Robert Gerard, 1st Baron Gerard

Contents

Robert Tolver Gerard, 1st Baron Gerard (1808–1887) was a British Army officer, landowner and coalowner, and courtier.[1]

Early life and background

He was the third son, in a family of six sons and two daughters, of John Gerard of Windle Hall, son of Sir Robert Gerard, 9th Baronet of Bryn, and his wife Elizabeth Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton. He was educated at Oscott College.[1][2][3]

The Gerards were a recusant family, who used the Sankey Canal to extract coal from their estate on the Lancashire Coalfield from the middle of the 18th century. The 10th and the 11th Baronets, of the Gerard baronets of Bryn (1611), were his uncles.[4]

Collieries based around Ashton-in-Makerfield became very active by the middle of the 19th century. At this period they operated on Gerard family leases.[5]

Military career

Gerard entered in 1828 the Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards) as a cornet, becoming lieutenant in 1836, captain in 1837, and retiring on half pay in 1839. All these ranks were held by purchase.[6] From 1867 he held the post of Yeomanry ADC in the Royal Household, with honorary rank of colonel.[7]

When the Lancashire Hussars was reformed in 1848 as a militia cavalry unit, Gerald's brother the 12th Baronet became its commanding officer. Robert Gerard himself took on that role, as Major-Commandant, at the end of 1854. His theoretical retirement from the Army some years earlier had been as a major in the 68th Foot. He had also been a half-pay major of the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry.[6]

Baronet

Robert Gerard became the 13th Baronet, of Bryn, in 1854 on the death of his elder brother John, the 12th Baronet. A chancery case Walmesley v Gerard was subsequently brought, in which Sir Robert was the defendant, on the interpretation of a "shifting clause" in the will of the 11th Baronet.[8][9] In 1859 Gerard was High Sheriff of Lancashire.[10]

The House of Lords committee report of 1862 on "Injury from Noxious Vapours", proposed by the Earl of Derby, was prompted in part by Gerard's claims of damage to land values by alkali works in the St Helens area.[11][12] In 1875 a parliamentary committee looked into the water supply for the town of Ashton-in-Makerfield, stated to be five-sixths owned by Sir Robert Gerard.[13]

Baron

Benjamin Disraeli once said to Gerard "Catholics and Tories are natural allies."[14] In fact in 1871 Gerard had a clear preference for the 15th Earl of Derby, son of the late Prime Minister.[15] A significant landowner, he was made a Baron in 1876 from a list of Disraeli's, in a trio of men with annual income in the range £45,000 to £60,000.[16]

Family

Gerard married in 1849 Harriet Clifton, daughter of Edward Clifton of Lytham Hall and his wife Elizabeth Scarisbrick-Eccleston, sister of Charles Scarisbrick. The couple had two sons and two daughters.[1] Of the daughters:

  • Mary Monica married in 1878 Laurence Oliphant.[17]
  • Katharine Frances (died 1924) married in 1880 Martin Gosselin.[17]

The sons were:

  • William Cansfield Gerard (1851–1902) who married in 1877 Mary Emmeline Laura Milner, granddaughter of Marcus Beresford, and succeeded as the 2nd Baron.[17]
  • Robert Joseph Gerard-Dicconson (1857–1918), who added the surname Dicconson in 1896, married in 1888 Eleanor Sarah Bankes.[17][18]

Isabel Burton was the Baron's niece, daughter of his sister Eliza, who married in 1830 Henry Raymond Arundell.[17][19]

References

  1. 1.[1.2][1.3]Crisp, Frederick Arthur, ed. (1903). Visitation of England and Wales. Vol. 9. London: Privately printed. p. 110.
  2. 2.Chancery, Great Britain Court of; Beavan, Charles (1862). Reports of Cases in Chancery, Argued and Determined in the Rolls Court During the Time of Lord Langdale, Master of the Rolls. [1838-1866]. Saunders & Benning. p. 322.
  3. 3.Baines, Edward (1836). History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster: III. Fisher. p. 641.
  4. 4.Giblin, J. F. (1990). "The Gerard family of Bryn and Ince and the Parish of SS Oswald and Edmund in Ashton-in-Makerfield" (PDF). North West Catholic History. XVII: 8–9.
  5. 5."Garswood & Brynn". Northern Mine Research Society.
  6. 6.[6.2]Annand, A. McK. (1962). "Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Robert Tolver Gerard, Bt., and the Lancashire Hussars". Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 40 (164): 196. ISSN 0037-9700.
  7. 7.Debrett's Illustrated Baronetage and knightage (and companionage) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1876. p. 193.
  8. 8.The Law Journal Reports: For the Year. E.B. Ince. 1861. p. 443.
  9. 9.Chancery, Great Britain Court of; Beavan, Charles (1862). Reports of Cases in Chancery, Argued and Determined in the Rolls Court During the Time of Lord Langdale, Master of the Rolls. [1838-1866]. Saunders & Benning. p. 321.
  10. 10.Debrett's Peerage and Titles of Courtesy. Dean & Son. 1879. p. 270.
  11. 11."Noxious Vapours - Hansard - UK Parliament". hansard.parliament.uk.
  12. 12.Great Britain Parliament House of Lords (1862). Reports from Select Committees of the House of Lords and Evidence. p. 258.
  13. 13.Gas Journal: Light, Heat, Power, Bye-products. T. G. Barlow. 1875. p. 403.
  14. 14.Purcell, Edmund Sheridan (1896). Manning as an Anglican. Macmillan. p. 687.
  15. 15.Davey, Jennifer (2019). Mary, Countess of Derby, and the Politics of Victorian Britain. Oxford University Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-19-878625-2.
  16. 16.Blake, Robert (19 April 2012). Disraeli. Faber & Faber. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-571-28755-0.
  17. 17.[17.2][17.3][17.4][17.5]Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (99th ed.). London: Burke's Peerage Ltd. and Shaw Publishing. 1949. pp. 818–819.
  18. 18.Burke, Bernard (1900). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain. Harrison & Sons. p. 68.
  19. 19.A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. Henry Colburn. 1880. p. 50.