher Josceline Littleton DSO (1872-1950), of Kelsale (Suffk); she died 6 December 1969 and her will was proved 26 March 1970 (estate £43,461).

5th Earl of Bandon 

Bernard, Percy Ronald Gardener (k/a Paddy) (1904-79), 5th Earl of Bandon. Elder twin son of Ronald Percy Bernard (1875-1921) and his wife Lettice Mina, daughter and co-heiress of Capt. Gerald Cecil Stewart Paget of The Hatch, Bray (Berks), born at Gillingham (Kent), 30 August 1904. Educated at Wellington College, the RAF College, Cranwell, and RAF Staff College (in 1938). He succeeded his kinsman as 5th Earl of Bandon, 18 May 1924. An officer in the Royal Air Force (Pilot Offr, 1924; Flyg Offr, 1926; F/Lt., 1930; Sq-Ldr, 1936; Wing-Cdr., 1940; Gp-Capt., 1941; Air-Comm, 1944; Air Vice-Marshal, 1952; Air Marshal, 1957; Air Chief Marshal, 1959; retired 1964), who served in the Second World War and was awarded the DSO, 1940. Commandant of the Royal Observer Corps, 1945-48; Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Training), 1953-55; Commander-in-Chief, 2nd Tactical Air Force, 1955-57; Commander-in-Chief, Far East Air Forces, 1957-60; Commander of Allied Air Forces in Central Europe, 1961-63. He was appointed CB, 1945; CVO, 1953; KBE, 1957; and GBE, 1960. A man of exceptional leadership skills and moral courage, he came to epitomize the man that young RAF officers wanted their senior leaders to be, but his irreverent and non-conformist attitude and his schoolboy humour often found him in hot water with his superiors. He married 1st, 28 February 1933 (div. 1946) at Nairobi Cathedral (Kenya), Maybel Elizabeth (k/a Betty) (1905-87), daughter of Raymond Playfair of Nairobi, banker and 2nd, 2 October 1946, Lois (d. 1999), daughter of Francis Russell of Victoria (Australia) and formerly wife of Sq-Ldr. Frederick Arthur White, and had issue:

(1.1) Lady Jennifer Jane Bernard (1935-2010), born 30 April 1935; co-heir of Castle Bernard; died unmarried, 3 June 2010;

(1.2) Lady Frances Elizabeth Bernard (b. 1943), born 4 February 1943; co-heir of Castle Bernard; married, 1 April 1967 at Padworth (Berks), Paul Mark Carter (b. 1940) of Hill House, Midgham (Berks), accountant, and had issue one daughter.

He inherited the Castle Bernard estate on the death of his kinsman, the 4th Earl of Bandon, in 1924, but little else. The house was then in ruins following the burning in 1921, and he used the compensation of £123,000 which he received to build a small house behind the ruins.

He died in Cork, 8 February 1979. His first wife married 2nd, 20 October 1965, Sir Reginald Culcheth Holcroft (1899-1978), 2nd bt, of Pulverbatch (Shrops.); she died 8 August 1987. His widow died 16 October 1999.

Principal sources

Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 1967, p. 161; G. Bennett, The history of Bandon, and the principal towns in the West Riding of County Cork, 1869; E.M. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament, 1692-1800, 2002, vol. 3, pp. 172-78; F. Keohane, The buildings of Ireland: Cork - city and county, 2020, pp. 290-91; 

https://theirishaesthete.com/2019/05/06/bandon/

http://kinsalebeg.com/chapters/houses/houses.html;

https://www.dia.ie/works/view/56267/building/CO.+CORK%2C+CASTLE+BERNARD.

Location of archives

Bernard family, Earls of Bandon: estate ledgers, 1719-1888 [Cork County Archives, U137]

It is likely that most of the family papers were destroyed in the burning of Castle Bernard in 1921. 

Coat of arms

Argent, on a bend azure, three escallops of the field.

Can you help?

• Can anyone provide evidence of the relationship between Francis Bernard (d. 1659) and the Barnards of Margaretting?
• Can anyone provide an image of Bassingbourn Hall before its demolition in the 19th century (not the farmhouse which now bears that name)?
• Can anyone provide an image of Michael Shanahan's neo-classical Castle Bernard before it was altered in the mid 19th century?
• Can anyone provide portraits or photographs of the people whose names appear in bold above, for whom no image is currently shown?
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 10 October 2024 and updated 11 October 2024.