David Plunket, 1st Baron Rathmore

The Right Honourable The Lord Rathmore PC QC
"hereditary eloquence" Plunket as caricatured by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) in Vanity Fair, May 1880
Paymaster-General
In office 24 March 1880 – 21 April 1880
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Earl of Beaconsfield
Preceded by	Sir Stephen Cave
Succeeded by	The Lord Wolverton
First Commissioner of Works
In office 24 June 1885 – 28 January 1886
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Marquess of Salisbury
Preceded by	The Earl of Rosebery
Succeeded by	The Earl of Morley
In office 5 August 1886 – 11 August 1892
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Marquess of Salisbury
Preceded by	The Earl of Elgin
Succeeded by	George Shaw-Lefevre
Personal details
Born	3 December 1838
Died	22 August 1919 (aged 80) Greenore, County Louth
Resting place	Putney Vale Cemetery, London 51°26′27″N 0°14′19″W / 51.440739°N 0.238533°W
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Unmarried
Alma mater	Trinity College, Dublin

David Robert Plunket, 1st Baron Rathmore PC, QC (3 December 1838 – 22 August 1919) was an Irish lawyer and Conservative politician.

Background and education

Plunket was the third son of John Plunket, 3rd Baron Plunket, second son of William Plunket, 1st Baron Plunket, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. His mother was Charlotte, daughter of Charles Kendal Bushe, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, while the Most Reverend William Plunket, 4th Baron Plunket, Archbishop of Dublin, was his elder brother. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and was called to the Irish Bar in 1862.^[1]

Political and legal career

After practising on the Munster Circuit for a number of years, Plunket was made a Queen's Counsel in 1868, and became Law Adviser to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland that same year.^[1] In 1870, he was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Dublin University,^[1][2] and was Solicitor General for Ireland under Benjamin Disraeli from 1875 to 1877. He was then briefly Paymaster General under Disraeli (then known as the Earl of Beaconsfield) in 1880^[1] and was sworn of the Privy Council the same year.^[3] In 1885 he became First Commissioner of Works in Lord Salisbury's first ministry, a post he held until January 1886. He resumed the same post in August of the same year when the Conservatives returned to power, and held it until 1892.^[1] On his retirement from the House of Commons in 1895 he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Rathmore, of Shanganagh in the County of Dublin.^[4]

Apart from his political and legal career he was a director of the Suez Canal Company, Chairman of the North London Railway for many years and was a director of the Central London Railway at its opening in 1900..

Personal life

The grave of David Plunket and other family members at Putney Vale Cemetery, London, in 2015

In Dublin, Rathmore was a member of the Kildare Street Club.^[5] He died in August 1919, unmarried, at the age of eighty,^[1] in the Railway hotel in Greenore, County Louth and is buried at Putney Vale Cemetery in London. His peerage became extinct at his death.^[1]

References

1. thepeerage.com David Robert Plunket, 1st and last Baron Rathmore
2. leighrayment.com House of Commons: Dover to Dulwich and West Norwood
3. The London Gazette: no. 24827. p. 2245. 26 March 1880.
4. The London Gazette: no. 26680. p. 6182. 15 November 1895.
5. Thomas Hay Sweet Escott, Club Makers and Club Members (1913), pp. 329–333

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by David Plunket