William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster


William Robert FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, KP, PC was an Irish liberal politician and landowner. He was born in London.

Career

FitzGerald made his Grand Tour between 1768 and 1769. During the same time, he also was Member of Parliament for Kildare Borough. FitzGerald then sat in the Irish House of Commons for Dublin City until 1773, when he inherited his father's title and estates. He was appointed High Sheriff of Kildare for 1772. Politically he was a liberal supporter of Henry Grattan's Irish Patriot Party and he co-founded the Irish Whig Club in 1789. He controlled about six Kildare members of the Irish House of Commons. In 1779, he was elected colonel of the Dublin Regiment of the Irish Volunteers.
In 1770, FitzGerald was chosen Grandmaster of the masonic Grand Lodge of Ireland, which post he held for two years. He was re-elected for another year in 1777. In 1783 he was among the first knights in the newly created Order of St. Patrick.
In 1788–9, he was Master of the Rolls in Ireland; in theory a senior judicial office, it was then largely a sinecure, but so blatant a choice of a man who was wholly unqualified for it gave rise to unfavourable comment, and a few years later it became the rule that the Master must be a lawyer of repute.
FitzGerald was a supporter of Catholic emancipation and helped to found the Catholic seminary at Maynooth on land he donated, in 1795. Withdrawing from Parliament with Grattan in 1797, he moved to England to be with his sick wife and remained there during the 1798 rebellion.

Family

He was the second, but eldest surviving, son of James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster, and the well-connected Lady Emily Lennox, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Richmond. He was also the elder brother of the 1790s revolutionary Lord Edward FitzGerald, and was a first cousin of the English liberal politician Charles James Fox. On 4 or 7 November 1775 he married The Hon. Emilia Olivia Usher St George, daughter of The 1st Baron Saint George and Elizabeth Dominick and sole grand daughter of Sir Christopher Dominick. Their children were:
His homes were at Carton, where he died, and Kilkea in County Kildare, and at Leinster House in Dublin. He was a founder member of the Order of St Patrick in 1783 and of the Royal Irish Academy, and was a large investor in the Royal Canal company launched in 1790. His family's estates of 60,000 acres in Kildare were in three main parts, around Maynooth, Rathangan and Athy. He rebuilt the main bridge in Athy over the River Barrow.