William Yelverton, 4th Viscount Avonmore


Major The Rt. Hon. William Charles Yelverton, 4th Viscount Avonmore, was an Irish nobleman and soldier. He was the son of The 3rd Viscount Avonmore and Cecilia O'Keeffe. Major William Charles Yelverton gained the rank of Major in the service of the Royal Artillery. He was invested as a Knight, Order of the Medjidie 5th class. He was usually known to family and friends as Charles.

Marriages

William Charles Yelverton married, firstly, Maria Theresa Longworth on 15 August 1857 in Rostrevor, County Down, Ireland. The marriage was dissolved. The union was childless.
He married, secondly, Mrs. Emily Marianne Forbes, daughter of Maj.-Gen. Sir Charles Ashworth and Mary Anne Rooke, on 26 June 1858, in Trinity Chapel, Edinburgh, Scotland; Emily Forbes, at the time of the marriage, was the widow of Prof. Edward Forbes, the naturalist.

''Thelwall v. Yelverton'' lawsuit

The validity of his first marriage was tested in the Yelverton case, a 19th-century Irish law case, which eventually resulted in a change to the law on mixed religion marriages in Ireland.
Under a Statute of King George II, any marriage between a Catholic and a Protestant or a marriage between two Protestants celebrated by a Catholic priest was null and void. Between 21 February 1861 and 4 March 1861, the trial of Thelwall v. Yelverton found that even though Major Yelverton was a Protestant, and Miss Longworth a Roman Catholic, and though they had been married by a Roman Catholic priest, the marriage was valid. In March 1861 he was suspended from all military duties. On 28 July 1864 on appeal, the decision of Thelwall v. Yelverton was reversed, and the House of Lords decided that William's first marriage was illegal, and therefore his second marriage was valid.

Children

William Charles Yelverton and Mrs. Emily Marianne Yelverton had four children:
Major Yelverton outlived his older brother, thus succeeding his father in the viscountcy in the Peerage of Ireland in October 1870. Henceforth he was styled as The Rt. Hon. The 4th Viscount Avonmore.
Lord Avonmore died in Biarritz in April 1883.