Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Richardson b. 1822 Co. Clare

[pwaldron]

Yesterday, I spent several hours with a possible distant cousin with whom I share Parker ancestors originally from Limerick. We visited the road in Glenageary where his parents were enumerated in the 1901 census as 10-year-old neighbours, the father being raised by his own grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Richardson.

The 1901 census return for the Richardson household at http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/p ... s/1321136/ is in the Lt.-Col.'s own most beautiful handwriting and quite clearly shows that the Lt.-Col. was born in Co. Clare. By 1911, he had gone blind and the census return at http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/p ... las/99089/ is in his second wife's much more difficult hand. His birthplace is transcribed as "Cornwell," but to me looks more like "Co. Corke". My hunch is that the 1901 version is more reliable as well as more legible.

We also found the Lt.-Col.'s grave at Dean's Grange (Grave 74 B North), with an inscription reading:

`Sacred to the memory of
Colonel R. Richardson
born 1822 died 29th Jan. 1912.
R.I.P.
And to his beloved wife Marie
who died February 22 1928
R.I.P.
Also his daughter Florence E, wife of J. Loughrey Esq.
died Dec. 13 1918. Rest in peace.'

Census returns show that Florence was born in India.

I cannot find a matching death notice or obituary in either The Irish Times or The Times of London.

It is interesting to note that the Lt.-Col. and his family were Catholic, presumably most unusual for the officer class in the nineteenth century British army. One family legend is that he refused to attend his daughter's wedding in 1889 as she was marrying a non-Catholic (in St. Michael's Catholic Church in what was then Kingstown).

However, there is not a single Richardson in the transcriptions of the Tithe Applotment Books for Co. Clare at http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... oRoice.htm so I am still in the dark as to the Clare connection reported in the 1901 census.

I found several mentions in the London Gazette at http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ including in the London Gazette Issue 25168 published on the 17 November 1882, Page 8 of 64 (p.5108), which reported:

"Army Pay Department, Staff Paymaster and Honorary
Major Richard Richardson to be placed
on retired pay, with the honorary rank of Lieutenant-
Colonel. Dated 20th November, 1882."

He also appears on p.123c of Hart's Annual Army List for 1882 at http://www.archive.org/details/hartsann ... 14hartgoog at which stage he was based in Naas, co. Kildare.

Perhaps someone on this forum may have some further clues as to Richardsons in Clare in the 1820s.

[mikevale]

My greatgrandfather was Harry Gunning Richardson (18 9 1861 iNDIA- 7 11 1939)'s parents were Lt Col Richard Richardson (20 11 1822 - 1912) and Mary Ormsby Richardson nee Gunning (1838 - d 26 9 1869 Allalabad India). Children were Richard Francis born India 1860 d Nelson NZ 1936. Anne Blanche 9 6 1863. Mary Frances 18 6 1859 India Florence Elizabeth 9 2 1865. So it appears that his much younger second wife brought up the children after the first wife died. I also thought it unusual that a Catholic could be a British officer in those times.

[pwaldron]

Thanks for all those details, mikevale.

If you are not in contact with your second cousin once removed (Mary Frances's grandson) and would like to be put in touch with him, please send me your contact details in a private message and I will pass them on. (Click the "pm" button below.)

[mgallery]

I dont think it was unusual for Catholics to be army officers in the mid to late 19th century. I can point to loads in my own family, the most well known was General Sir thomas Kelly Kenny. He had brothers and numerous cousins army officers. His sister married an eminent Catholic naval officer.

I have mentioned some of them in a paper on Clare library website on the Kennys

In the early 1800s from what the General says in a memoir Catholics had to convert to hold a commission. His uncle and my gt gt gt uncle mathias Kenny converted and served as a surgeon at the battle of Waterloo,. Mathias brother David died in India in the 1830s serving as a surgeon and presumably converted as well.

Margaret