Arthur Annesley, 10th Viscount Valentia


Arthur Annesley, 10th Viscount Valentia was an English-born land-owner, an Irish peer and the Premier Baronet of Ireland.

Family

Arthur Annesley was born on 30 November 1785, the eldest son of Arthur Annesley, MP for Oxford between 1790 and 1796, and his wife, Catherine Hardy, a daughter of Admiral Sir Charles Hardy. He was a male-line, paternal descendant of the first Viscount Valentia.
He married, on 12 August 1808, Eleanor O'Brien, the daughter of Henry O'Brien of Blatherwycke park, Northamptonshire and his wife Margaret Flenary. Together, they had thirteen children, four sons and nine daughters:
On the death of the ninth Viscount Valentia, who had no immediate relatives, Annesley, being a very distant cousin, assumed the peerage, which had been created in 1642, without attempting to establish this right in the House of Lords. Cokayne points out that he was "probably correct" in assuming the peerage. He also assumed the title of Baron Mountnorris, another Irish peerage, which was also held by the ninth Viscount, and was the Premier Baronet of Ireland, inheriting also the Annesley Baronetcy, of Newport Pagnell.

Ancestry

Later life

Lord Valentia died on 30 December 1863 at Bletchingdon park, aged 78. His wife had predeceased him, having died on 10 June 1843.

Citations