Rous

Family title

Earl of Stradbroke

---

Estate(s)

Name	Description
Rous	Dr Malcomson writes that Juliana Warter Wilson, daughter of Edward Wilson of Bilboa, county Limerick was sole heiress to an estate on the border between counties Limerick and Tipperary. In 1788 she married Sir John Rous, 6th Baronet, of Henham Hall, Suffolk and died in 1790. Their only daughter married Vice Admiral the Honourable Sir Henry Hotham. Sir John remarried and was created Earl of Stradbroke in 1821. Land in the barony of Glenhiry, county Waterford, was later acquired by this family. During the famine, contemporary newspapers indicate that the Earl gave an abatement of fifty percent of the rents on his Waterford estate. In the 1850s the estate was among the principal lessors in the parish of Kilronan in that barony. It also held townlands in the parish of Kilbarrymeadan, barony of Decies-without-Drum. In July 1859, over 2000 acres of the county Waterford estate, was offered for sale. At the time of the first Ordnance Survey circa 1840 Lord Stradbroke had an estate comprised of at least nine townlands in the parish of Doon, barony of Coonagh, county Limerick. His agent was Abraham Coates. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in the early 1850s the Stradbroke estate was in the possession of Hugh Massy O'Grady of Castle Garde. In August 1873 houses and premises belonging to the Earl of Stradbroke in the city of Limerick were advertised for sale. In the mid 19th century Lord Stradbroke also had an estate in county Tipperary in the parishes of Abington and Kilvellane, barony of Owney and Arra. The Ordnance Survey Name Books provide an account of the copper mines owned by the Stradbrooke estate in this parish in 1840. This estate amounting to 8,829 acres was advertised for sale in May 1873. A collection of papers relating to the Irish estates is preserved in the Suffolk Record Office.
O'Grady (Castle Garde)	The O'Gradys of Castle Garde, county Limerick, were a junior branch of the O'Gradys Viscounts Guillamore. The Cappamore parish history records Waller O'Grady purchasing Castle Garde about the time of his marriage to Grace Elizabeth Massy in 1823. He also bought the Bilboa estate of the Earl of Stradbroke. Hugh Massy O'Grady was a grandson of the 1st Viscount and he held at least twelve townlands in the parish of Doon, barony of Coonagh, county Limerick, at the time of Griffith's Valuation. Much of this estate was in the possession of the Earl of Stradbroke at the time of the first Ordnance Survey. In the 1870s his son, Walter Massy O'Grady, owned 3,279 acres in county Limerick. Walter's brother, Hugh Hamon Massy O'Grady, succeeded his cousin as 7th Viscount Guillamore in 1927. Hugh Thompson, a nephew of Lady Guillamore succeeded to Castle Garde in 1930.
Wilson (Bilboa)	Gamaliel Warter had acquired the Bilboa estate, barony of Coonagh, in county Limerick by the end of the 17th century. His son Edward married Alice Osborne and they had three daughters, Catherine, Margaret and Anne. Catherine married the Reverend Dean George Story who wrote an account of the Jacobite War, but they had no children. Margaret married Ralph Wilson, who took the name Warter Wilson, and their son Edward succeeded to Bilboa. He married Frances Ann Evans and they had one daughter Frances Juliana who married Sir John Rous, later Earl of Stradbroke, in 1788. Ralph Wilson was granted lands in county Clare in 1679.