Tristram Kennedy

Tristram Kennedy
Tristram Kennedy; MP
Member of Parliament ; for County Louth
	In office; 15 April 1865 – 24 November 1868 Serving with Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue
Preceded by	Richard Bellew; Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue
Succeeded by	Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue; Matthew Dease
	In office; 22 July 1852 – 10 April 1857 Serving with Chichester Fortescue
Preceded by	Richard Bellew; Chichester Fortescue
Succeeded by	Chichester Fortescue; John McClintock
Personal details
Born	27 June 1805; Inishowen, County Donegal, Ireland
Died	20 November 1885 (aged 80); Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England
Resting place	Cossington, Somerset, England
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Liberal
Other political; affiliations	Independent Irish Party (July 1852–1859); Whig (until July 1852)
Spouse(s)	Sarah Graham (m. 1862)
Children	Seven
Parents	John Pitt Kennedy; Mary Cary

Tristram Edward Kennedy (27 June 1805 – 20 November 1885)[1][2] was an Irish Liberal, Whig and Independent Irish Party politician, and lawyer.

Family

Born at Inishowen, County Donegal, Kennedy was the twelfth child of Church of Ireland clergyman John Pitt Kennedy and Mary Cary, daughter of Thomas Cary. In 1862, he married Sarah Helen Margaret Graham, daughter of George Templar Graham and Frances Margaret Golightly, and together they had seven children:[2][3]

Horace Graham Kennedy (born 1863)
George Portalés (died as an infant)
Tristram Edward Whiteside Kennedy (born 1866)
Pitt Shadwell Portalés Kennedy (1868–1911)
Francis Malcolm Evory Kennedy (born 1869), an officer in the Worcestershire Regiment
Theodora (died as an infant)
Caroline Mary Dorothea Kennedy (born 1880)

Legal career

He was educated at Derry Free Grammar School, becoming an attorney and then, in 1828, High Sheriff of Londonderry City. In that role, he chaired a lengthy and controversial debate between Protestant and Catholic clergyman, winning admiration from both sides. However, in 1829, he was struck off the roll of attorneys, and entered Lincoln's Inn and King's Inns in Dublin, before being called to the bar of Ireland in 1834, aiming to improve legal education standards.[2]

In doing this, he opened the Dublin Law Institute in 1839, starting the education of a subject not taught systematically in Ireland for at least 200 years. This campaign to reform legal education was widely supported, and helped by Waterford City MP Thomas Wyse.[2] It was also said to stimulate the academic study of English law at British and Irish universities, sped up the introduction of qualifications, and pointed out ideological rationale at the time that attorneys must attend English law inns before being able to practice on the Irish Bar.[2]

In 1846, the House of Commons select committee on legal education, chaired by Wyse, produced a report on legal education, influencing the future of both English and Irish legal education.[2]

However, this law school entered troubled times and collapsed in 1845, leading to Kennedy shortly after ending his legal career and becoming a land agent on the 13,500-tenant Bath estates in County Monaghan, where he "sternly refused to adopt any of the cruel remedies applied in other quarters" during the Great Famine, and allowed tenants to run great arrears. Fewer than one in four tenants were able to read and write, leading Kennedy to establish seven new national schools.[4] This work, and his initiation of the Carrickmacross lace industry, is largely credited to his later election to Parliament.[2]

Political career

He was elected MP for County Louth as a Whig candidate in 1852[5] before joining the Independent Irish Party just after the election. Whilst in Parliament, he contributed primarily to debates on landlord and tenant matters, or national and industrial education.[2] Standing in this capacity in 1857, he lost the seat.[6] At the 1859 general election, he stood as a Liberal for King's County, but ended at the bottom of the poll.[6]

He was re-elected as a Liberal candidate at a by-election in 1865 and held the seat until he stood down in 1868, after a sectarian campaign waged by Matthew Dease, the successful Liberal candidate. In 1874, Kennedy stood for election in Donegal, but was unsuccessful.[6][2]

Later life

Kennedy was also a member of the Dublin Social and Statistical Inquiry Society, visiting Belgium to inspect responses to poverty in that country and then, in 1855 with W. K. Sullivan, publishing a booklet on industrial training. He later, in 1877 and 1878, published two tracts on the reform of law and legal education.[2]

Kennedy died in 1885 at his home, Charleville, The Shrubbery, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset and was buried at Cossington village church.[2]

gollark: You haven't heard of Karl Gruen?

gollark: This would only be better if workers would be allowed to decide between themselves to work, and by means of political means they would have a higher power. The chief representative and classical type of this tendency is Mr Karl Gruen. In particular, it may be seen that at work it is not possible to produce more workers and more people, if this is the case. Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression when, and only when, it becomes a mere figureof speech. It is an attitude which allows the individual to express his own mind without any kind of form of communication, but can be regarded as a mere expression of the mind.

gollark: If I post a large wall of text, it is *generally* copied off the internet.

gollark: Heav.

gollark: In some sense.

References

Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "L" (part 4)
Kenny, Colum (23 September 2004). "Kennedy, Tristram Edward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/51398. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Lart, Charles Edmund (1924). Huguenot Pedigrees, Volume 1. Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 75. ISBN 9780806302072.
Kenny, Colum (20 July 2015). "An Irishman's Diary on Tristram Kennedy". The Irish Times. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
"The General Election". London Evening Standard. London. 19 July 1852. pp. 3–4. Retrieved 28 February 2018 – via British Newspaper Archive.
Walker, B.M., ed. (1978). Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. ISBN 0901714127.

External links

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Mr Tristram Kennedy

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Richard Bellew Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue	Member of Parliament for County Louth 1865 – 1868 With: Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue	Succeeded by Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue Matthew Dease
Preceded by Richard Bellew Chichester Fortescue	Member of Parliament for County Louth 1852 – 1857 With: Chichester Fortescue	Succeeded by Chichester Fortescue John McClintock

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[1] Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "L" (part 4)

[odnb-2] Kenny, Colum (23 September 2004). "Kennedy, Tristram Edward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/51398. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

[3] Lart, Charles Edmund (1924). Huguenot Pedigrees, Volume 1. Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 75. ISBN 9780806302072.

[irishtimes-4] Kenny, Colum (20 July 2015). "An Irishman's Diary on Tristram Kennedy". The Irish Times. Retrieved 28 February 2018.

[5] "The General Election". London Evening Standard. London. 19 July 1852. pp. 3–4. Retrieved 28 February 2018 – via British Newspaper Archive.

[walker-6] Walker, B.M., ed. (1978). Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. ISBN 0901714127.