From A Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878
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Tottenham, Charles, a member of the Irish House of Commons, was born about 1685. He resided at Tottenham Green, Wexford, and sat for the borough of New Ross. In 1731 a great opposition was set on foot to a proposal that a surplus of £60,000 in the revenue should be made over to the British Government. Tottenham, hearing that the division was coming on sooner than had been expected, rode on horseback from Wexford to Dublin. Getting down at the House of Commons, he was stopped by the serjeant-at-arms, who reported to the Speaker that a member was trying to enter the House without being in full dress, as was customary. After some hesitation, the Speaker decided that he had no power to exclude him, and the bold rider, splashed from head to foot, and wearing jack-boots, strode in, gave his vote, which proved to be a deciding one, and defeated the unpopular measure. Thenceforward he was known and toasted as "Tottenham in his boots." He died 20th September 1758, aged about 73. A portrait of him, in huge jack-boots reaching his thighs, was shown at the National Portrait Exhibition in Dublin in 1872.
Sources
22. Barrington, Sir Jonah, Personal Sketches of his own Time: Townsend Young, LL.D. 2 vols. London, 1869.
53. Burke, Sir Bernard: Landed Gentry. 2 vols. London, 1871.
« Colonel Robert Torrens | Index | James Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven »
From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had.
A touching story for the genuine booklover, written by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St John Featherstonehaugh.
Annals of the Famine in Ireland
Annals of the Famine in Ireland, by Asenath Nicholson, still has the power to shock and sadden even though the events described are ever-receding further into the past. When you read, for example, of the poor widowed mother who was caught trying to salvage a few potatoes from her landlord's field, and what the magistrate discovered in the pot in her cabin, you cannot help but be appalled and distressed.
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Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger
This book, the prequel to Annals of the Famine in Ireland cannot be recommended highly enough to those interested in Irish social history. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, travelled from her native America to assess the condition of the poor in Ireland during the mid 1840s. Refusing the luxury of hotels and first class travel, she stayed at a variety of lodging-houses, and even in the crude cabins of the very poorest. Not to be missed!
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
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