James Butler, 1st Marquess of Ormonde


James Wandesford Butler, 1st Marquess of Ormonde, was an Irish nobleman and politician. He was the second son of John Butler, 17th Earl of Ormonde and Frances Susan Elizabeth Wandesford. He was born at Kilkenny castle on July 15, 1774.
Butler was a Member of Parliament for Kilkenny City in the Irish House of Commons in 1796 and served then for Kilkenny County until the Act of Union in 1801. He sat subsequently for the Irish county constituency of County Kilkenny and was member of the UK House of Commons from 1801, until he succeeded to the peerage, as 19th Earl of Ormonde, in 1820, on the death of his elder brother, Walter, the 18th Earl and 1st Marquess of Ormonde in the Irish peerage. He was a well known advocate for the Irish people with his first speech at Westminster condemning the Irish Window tax and defending the right of Irish landowners.
Having joined fashionable society in London, he became a companion of the Prince Regent. Subsequently, at the Prince's coronation as George IV, he was created a Peer of the United Kingdom, as Baron Ormonde, of Llanthony, in the county of Monmouth and in 1825, Marquess of Ormonde.

Marriage and children

He married Grace Louisa Staples, daughter of Rt. Hon. John Staples and Hon. Henrietta Molesworth, on 12 October 1807. They had five sons and five daughters: