Hazelwood estate - heritage

OWEN WYNNE II (1664-1737) 

Lieutenant General Owen Wynne of Hazelwood, the third son of Owen Wynne I (1630-1671) of Lurganboy, was born in 1664. They were from Welsh origins, claiming descent from a distinguished chieftain of the 12th century in Merionetshire. His father, Owen I, was granted land in Ireland under the Cromwellian administration and established himself at Lurganboy, Co. Leitrim.

Owen Wynne II was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and studied for the Bar. He was serving in the army of James II, but being a Protestant, he transferred his allegiance to the Prince of Orange, fighting with the Williamite forces at the Boyne. He was with Major-General Kirke's force, sent from England to the relief of Londonderry, and he also took part in the defence of Enniskillen, and served through the War in Ireland. He fought the whole of Queen Anne's wars in Flanders. His regiment of foot (Wynne's Foot) raised in the year 1701, was broke as a Whig regiment in 1713, but on the accession of George I he raised the 9th Regiment of Dragoons. Through various campaigns, Wynne received several promotions to eventually becoming lieutenant-general in 1726.

With his military pay and appointments, and perhaps for other reasons unknown, he succeeded in becoming a rich man. He was able in 1720 to buy land in Co. Cavan for £15,000 from the Duke of Wharton. Two years later, in 1722, Owen Wynne bought the family's estates in Co. Sligo comprising in total 14,500 acres for £20,000. The conveyance included parts of the town of Sligo, together with the town's fairs, markets, tolls and customs. These, although profitable, were to cause much trouble and controversy in later years. At Hazelwood he built his house, to the designs of the German Architect, Richard Castle, born David Riccardo, in 1690 in Kassel, Germany. Cassels soon became the leading country house architect of his day in Ireland. He was responsible for some of the largest houses designed during this period including Russborough in County Wicklow which has the longest frontage of any house in Ireland and Carton House whish was the ancestral home of the Earls of Kildare. In Dublin his major works were Tyrone House, Leinster House, the Rotunda Hospital and Powerscourt House.

Owen Wynne II died in 1737.He left his estate to his nephew, Owen Wynne III. Writing at the beginning of the following century, the Rev. Richard Wynne, brother of Owen Wynne V, stated that General Wynne was offered a peerage but refused it. The General said he would rather be the first of the commoners than the last of the peers. Even if he had accepted a peerage, the title would have become extinct on his death.

Owen Wynne III (1686 – 1755)

Owen Wynne III was born in 1686 in Foxford, Toomore, Mayo, Ireland. He was the son of Lewis Wynne and Rebecca Wynne. Owen was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland in 1703. As soon as he was able, he served the Crown, aged 19 or 20, by joining the army. When Owen Wynne III succeeded his uncle in 1737, he was the first of the Wynnes to combine in one ownership the family lands in Counties Leitrim, Cavan and Sligo. As soon as he was able, he served the Crown, aged 19 or 20, by joining the army, buying a company two years later and served several years in Flanders.

He married his first cousin Catherine, daughter of Colonel John Ffolliott of Donegal and his wife Lucy daughter of Owen Wynne I. Owen III and Catherine had three sons, James, Owen (later Owen IV) and John, and two daughters, Lucy and Hannah. Hannah in 1743 married William Ormsby, MP, of Willowbrook (three miles from Sligo, on the road to Glencar). She thus became an ancestress of the Ormsby-Gore family. Owen III was High Sheriff of Co. Sligo in 1723 and 1745, he filled the same office in Co. Leitrim in 1724. He died aged 79 in 1755. His wife, Catherine, died in 1778. Owen III's eldest son, James, died in 1748, eight years before his father's death. He was MP for Co. Sligo from 1737 to his death. He married Susanna, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Sir Arthur Shaen,2nd and last baronet of Kilmore, Co. Roscommon, but they had no children. This marriage was hardly a success, as there was a lawsuit of 1745 where the plaintiff was Susanna Wynne and the defendant her husband, James Wynne.

Owen Wynne III was a colonel in the army, as probably was his second son, Owen IV, and certainly his third son, John. Captain Wynne was one of few proprietors of Hazelwood who did not sit in Parliament. Two of his sons, James and Capt. John, between them represented the Borough and County in Parliament for over thirty years. Owen III died in 1755 and was succeeded by his second son, Owen IV.

OWEN WYNNE IV (1723 – 1789)

Owen Wynne IV was born in 1723 and was the son of Owen Wynne III and Catherine Ffolliott. In 1754, before he inherited the family estates, Owen Wynne married Anne Maxwell whose brother, John, the MP for County Cavan, was given the title of Baron Farnham in the Irish peerage in 1756. By co-incidence, Anne’s grandfather had been Bishop of Kilmore in 1643 but that bishopric was abolished during the Commonwealth. Following the Restoration, he was bishop of the combined sees of Kilmore and Ardagh. These are the two sees in which Owen I in 1658 had obtained his profitable bishops leases.

Owen IV was elected MP for Co. Sligo in the Irish Parliament in 1749 and he became an Irish Privy Councillor in 1756, allowing him the title of Right Honourable. He was High Sheriff of Co. Sligo in 1758. His house in Dublin was in Henrietta Street, the earliest Georgian Street in Dublin. While in Dublin, Owen received a regular stream of letters from Edward Martin, his agent in Sligo. These letters, which extend in time from 1758 to 1766, throw much light on the life which revolved around Hazelwood. They refer to estate management, elections and the candidates in them, rents, the recovery and payment of debts, the employment of servants, the cutting of turf, etc. Mrs. Martin oversaw brewing, pickling salmon in kegs of spice, wine and vinegar, while on one occasion 600 oysters were pickled. As required, kegs were sent to the Wynne household in Dublin. An icehouse was constructed, work which required digging to a depth of twenty feet.

In 1764 a domestic crisis blew up when a housemaid named Molly Fleming was found to be pregnant, the father being a servant named Johnston. Molly was discharged and Johnston forgiven. Of Molly, Martin wrote: "I am really sorry for her and I believe her otherwise to be a good servant". As to Johnston, Martin naively commented: "He promises fair he never will be guilty of the like again". The episode is an example of the widely-held view that it is always the woman's fault. Some pages of Martin's ledger relating to disbursements survive. The entries cover the years from 1758-1761 and contain dozens of headings relating to the functioning of an agricultural estate. More personal entries relate to the purchase of brandy and wine. In the three-year period there is only one entry relating to port. On that occasion eight dozen bottles were bought. Apart from claret, wines such as hock were bought at a rate of a dozen bottles at a time. During the period three hogsheads (46 gallons each) of claret were bought from a wine merchant in Derry.

Systematic forestation was carried out on the Wynne estate and in other lands taken on long leases for the purpose. By an Act of the Irish Parliament of 1783/84 a financial advantage was offered for the planting of trees, and for this purpose the landowner had to make annually a sworn return stating the varieties and numbers of trees planted during the previous twelve months. The record of these returns extends in time from 1785 to 1835 and thus relate to Owen IV and Owen V. During this fifty-year period the number of trees planted is just short of 200,000. Twenty-three different varieties were included, the largest number being Scots fir, alder and ash, with oak and beech not far behind. Owen IV died in 1789 leaving six sons and three daughters. His eldest son, Owen, succeeded to the family estates. His eldest son, Owen, succeeded to the family estates. The next son, John, died unmarried while the other sons. Henry, Robert, Richard and William founded families of their own, thus accounting for the extended family of Wynne who survive and thrive to the present day. There were in addition three daughters, Elizabeth, Judith and Catherine.

OWEN WYNNE V (1755 – 1841)

Owen Wynne V was born in 1755, the son of Owen Wynne IV and Anne Maxwell. On his father’s death in 1789, Owen inherited Hazelwood house and estate. He was twice High Sheriff of Co. Sligo during his father's lifetime. A year after succeeding to the family estates he married Lady Sarah Elizabeth Cole, the daughter of William Cole, 1st Earl of Enniskillen and they had two sons and four daughters. The family of Cole had originated in Ireland with Sir William Cole, an undertaker in the plantation of Ulster in the reign of James I. The family seat, Florence Court completed in the 1760s, lies seven miles from Enniskillen. From c.1730, the Wynne and Cole families had been associated, certainly in the making of the Enniskillen-Sligo road and, in the case of the Coles, possibly in the employing of Richard Cassels.

Owen V first entered the Irish Parliament in 1778 as member for Co. Sligo, while at the same time his father was member for the borough. Owen junior's opponent in the election was his father's brother-in-law, William Ormsby of Willowbrook. The contest was fought with a great deal of corruption and disorder on both sides, with the result that Owen's election was followed by a petition to unseat him. At the petition hearing, by a committee of the Irish House of Commons, proceedings which lasted for 2yrs. The committee heard evidence of bribery and evidence that the poll book was stolen, and the electoral lists thrown in the river. It is surprising to learn that instead of ordering a fresh election the committee upheld the Wynne election.

The hearing costs were so great that, according to O'Rorke, the effects were still felt by both families after a lapse of over one hundred years. In subsequent elections, all of them expensive, Owen held one of the county seats until, on the death of his father, he returned himself for the borough seat which had been his father's. He retired from Parliament in 1806 by being appointed Escheator of Munster, purely a nominal post but as an office of profit under the Crown, it disqualified its holder from membership of the Commons. It was a device by which a Member of Parliament could resign in between elections. He then "sold" his borough seat to George Canning for an annuity which continued until 1820 when the seat was resumed by Owen. While still a member of the Irish Parliament, he voted against the Union, as also did the two county members, Joshua Edward Cooper and Charles O'Hara. When a meeting of Protestants was held in the court house of Sligo on 12 August 1812, it passed four resolutions, hostile to Catholic Emancipation, each proposed by Owen Wynne. He served as MP for Sligo borough from 1820 to 1830. He was appointed custos rotulorum for County Sligo for life in 1789 and High Sheriff of Sligo from 1819 to 1820 and High Sheriff of Leitrim from 1833 to 1834. On his death in 1841 at the age of 86, Hazelwood estate was passed to his eldest son John Arthur Wynne.

JOHN ARTHUR WYNNE (1801 – 1865)

John Arthur Wynne was born in 1801. The eldest surviving son of Owen Wynne V was an Irish landowner, politician, Under-Secretary of State for Ireland and a Privy Councillor. On his father’s death in 1841, he inherited Hazelwood House. As the son of a wealthy family, he was educated at Winchester School and Christ Church, Oxford. He married Lady Anne Wandesford Butler, the daughter of James Butler, 1st Marquess of Ormonde. She died eleven years after her marriage, while helping with Famine relief, having given birth to four children.

John Wynne succeeded his father as Member of Parliament for the borough in 1830. This was by his father’s nomination rather than by election. He was elected again as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Sligo in 1856, resigning in 1860 by becoming Steward of the Manor of Northstead. He was made an Irish Privy Counsellor in 1852. He also served as High Sheriff of Co. Leitrim in 1834 and of Co. Sligo in 1840. In 1843 John Wynne was appointed a member of the Devon Commission which under the chairmanship of the Earl of Devon, was set up by Peel to examine how far the Irish land system was responsible for the prevailing discontent and disturbance and how far Parliament should interfere. Of the five commissioners, four were Irish landlords and the chairman an Englishman who owned property in Ireland. This prompted O'Connell's comment that it would be as reasonable to consult butchers about the lenten fast as to consult landlords about the rights of tenants. After sitting for two years the commission failed to recommend the reforms later called the 'three Fs', fair rent, fixity of tenure and freedom for the tenant to sell his interest in the holding. It did propose a limited right to compensation for improvement, but a bill to this effect was defeated in the House of Lords and the report of the commission was no mere whitewash. In 1843, as famine became more severe, John Wynne reduced his rents thereby lowering his annual income by £1,280. He also paid for tenants’ passage to Canada. Rent arrears inevitably increased, under pressure of the Irish situation, and after much agitation by the Anti-Corn Law League in England, Sir Robert Peel in 1846 repealed the Corn Laws. Wynne was offered, and accepted, the office of Under-Secretary in Dublin Castle, at the same time being made a Privy Councillor.

In 1856 John Wynne re-entered politics and was elected for the borough by a majority of 31 votes in a total poll of 265. The poll shows the restricted nature of the franchise even after the Reform Act. His opponent was John Patrick Somers, who had defeated John Martin in 1837. He appears to have been a much more colourful personality than Wynne. In 1857, when Wynne and Somers contested the seat again, Wynne petitioned to unseat his opponent. The committee, appointed to try the merits of the election, decided that Somers should be unseated, and Wynne declared elected after three Somers votes were transferred to Wynne and a further three votes of voters who were rejected by the poll clerk were awarded to Wynne. Wynne was re-elected in 1859, but advancing ill-health caused him to resign a year later. Bribery and violence reached their peak in the Sligo election of 1868 Parliament had had enough. In 1870 the borough constituency was abolished by a disfranchisement act. Between 1847 and 1852, he was chairman of the Board of Guardians, the body responsible for the relief of poverty. He also helped found the Sligo Mental Hospital. In his later years he devoted himself to agricultural improvement and afforestation. He had served his community well. He died on a visit to Tuam in 1865 and was then succeeded by his son Owen VI.

OWEN WYNNE VI (1843 – 1910)

Owen Wynne VI was born in 1843 and was twenty-two when he inherited the family estate. He reactivated the family military tradition and as a young man served as a lieutenant in the 61st Foot Regiment and was High Sheriff of County Sligo in 1875 and of County Leitrim in 1881. He was also a founding director of the Sligo Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway. At the age of 27 he married Stella Fanny, the younger daughter of Sir Robert Gore-Broth of Lissadell, the fourth baronet. They had four children, all daughters – Muriel, the eldest, followed by Evelyn, Madeline and Dorothy.

It may seem obvious to us now with the gift of hindsight, but to those living at the start of the 1800s, there was little indication that the power of the Protestant Lords of Ireland would be radically altered in favour of the majority Catholic Nationalist population by the end of that century. Under Owen VI the Hazelwood estate would witness remarkable changes, the culmination of continuous gradual reforms. The second half of the 19th century saw the development of what is recognisably “Modern Ireland”. In the face of falling prices and crop failures, Michael Davitt founded the Land League which organised mass meetings of tenants throughout Ireland. On 22 August 1880 such a meeting was held at Manorhamilton at which 7,000 people and six bands were present. The Land League was followed by the National League, after the former had been outlawed. The National League in 1886 set in motion the Plan of Campaign which in Co. Leitrim was first put into action in December 1886 on Owen Wynne's estate, for the agent, George Hewson, refused a proposed reduction of 25%. It has been suggested that "The decision of the League to choose the Wynne estate for the Plan may have been influenced by the fact that the landlord was not considered harsh in his dealing with tenants and, therefore, the achievement of a favourable settlement within a short time was a real possibility..." Starting in the late 1880s, Owen Wynne sold his estates, other than the Hazelwood demesne, to the Land Commission for the price of £79,000. This represents about four million pounds at the present day.

On Sunday, the 27th February 1887, tragedy struck the Wynnes as Stella, Owen’s wife, suffered a serious carriage accident which caused her death. She was a very generous woman and was involved in many charities, was devoted to the poor, and her funeral attracted all creeds and classes, landowners and tenants, Catholic and Protestant bishops and prominent nationalists and unionists. Her funeral was described by the eminent Sligo historian Archdeacon O’Rorke as “unparalleled in the county of Sligo for numbers and the feelings that swayed them.”

According to many, Owen never recovered from the death of his wife. However, Hazelwood continued to thrive under him. In the latter part of the nineteenth century O’Rorke described the uniqueness of Hazelwood saying that “though the residence may not be equal in massiveness to some more modern mansions, it is still a very stately and graceful structure. It is built of cut and polished limestone, in the Italian style, with a bold four-storey front facade, and two lateral curving wings … a secondary front, rising from a fine terrace, looks to the south and the area, running form the terrace to the lake, is divided between an open lawn and shady groves, in which are provided charming retreats for saunterers, including a cane house, a rock house, a shell house, and a curious chair of state constructed of whale bone.” By the early 1900’s, Hazelwood demesne consisted of 900 acres of arable land, of which 80 were under tillage, 130 in meadow, and the balance of 690 acres under grazing. A further 600 acres were under forestry. A hundred head of cattle were bred annually. There were twenty to twenty-five dairy cows and seventy to eighty ewes. There was stabling for thirty horses. £1,500 was expended annually on labour and the workmen were comfortably housed.

Hazelwood was also the venue for many sporting events. Yacht racing on Lough Gill took place throughout the 19th century and from 1880 to 1942 race meetings were held on the race-course on the Hazelwood demesne. A polo club was founded in 1878, matches being played at Hazelwood. According to the Sligo Champion, a game at Hazelwood was an event to be watched by the entire town. The national success of the Sligo polo team was renowned and Sligo polo ponies were much in demand that many were exported to England and America. Shooting parties were also regularly organised at Hazelwood.

Owen Wynne VI died on 21st November 1910 aged 67. One cannot escape the feeling that he was a saddened man. His wife had been tragically killed twenty-three years earlier. The great estates of 15,000 acres in Leitrim and 14,000 acres in Sligo had for the most part been sold. Since he had no male heir, with his death the line of the Wynnes of Hazelwood came to an end. The house and remaining estate were sold by the last Wynne descendant to own it in 1937.