This post illustrates the incredible intermarrying of Anglo-Irish families in the Victorian era- it could be a book in itself, but I had to stop somewhere!
Matthew Pennefather of New Park, Tipperary (1784 - 1858), was the nephew of Rev. John Pennefather of Newport, our many times great-grandfather, Matthew's father being John's brother, Richard Pennefather of New Park.
Matthew married Anna Connor of Ballybricken, Cork, in 1814, and one of their daughters was Mary Lavina Pennefather, born 1815.
Mary Lavina/Levina Pennefather became the wife of Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet, Ballibay, Co.Monaghan. The Monaghan records were destroyed by fire so little information survives about this family. I've gathered together snippets of information here and there and collated them as best I could.
All the evidence points to the Rev. John Hare being the son of the solicitor, John Hare of Deer Park, Cashel, Tipperary and of Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin. The Limerick Chronicle of 6th November 1841 confirms this, with the announcement of the marriage of John Hare and Mary Levina Pennefather:
'On Tuesday at the Cathedral, Cashel, by the Rev. Thom. Newingham, the Rev. John Hare, Rector and Prebendary of Tullycorbet, Clogher, eldest son of John Hare of Fitzwilliam-street and of Deerpark, Esq., to Mary, eldest daughter of Matthew Pennefather of Newpark, Esq. After the ceremony, upwards of seventy people partook of an elegant déjeune at the hospitable mansion of the bride's father.'
Rev. John Hare was noted in Tully Corbet, Monaghan, in 1837.
From The Limerick Chronicle, 13th March 1844: 'Louisa Victoria, daughter of the rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet Glebe, aged five months.'
Griffiths Valuation of 1860 showed the Rev. John Hare to be have been resident in Tullycorbett, Monaghan, a freeholder of 67 acres with 7 acres of turbary/bog, and an address at the Glebehouse.
Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbett died in Dublin on December 23rd 1860.
'The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 219' recorded the death in 1865 of Mary Levina Hare, aged 50 -
'At Wellington Park, Clifton, Bristol, Mary Levina, relict of the late Rev. John Hare, Tully Corbet Rectory, Ballibay, Co. Monaghan, and daughter of the late Matthew Pennefather, esq., D.L. New Park, co. Tipperary.'
Mary Lavina was buried at the Rock of Cashel.
The children of Rev. John Hare and Mary Lavina Pennefather were John Pennefather Hare (1845 - 1910), Matthew Frances Pennefather Hare (born Tipperary 1847) and Anna Sophia Matilda Hare (born Tipperary 1852).
Anna Sophia Matilda Hare:
Anna Sophia Matilda Hare married John George Gibson on 8th August 1872 and had 8 children, although only 4 survived childhood -
1. John William Pennefather Gibson, born 57 Upper Mount Street on 29th Aug.1872. (John William Pennefather Gibson, went to Trinity, Cambridge, and appears in their records as the son of John George Gibson, Justice of the King's Bench, of 38 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin. John William had been sent to Charterhouse School, England, and had been called to the bar on January 26th 1897; he practised at the Irish bar, as did his father.)
2. William George Gibson was born at 57 Upper Mount Street, Dublin, on 13th February 1873. He was a solicitor.
3. Anna Elizabeth Gibson, 1877 - 1911.
4. Charlotte Mary Hare Gibson, born Dublin 1880.
John George Gibson, husband of Anna Sophia Matilda Hare:
John George Gibson had been born at 41 Upper Fitzwilliam Street on 13th February 1846 to the solicitor William Gibson and Louisa Grant who was the daughter of Joseph Grant of Dublin.
John George was the couple's fifth son and was the brother of Edward Gibson, Lord Ashbourne of Meath. (Edward Gibson, later Lord Ashbourne (1837-1913) was the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Gibson was born at 22 Merrion Square, Dublin, educated at Trinity College and was a Queens Counsel by profession; he was an MP for the Trinity College constituency from 1875 to 1885.
He had been Attorney General for Ireland and drafted legislation known as the Ashbourne Act which set up a £5 million fund to allow tenants buy land by way of government loan repayable on a monthly basis over 48 years at an interest rate of 4%. Ashbourne remained Lord Chancellor of Ireland for 20 years except for the three-year period from 1892 when the Liberals under Gladstone returned to power. He lived on Pembroke Street in Dublin, died in London and his ashes were interred in Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.)
John George Gibson was mentioned in 'The Irish Law Times and Solicitor's Journal' of 1870: 'Barristers - John George Gibson, Esq., AM., Dublin University, fifth son of William Gibson, of Merrion-square, in the city of Dublin, Esq. Certificate signed by Charles H. Hemphill, Esq., QC. To be proposed by Gerald Fitzgibbon, Esq., MC. Mr.Gibson obtained the First Prize at the General Examination held before last Easter Term, and takes rank accordingly.'
(NB: The Charles H. Hemphill mentioned above was Charles Hare Hemphill, the son of John Hemphill and Barbara Hare who was the youngest daughter of Rev. Patrick Hare of Cashel - he was therefore a cousin of Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet.)
John George Gibson was a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, one of Her Majesty's Counsel Learned in the Law, Justice of the Peace, Master of Arts of Trinity College, Dublin. He was a Judge of the High Court of Justice (Queen's Bench Division) and was a member of several clubs - the Carleton, Athenauem, and University Club.
John George Gibson's father,William Gibson, had been born in 1808 in Gaulstown, Meath to an earlier William Gibson of Lodge Park, who died in 1820 and to his wife, Mary Ann Bagnall, daughter of Edward Bagnall of Hawkinstown, Meath. (July 7 1838
June 27, at St. Peter's, Dublin, John Grierson Esq., of Moville, county of Donegal, married Arabella Gibson, second daughter of the late William Gibson, of Lodge Park, County Meath.)
The younger William Gibson, solicitor, died on 20th February 1872 at Merrion Square. He married twice.
His married his first wife, Louisa Grant, in 1831; following her death in 1853, he married Charlotte Hare on 24th April 1856, the only daughter of John Hare of Deer Park, Tipperary, and of Upper Fitzwilliam Street. John Hare was the grandfather of Anna Sophia Matilda Hare - therefore, her mother-in-law, Charlotte Gibson, was also her paternal aunt, being the sister of her own father, Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet.
William Gibson and Charlotte Hare had a daughter, Elra Frances Gibson in 1858.
On 22nd October 1853 at 22 Merrion Square North, Bessie Gibson, the daughter of solicitor, William Gibson, married Francis Blackburne Martley, esq., of 107 Lower Baggot Street. Francis' father was John Martley, and the witnesses were James T.Martley and George Daniell.
Rockforest: William Gibson purchased the Rockforest estate, county Tipperary, in the 1850s. By his first wife Louisa Grant of Dublin he had five sons and a daughter. He died in 1872 and was succeeded by his eldest son Captain William Gibson of Rockforest, Roscrea, county Tipperary, who owned 5,214 acres in county Tipperary in the 1870s. A headstone in Mount Shannon Church of Ireland cemetery, county Clare, marks the burial place of the Captain's eldest son Major William Gibson who was born at Rockforest in 1874 and died in 1957.
Anna Sophia Matilda Gibson, née Hare, died on 28th September 1939 at The Edgehill Hotel, Bovey Tracey, Devonshire. She was 'care of Martins Bank, 7 Water Street, Liverpool.' Probate was granted to two of her children, William George Gibson and Charlotte Mary Hare Gibson. Charlotte Mary Hare Gibson died on 9th September 1964 at Nynehead Court, Wellington, Somerset; probate to Matins Bank.
Matthew Francis Pennefather Hare, son of Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet:
The son of Rev. John Hare and Mary Lavina Pennefather was Matthew Francis Pennefather Hare who was born in Tipperary in about 1847 and who died in Hammersmith in 1883.
In 1871, Matthew F.P. Hare was staying at the home of his relative, Julia Elizabeth Clare Dupen, née Pennefather, who was the daughter of Joseph Lysaght Pennefather. (ie: Julia was the granddaughter of Rev. John Pennefather of Newport, while Matthew F.P. Hare was the great-grandson of Rev. John Pennefather's brother, Richard Pennefather of Newpark. I had to scribble a chart out on paper to figure that one out correctly!)
The Dupen family were living in Clifton, Bristol, where Matthew F.P. Hare's mother, Mary Lavina Hare, had died six years previously in 1865. In fact both Wellington Park where Mary Lavina died, and Kings Parade where the Dupen family were living in 1871, are almost adjacent to each other.
In 1871, Matthew F.P. Hare was a wine and spirit merchant, and was visiting Julia Dupen along with his young wife, Ada Lumsden, who was only 17. The couple had married the year before on 20th December 1870 at St. Leonards, Shoreditch, London. Ada was the daughter of James Lumden, wine merchant, and had been born on 17th February 1854 in Clapham, although her son would later state that she had been born in Scotland.
By 1881, Matthew Hare was a Copyist in the Treasury, and the family were living in Hammersmith. They had four children - Mary Ada Hare aged 9, John Henry aged 7, Francis Lumsden aged 5, and James Pennefather Hare aged 3.
Matthew Francis Pennefather Hare died two years after the 1881 Census on 15th July 1883 in Shepherds Bush, Hammersmith.
Ada remarried, this time to a silk salesman, Ernest Slocomb, of Devon; they lived in Lewisham.
In 1901, their daughter Mary Ada Hare was living in Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and was noted as a student in a training college.
Her brothers all went into the theatre, one way or another. The best-known was Francis Lumsden Hare who was known by the simpler Lumsden Hare, and who became an early leading man in the Hollywood film industry, playing opposite Ethel Barrymore and John Drew.
He married twice, first to Frances Mary Ruttledge, then to Selene Johnson. The first marriage took place on January 9th 1899 in St. Pancras, London - Francis Lumsden Hare was living at 31 Brunswick Square, while Frances Mary Ruttledge was at 172 Breckrock Rd., Islington; her father was Thomas Ruttledge of the Civil Service. The witnesses were Thomas Ruttledge and William Edward Ruttledge.
In 1911, Frances Mary Hare was visiting her cousin, Frederick James Lawson, a doctor of 66 Belgrave Rd., London - there was no sign there of Francis Lumsden Hare. The census return states that they had been married 13 years and had one surviving child, who wasn't there either. Frances Mary Hare was an actress.
The couple must have divorced because Frances Mary Hare's will was published in the National Probate Calendar:
'Hare or Ruttledge, Frances Mary of 245 Baker St London NW1, single woman, died 10 April 1946. Administration London 24 July to Nora Patricia Hare spinster.'
The couple's daughter, Norah Patricia M. Hare was born 8th November 1900, and died in April 1997 in Sussex. She appeared on the 1901 census as a 4-month-old infant visiting the home of William Murrell on Povensy (?) Rd., Eastbourne. The same night, John Pennefather Hare, (the brother of her grandfather, Matthew Hare) was visiting another household, the Bradleys, a few doors away on the same street.
Norah crops up again on the 1919 passenger list for the 'Megantic' which was sailing to New York - she was an actress as were most of the other passengers; she states she was Irish, rather than English, and that she spoke French as well as English. Her mother's address was 7 Ranelagh Mans, New Kings Road.
In 1915, Francis Lumsden Hare, the son of Matthew Hare and Ada Lumsden, appeared in the New York Census along with his Pennsylvania-born wife, Selene; they were both actors, living in Queens.
In 1920, Frank L. Hare and Selene were living in Queens, both were stage actors, and Francis states that his mother (Ada Lumsden) had been born in Scotland, rather than Clapham.
The Motion Picture Studio Directory of 1921 gave the couple's address as Ballingarry, Whitestone Landing, Long Island, New York. The fact that Francis Lumsden Hare named his home 'Ballingarry' is highly significant, since this was the Tipperary area around Cashel, where his grandmother, Mary Lavina Hare, nee Pennefather, originated from; his father most likely came from this area also. Francis Lumsden's brother, John Henry Hare, claimed on the 1911 census that he had been born in Cashel.
By 1930, the couple had emigrated west to Los Angeles. They had no children. They had emigrated to the US in 1900 and Francis once again states that his mother had been born in Scotland; this time, Francis states that he had been born in Ireland.
In 1955 the couple's address was on Canon Drive, Los Angeles.
Selene Hare, née Johnson, had been born 20 February 1874 and died in L.A. on 11th December 1960. Her mother's maiden name had been Knapp.
Lumsden's brother, John Henry Hare (born 1874) , ran the Dunfermline Opera House in 1920. In 1911 he was living in Bedford, and was married to Isabella Leith McIntyre, an actress of Newcastle. On the census, John Henry Hare states that he was born in Cashel, Tipperary, this despite the fact that the census of 1881 contradicts this and states that the Hare children were all English-born. It does serve to highlight a Hare family link to the Cashel/Ballingarry area of Tipperary, however, which was the home of the Pennefather family.
The youngest brother, James Pennefather Hare, owned The New County Theatre, a cinema in Bangor, Wales.
He married twice - the UK marriage index records his first marriage as having taken place in Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1898.
He remarried later, this time to Lucie Irene Jones - this marriage took place in Hendon in 1939.
The Calendar of Wills records the death of James Pennefather Hare - when he died on 5th December 1952, he was living at 'Roscrea', Friar's Avenue, Bangor. Once again, the naming of his home as 'Roscrea' links a member of this branch of the Hare family to Tipperary. The will was administered by his widow, Lucie Irene Hare, and a single woman, Irene Mary Rowland Jones, who may have been a child of Lucie Irene's first marriage. The will was re-administered in 1861, this time by a James Anthony Rowland Jones.
John Pennefather Hare (1845 - 1910), son of Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet:
Although I can find hardly any information about him, John Pennefather Hare appears to be the eldest son of Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet and of Mary Lavina Pennefather. His middle name, of course, reflects the naming practise of the day, by using the maiden name of the mother or the grandmother.
John Pennefather Hare was a major Tipperary landowner who lived in the neighbouring county of Laois/Queen's County - in the 1870s John Pennefather Hare of Durrow, Queens County, owned 3,922 acres in county Tipperary and 188 acres in county Cork, while Patrick Hare of Castledurragh, Durrow, owned 600 acres in county Tipperary. Patrick Hare was John Pennefather Hare's uncle, being the brother of Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet.
John Pennefather Hare never married, and flitted between Ireland and England, staying in boarding houses whilst in the UK.
In 1871 he appeared on the UK census in a boarding house at 67 - 69 Pall Mall, London; he was 26, and a landed proprietor.
In 1881, he was lodging at 96 Talbot Road, Paddington, and was a single gentleman of Ireland.
In 1901, the census captures him visiting the Bradley family in Eastbourne; he was 'living on his own means', and his grand-niece, Norah Patricia Hare, an infant of 4 months old, was also visiting a neighbouring house on the same street.
He died on 1st July 1910 at 18 Northumberland Avenue in Kingstown/DunLaoghaire. Probate was granted to his nephew, William George Gibson, barrister-at-law (his sister's son), and to Henry Mark Patrick Hare, solicitor (his cousin, the son of Patrick Hare of Durrow), and to a Nathaniel Taylor, who also proved the will of Charlotte Hare, who was John Pennefather Hare's paternal aunt.
The Hare Family of Deer Park, Tipperary:
The first of the Hare family to settle in the Cashel area of Tipperary was the Venerable Patrick Hare (1736 - 1816), the Vicar-General of Cashel. He married Mary Crozier of Fermanagh and Patrick and Mary Hare had a large family of four sons and seven daughters.
John Hare (1776 - 1865) of Deer Park, was one of them; he was the only son of Patrick Hare to have children. In 1803 he married Eliza Croly, the daughter of a Cork merchant, Humphrey Croly. The couple went on to have 13 children together, including Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbet and Patrick Hare of Durrow, Laois, and possibly Rev. Charles Hare of Baggot St, Dublin.
The street directories show up John Hare, attorney, living at 22 Baggot Street in 1812 and at 101 Baggot Street in 1822. By 1835, John Hare and his family had moved to their permanent address at 25 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, where, in 1845, the directories record Patrick Hare, attorney, as resident at the same address.
The Trinity College records show that Patrick Hare had been admitted as the son of John Hare, lawyer, aged 17 in 1825, which gives him a date of birth of 1808. The Irish index of death registrations confirm this - he died in 1878 and the death was registered in Abbeleix, Queen's County, with a date of birth given as 1808.
The same Trinity records show an earlier John Hare, born 1804, who was admitted in 1821 and was also the son of John Hare, pragmaticus, Dublin. He got a B.A.Vern in 1826, an M.A. in 1828, and LLB in 1840. John, however, died before the introduction of civil registration in Ireland.
Patrick Hare, brother of Rev. John Hare of Tullycorbett, married Eliza Houseman Westropp on 12th February 1861 in Notting Hill, London - Patrick lied shamelessly about his age, saying he was 40, when he was acually 53, probably since his bride was much younger at 26. He was of Durrow, the son of John Hare, solicitor, while she was the daughter of Berkeley Westropp, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy; the family address was 18 Stanley Gardens. It seems the Westropp family also had its origins in the Tipperary/Limerick area.
Intermarriages - in 1782, Arthur Vincent, the grandson of the Mayor of Limerick, Arthur Vincent, married Mary Westropp, the daughter of an earlier Berkeley Westropp. The youngest son of Arthur and Mary Vincent was Berkeley Vincent of Summerhill,Castleconnell, Clare, who, in his turn, married in 1835, Helena Hare who was the daughter of John Hare of Deer Park and Upper Fitzwilliam Street. The daughter of Berkeley Vincent and Helena Hare, Helen Hare Vincent, married Dudley O'Grady in 1868 - the son of Patrick Hare of Durrow, Henry Mark Patrick Hare, and Arthur Rose Vincent would prove the will of Mary Frances O'Grady of Erinagh, Castleconnell, Clare, in 1923. You could go on with these people forever!
Eliza Houseman Hare, née Westropp, died in Dublin on 23rd September 1919. Her address in 1919 was 'Clarmallagah', Foxrock, and the will was proved by her son, Henry Mark Patrick Hare. Earlier, in 1891, she filled out a UK census return in Torquay, Devon, where she was living with her Irish-born daughters, Eliza Westropp Hare and Emily M. Hare.
She was back in Dublin for the 1901 Census, living with her family in Galloping Green , Stillorgan, Co. Dublin - present were Eliza Westropp Hare, born Dublin 1862), Henry Mark Patrick Hare, (solicitor to the Irish Land Commission, born Dublin on 23rd February, 1869, attended Dulwich College, served his apprenticeship with William Fry & Son of Dublin), and Emily Mary Eclis Hare (born Dublin 1872).
In 1911, Eliza Houseman Hare was living at 5 Sydney Parade Avenue, Dublin, with two of the children, Eliza and Henry. She states that she had had 9 children but that only 5 had survived.
The other two sons of Patrick Hare and Eliza Houseman Westropp were Loftus Robert George Hare who had been born at Grand Canal St., Dublin, on 9th October 1867, and John Berkeley Agar Hare, born in Dublin in 1863.
Loftus was educated at Dulwich College; the college records that he was the continental representative of Messrs. Howden. engineers of Glasgow.
In 1891, Loftus was a boarder at the Imperial Hotel, Cardiff, and was noted as an assistant marine superintendant.
Loftus lived in Islington and the electoral register records him there in 1808, lodging at 29 Tytherton Rd; three years later the same register records his landlord there as his own brother, John Berkeley Agar Hare. Loftus died on 18th September 1917 at 'Woodthorpe', Sydenham Hill Rd., Surrey, with probate to a member of the Westropp family, Berkeley George Gale Westropp.
John Berkeley Agar Hare was born to Patrick and Eliza Hare in 1863 in Dublin. In 1881 he was a student living at the home of his maternal grandmother in New Windsor, Berkshire, Eliza Isabella Murray Westropp, maiden name Safe, (1807 - 1887), who had been married to Berkeley Westropp. She had been born in Cashel, Tipperary; at the time of her marriage to Berkeley in 1830, she had been living in Rouen, Normandy.
Also present in the household in 1881 was her son, James B. Westropp, a soldier, and brother of John Berkeley Agar Hare's mother, Eliza Houseman Hare.
John B.A. Hare married a Norwegian woman, Inge Bruun, in Bergen, Norway, in 1889, her father being Karl Mathias Bruun. John and Inge were living in Newtown Abbot, Devon, with their infant son, Berkeley C.P.Hare; John Berkeley Agar Hare was a veterinary surgeon.
In 1901 the family were resident in Islington.
John Berkeley Agar Hare died on 10th April 1947 in Navan, Meath. Probate was granted to Nathaniel Taylor who had also proved the will of John Pennefather Hare, was John B.A. Hare's cousin, and of Charlotte Gibson, née Hare, who was the 2nd wife of John Hare of Deer Park, and who died at Clarinda Park East, Kingstown, Dublin, on 3rd June 1909.