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STEPHEN CATTERSON SMITH (1806-1872)
(AFTER THOMAS BEECHEY)
Portrait of Lord Lorton, standing three-quarter length wearing military uniform, with cape.
Oil on canvas, 140 x 110cm
Robert Edward King (1773-1854) was a younger son of the 2nd Earl of Kingston and inherited the Rockingham estate. His daughter,
Jane, married Anthony Lefroy of Carriglass. A supporter of the Union King received titles and built an architecturally advanced
house to the designs of John Nash c.1810. He had already fought a duel with his mother’s half-brother Colonel Fitzgerald who had
abducted his sister and was subsequently implicated in the Colonel’s murder at the Kilworth Inn near Mitchelstown. Opinion is
divided over his reputation as a landlord; a ruthless policy of evictions, was coupled with subsidies for tenants to resettle in Canada
and he pursued a responsible and relatively generous policy in dealing with the famine. It was, however, all a puff of wind as his son
the 2nd Viscount (also 6th Earl of Kingston) and his adulteress wife Ann Gore-Booth ruined the estate by leading a rackety life on
the continent producing random children of doubtful parentage.
Provenance: Carrigglas Manor
€4000 - 8,000
