Showing 1289 results

Born in 1846, the eldest son of 9th Lord Digby, he was educated at Harrow and then joined the Coldstream Guards, where he made his career, rising to the rank of Colonel and serving in the Sudan from 1885 to 1889. He also served as M.P. for Dorset from 1876-1885. On the death of his father in 1889, he resigned his commission and came home to Minterne. In 1893 he married Emily Beryl, daughter of Col. the Hon. Albert Hood and they had three sons and three daughters.

He became involved in local affairs, accepting the appointment as Chairman of the Board of Herrison Hospital, Charminster and serving as a J.P. and local magistrate, Chairman of the Dorchester Agricultural Society and honorary Colonel in the Dorset Regiment. He planted the rhododendron gardens at Minterne and sponsored plant expeditions to China and the Himalayas, breeding his own varieties in his glass houses and becoming a member of the Royal Horticultural Society.

The house at Minterne suffered from damp and dry rot, and in 1906 he fulfilled his promise to his wife to build a new house. He employed the architect Leonard Stokes, who had built Post Offices and was famously difficult to get on with. However, Lord Digby’s friendly and practical approach charmed him and he produced a marvellous design for his only country house which is still comfortable to live in.

He took an active interest in his estate at Geashill, and was saddened when the Irish Land Act of 1903 resulted in the end of the link with a number of his tenants, some of whom had been on the Digby estate for generations.

A nationalist political party founded by William O'Brien in 1898, in Westport, Co. Mayo, its main objective was to force landlords to break up large uncultivated grasslands, surrender them to the Congested Districts boards, and redistribute them to tenants of smaller agricultural holdings. By 1900 it had 462 branches in 25 counties.

Edward Kenelm Digby was born in 1894, the eldest son of 10th Baron Digby. After Eton and Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards in 1915. He fought at the battles of Aubers Ridge and Loos in 1915 and was promoted to second-in-command at the age of 21, after his CO was killed. He took part in the battle of the Somme in 1916, when tanks were first used; 11 officers of his battalion were killed on one day in September 1916 and all the others were wounded except him. In 1917 he fought at Passchendaele and played a major role in the occupation and final defeat of Germany in 1918.

On his return home, he married Constance Pamela Bruce, daughter of 2nd Baron Aberdare in 1919 and inherited Minterne from his father when he died in 1920. He couldn’t afford to live at Minterne, so he took the post of Military Secretary to the Governor of Australia from 1920 to 1923. With his bank balance restored, he came back to Minterne, where he bred Channel Island cattle and established a thriving dairy herd. On the outbreak of war in 1939, Minterne was taken over by a naval hospital, and the family moved to Cerne Abbas. During the war, he and Lady Digby delivered the milk around Cerne Abbas.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he bred rhododendrons and azaleas, sponsored collecting expeditions abroad. He was appointed President of the Royal Show in 1949, and President of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1959. He was Lord Lieutenant of Dorset from 1952 until his death. He was appointed Gentleman at Arms 1939, and a member of the Household Body Guard in 1952, resigning on grounds of ill-health. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1960.

He died in 1964 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward Henry Kenelm, 12th Baron Digby.

Peadar Bracken was born in Tullamore in 1887. A lifelong nationalist, he joined the Tullamore branch of the Gaelic League in 1902 and was recruited into the IRB in 1904 at the age of 17. A stone-cutter by trade, he emigrated in 1911 to Perth in Western Australia where he joined his brother Denis in the stone-cutting business there. On hearing of the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, Peadar returned to Tullamore and was elected by the Tullamore Volunteers as their First Captain. In November 1914, he was arrested along with 45 others for his involvement in the Geashill Cattle Drive. Due to the fact that he had discharged a fireream during the melée, he was sentenced to six months imprisonment in Mountjoy Gaol but only served two.

In 1915 he was appointed First Commandant of the newly formed Athlone IV Brigade. In March 1916, he was a key figure in the Tullamore Incident and fired ‘the first shots’ in the affray. He and Seamus O’Brennan subsequently went on the run. During the 1916 Rising, he held key positions in the heart of the fighting, as OC O’Connell Bridge and holding the GPO until surrender. He was released from Kilmainham Gaol in June 1916 and immediately reorganised the Athlone IV Brigade. During the War of Independence he was appointed overall Commandant of No 1 and No 2 Offaly IRA Brigades and Staff Officer to IRA-HQ. He was interned in the Curragh Camp in 1921 but was released in October of that year. Following the establishment of the Free State, he was appointed first clerk of the courts for Tullamore and later to Daingean, Clara and Ferbane. In 1934 he was appointed commissioner for oaths and in the 1940s he served as staff officer with the Tullamore Local Defence Force. His military pension application was approved in 1940 and he was awarded medals for his involvement in the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence. He died in January 1916.