Samuel Gorges

Samuel Gorges (1635-1686) was an English-born judge in seventeenth-century Ireland.

He was a member of the famous Gorges family of Wraxall in Somerset. He was the younger son of Samuel Gorges of Charlton Mackrell and his wife Jane Cotterell, daughter of John Cotterell of Winford and widow of George Allen of Wrington. Edward Gorges (1631-1708), MP for Somerset, was his elder brother. He matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford in 1652 and entered the Inner Temple in 1655. He was called to the Bar in 1665 and became King's Counsel in 1684.

He married in 1669 Margaret Poyntz, daughter of Sir Robert Poyntz of Iron Acton, Gloucestershire and his first wife Frances Gibbons, and widow of Sir Richard Hastings, first and last of the Hastings baronets, of Redlinch. She died without issue in 1685.

Margaret was a distant cousin of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who was always generous to friends and relatives: it was probably at the Duke's suggestion that Gorges came to Ireland about 1680. In 1682 Gorges was appointed second justice of Ormonde's personal court, the Court Palatine of Tipperary. This post was generally regarded as a sinecure, but in 1684 Gorges was elevated to the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland). He died in 1686 and was buried in St Mary's Church, Kilkenny.

References

• Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 London John Murray 1926
• Henning, D. B. ed. The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690 Boydell and Brewer 1983
• Townsend, Peter Burke's Landed Gentry 18th Edition 3 Volumes London 1965