William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster

William Robert FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, etc. KP, PC (Ire) (12/13 March 1749 – 20 October 1804) was an Irish liberal politician and landowner. He was born in London.

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Career

FitzGerald made his Grand Tour between 1768 and 1769. During the same time, he also was Member of Parliament (MP) for Kildare Borough. FitzGerald then sat in the Irish House of Commons for Dublin City until 1773, when he took on 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 Grand Lodge of Ireland, which post he held for two years.[1] He was reelected for another year in 1777.[1] In 1783 he was among the first knights in the newly-created Order of St. Patrick. FitzGerald was a supporter of the Catholic Emancipation and helped to found the Catholic seminary at Maynooth 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 Mary Lennox. On 4/7 November 1775 he married The Hon. Emilia Olivia Usher St George, daughter of St George Saint-George, 1st Baron St George and Elizabeth Dominick, who died in London on 23 June 1798.[2] 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.

Children:

His homes were at Carton, where he died, and Kilkea in County Kildare, and at Leinster House in Dublin (now the home of the Irish parliament). He was a founder member of the Order of St Patrick in 1783 and of the Royal Irish Academy (1785), and was a large investor in the Royal Canal company launched in 1790. His family's estates of 60,000 acres (25,000 Ha) in Kildare were in three main parts, around Maynooth, Rathangan and Athy. He rebuilt the main bridge in Athy over the River Barrow.