Charles Agar, 1st Earl of Normanton
Charles Agar, 1st Earl of Normanton, was an Anglo-Irish Protestant clergyman. He served as Archbishop of Dublin from 1801 to 1809.
Agar was the third son of Henry Agar of Gowran in County Kilkenny and his wife Anne Ellis, daughter of the Most Reverend Welbore Ellis, Bishop of Meath. James Agar, 1st Viscount Clifden was his elder brother and Welbore Ellis, 1st Baron Mendip his maternal uncle.
He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford.
Agar served as Dean of Kilmore and Bishop of Cloyne. In 1779 he was admitted to the Irish Privy Council and appointed Archbishop of Cashel, which was an archbishopric until 1838, an office he held until 1801, and was then Archbishop of Dublin from 1801 to 1809. Agar is known to have held particularly marked Calvinistic positions.
In 1794 Agar was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Somerton. In 1801 he was created Viscount Somerton and in 1806 he was even further honoured when he was made Earl of Normanton. These titles were also in the Peerage of Ireland. From 1800 to 1809 he sat in the House of Lords as one of the 28 original Irish Representative Peers.
Lord Normanton died in July 1809, aged 72, and was succeeded in his secular titles by his son Welbore Ellis Agar. He is buried in the north transept of Westminster Abbey; his widow Jane, Countess of Normanton was buried alongside him following her death in 1826.
