Country House Collections at Slane Castle 13
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&14
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October 2013
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686
ATTRIBUTED TO PETER MONAMY (1681-1749)
Third Raters from the Red Fleet Outside a Port Entrance
and
Third Raters with bare poles outside a coastal battery, possibly Calshot castle, near Spithead
Oil on canvas, 31 x 42cm
€6000 - 10000
Provenance: Possibly Admiral William Wolseley, by decent at Hilton Park, Co. Monaghan
WOLSELEY, WILLIAM (1756–1842), admiral, of the Irish branch of the old Staffordshire family of Wolseley, was born on 15 March 1756
at Annapolis in Nova Scotia, where his father, Captain William Neville Wolseley, of the 47th regiment, was garrisoned. His mother was,
the sister of Admiral Phillips Cosby. In 1764 the family returned to Ireland; and in 1769 William, who had been at school in Kilkenny, was
entered on board the Goodwill cutter at Waterford, commanded by his father’s brother-in-law. This was to be the start of an illustrious
naval career for Wolseley who served all over the world, from fighting pirates in the Indian Ocean to being present at the siege of Toulon.
Towards the end of 1795 he married Jane, daughter of John Moore of Clough House, Co. Down—grandson of a Scottish officer, Colonel
Muir, who had served in Ireland under William III and obtained a grant of land. He took a little place near Clough House, and lived
there in retirement except during the rebellion of 1798, when he commanded a company of volunteers which took part in the ‘battle’ of
Ballynahinch. In the spring of 1842 an old wound, received sixty years before at the storming of Fort Ostenberg, opened and would not
heal. The surgeons came to the conclusion that something must have remained in the wound, and, as the result of an operation, extracted
a jagged piece of lead and a fragment of cloth. The wound, indeed, would not heal and gradually losing strength, he died in London on 7
June 1842.
