Charles Brownlow, 1st Baron Lurgan

Charles Brownlow, 1st Baron Lurgan PC (17 April 1795 – 30 April 1847) was an Irish politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1818 to 1832 and was raised to the peerage in 1839.

Life

Brownlow was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Brownlow and his wife Caroline Ashe.^[1] In 1818 he was elected Member of Parliament for Armagh and held the seat until 1832.^[2] In 1829, the year of the Catholic Emancipation Act, Brownlow gave the Rev. W.O. O'Brien land for a church in the townland of Derry.^[3] In 1833 he had built Brownlow House designed by the Edinburgh architect William Henry Playfair in the Elizabethan style and constructed of Scottish sandstone^[4] He was High Sheriff of Armagh in 1834 and was raised to the peerage by Queen Victoria, as Baron Lurgan, of Lurgan in the County of Armagh, on 14 May 1839.^[5]

Brownlow was keen to improve his estate and was actively concerned with the welfare of the people of Lurgan. During the Great Famine he was chairman of the Lurgan Board of Guardians and was constantly at his post. While alleviating distress and attending the wants of the Union, he contracted typhus fever which led to his death at the age of 52.^[6]

Family

Brownlow married Lady Mary Bligh, daughter of John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley and Elizabeth Brownlow, on 1 June 1822. He married as his second wife Jane Macneill, daughter of Roderick Macneill of Barra, on 15 July 1828. His son by his second wife, Charles Brownlow, succeeded him.^[1]

References

1. the Peerage.com
2. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "A" (part 2)
3. Craigavon Historical Society – The Brownlow family and the rise of Lurgan
4. Brownlow House - History
5. The London Gazette: no. 19730. p. 928. 3 May 1839.
6. History from Headstones – Shankill Graveyard, Lurgan

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by The Lord Lurgan