BRODRICK FAMILY OF PEPER HAROW AND MIDLETON (CORK), VISCOUNTS MIDLETON: FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE AND PAPERS, CHIEFLY OF THE 8TH VISCOUNT MIDLETON

This collection, 1248/PART 3, mainly comprises correspondence and papers of the 8th Viscount on subjects including the Irish estates and local politics, but also includes papers relating to family history (with the 8th Viscount's own manuscript autobiography at -/35/1), the history of the family's ancestral seat Peper Harow (near Godalming) and a family scrapbook.

Bound volumes of correspondence and papers, 1836-1903, of the 8th Viscount appear first in this list (-/27 to -/30), with a separate collection of miscellaneous, loose letters to the 8th Viscount, 1872-1903 (-/31); correspondence, 1796-1885, relating to family history (-/32), a scrapbook, 1828-1876 (-/33), papers relating to the history of Peper Harow, late 18th.c to 1933 (-/34) and a history of the family with an MS autobiography of the 8th Viscount, 1902-1906 (-/35) follow, with lastly a 19th century edition of the Epistles of Guevara (-/36).

The box numbers in this list were changed in October 2010 to provide a more coherent order to the collection.

On the death without issue of George Alan Brodrick, 5th Viscount Midleton (1806-1848), the title passed to his first cousin, Charles Brodrick, 6th Viscount Midleton (1791-1863), eldest son of the Rt Rev Hon Charles Brodrick (1761-1822), Archbishop of Cashel (fourth son of the 3rd Viscount); his lack of a male heir passed the title to his younger brother, the Rev William John Brodrick, 7th Viscount Midleton (1798-1870), Dean of Exeter, whose eldest son, William Brodrick, became the 8th Viscount Midleton (1830-1907).

The 8th Viscount enjoyed an active political life as a Conservative MP in Surrey and served as Lord Lieutenant of Surrey 1896-1905. His eldest son, William St John Fremantle Brodrick (1856-1942), succeeded him as 9th Viscount Midleton.

The 9th Viscount was a prominent Conservative politician and government minister, serving as Financial Secretary to the War Office (1886-1892), Under-Secretary of State for War (1895-1898), Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1898-1900), Secretary of State for War (1900-1903) and Secretary of State for India (1903-1905). From 1910 he was regarded as the nominal leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance, was an active lobbyist against Home Rule and after the First World War was a founder member of the Irish Unionist Anti-Partition League. He was created 1st Earl Midleton in 1920, a title that became extinct on the death of his son in 1979.

See also the manuscript autobiography of the 8th Viscount at -/35/1 below and Records and Reactions (1939), the memoirs of the 1st Earl.

There are no access restrictions.

Deposited by Viscount Midleton per Simon Meade in October 1976.

An item level description of the archive is available on the Surrey History Centre online catalogue

For further collections of records relating to the Viscounts Midleton, see 1248 (PART 1), 1627-1800 [1st Viscount Midleton (1656-1728) to 3rd Viscount Midleton (1730-1765)]; 1248 (PART 2), 1751-1845 [4th Viscount Midleton (1754-1836) and 5th Viscount Midleton (1806-1848)] and G145, 1400-1936, relating to estates in Peper Harow, Wandsworth and Ireland.

Other relevant collections are 552 (papers relating to Parliamentary elections of 1865 and 1868 and Irish affairs, 1883-1890); 1538 (diaries, 1855-1898, of Augusta Mary, Viscountess Midleton (1828-1903), wife of the 8th Viscount); 1774 (estate records of Peper Harow, Godalming and Ireland, 1850-1925); and 5295 (travel journals, engagement diaries and correspondence, 1842-1899).

Records of the Midleton estate office, 1750-1953, are also held in the National Archives of Ireland (their ref 978).

For a family tree from the children of Sir Thomas Brodrick (d.1641) to 1809, see Manning and Bray, History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey Vol II.

For the descent of the major Surrey estates, see M & B Vol II and HE Malden, ed., Victoria History of the County of Surrey Vol III (Peper Harow) and Vol IV (Wandsworth).

For the history of and heirs to the Midleton title, see GEC, Complete Peerage.

For biographies of members of the family who served as members of Parliament (including those holding the Irish viscountcy), see the relevant volumes of the History of Parliament series, Records and Reactions, (1939), the memoirs of William St John, 1st Earl Midleton, and CA Mannering Press, Surrey Leaders, (1901)

Other biographical material includes the manuscript autobiography of the 8th Viscount at -/35/1 below and WB Atkins and HCG Matthew, Brodrick, (William) St John Fremantle, first earl of Midleton (1856-1942), (2004).

James S Donnelly, The Land and the People of Nineteenth Century Cork: the Rural Economy and the Land Question (London, 1975) includes much about the Irish estate in the 19th century; see also William St John, 1st Earl Midleton, Ireland - Dupe or Heroine? (1932).