Alexander Stewart (1699–1781)

Alexander Stewart of Ballylawn, 1720s portrait

Alexander Stewart (1697 or 1699 – 22 April 1781) was an Irish landowner and ancestor of the family of the Marquess of Londonderry.

Early life

The Stewart family background was Scots-Irish, and they were planters in northern Ireland in the 16th century under the name MacGregor, changed to Stewart under James VI and I. Two generations earlier, his paternal grandfather went by Alexander Macaulay, and bought land in the Moville area at Ballylawn, a townland near Manorcunningham, in County Donegal.[1][2] His father William Stewart raised Williamite troops during the siege of Londonderry.[1]

Alexander Stewart was born in the family home at Ballylawn. He went into commerce with an apprenticeship at Belfast and became a successful merchant in the Baltic trade.[1] In 1731, on the death of his brother Thomas, he inherited the property at Ballylawn.

Landowner

With rights by his 1737 marriage to the Cowan estate, Stewart retired from business in 1743, and became a substantial landowner in County Down.[1] In 1744 he acquired estates at Comber and Newtownards.

Around 1750 Stewart rebuilt a house in Newtownards called Mount Pleasant, which became Mount Stewart.[1] In 1755 he was left the property of William Bruce (1702–1755), the Dublin bookseller from Killyleagh, which he divided between Bruce's relations.[3]

The Temple of the Winds at Mount Stewart, an octagonal neo-classical building commissioned by Alexander Stewart, completed after his death[1]

In politics

In 1759 the Member of the Parliament of Ireland for the city of Londonderry, William Scott, was raised to the bench. Initially William Hamilton was elected to succeed him, but the election was declared void. Alexander Stewart was returned in his place in April 1760, but he was also declared not duly elected. Eventually Hamilton represented the constituency from May 1760 until his death later that year. Stewart was not elected again to Parliament, but his sons and grandsons were.

Family

Stewart was married on 30 June 1737 to a cousin, Mary Cowan, daughter of John Cowan, alderman of Derry and his wife Anne Stewart, daughter of Alexander Stewart of Ballylawn, and sister of the former Governor of Bombay Robert Cowan, who had recently died. Their children included:[4]

  • Anne (1738–1781)
  • Robert, born 27 September 1739, the future first Marquess of Londonderry.
  • William (1741–1742)
  • Francis (born 1742)
  • John (1744–1762)
  • Alexander, born 26 March 1746.
  • Mary, born 1747, died young.

The Stewart family papers are in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.[5]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bew, John (2012). Castlereagh: A Life. Oxford University Press. pp. 6–7. ISBN 9780199931590. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  2. ↑ "Ballylawn Townland, Co. Donegal". Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  3. ↑ Benson, C. J. "Bruce, William". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3761. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ↑ Debrett, John (1820). Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. pp. 930–1. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  5. ↑ "Stewart, Vane-Tempest- family, Marquesses of Londonderry, The National Archives". Retrieved 8 September 2018.
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