Medal Society of Ireland

by William B. Maulk

Thomas Pakenham was born 14 May 1774. He succeeded to the title, Baron Longford, upon the demise of his father, in 1792, and to the title Earl of Longford, in 1794 on the death of his grandmother who, in 1785, was created ‘The Countess of Longford’ in her own right by King George III. He obtained the barony of Silchester, in the county of Southampton, in the U.K., by creation on 17 July 1821.

by John Enticknap

Captain Lord William Beresford, the third son of John, fourth Marquis of Waterford, was born in Ireland in 1846. Educated at Eton, he entered the Army in May 1867 with a commission in the 14th Hussars, shortly afterwards exchanging to the 9th Lancers, joining them in Dublin. He sailed with his regiment to India, where he was appointed A.D.C. to Lord Northbrook and subsequently to Lord Lytton.

by Jim Condon

John Graham (sometimes spelt Greham) Devenish was born in Waterford - where his father was a Church of Ireland Curate¹- on 27 June 1879. His family had come originally from Roscommon, and although worthy people (his aunt was married to a Major General in the Indian Army), there was only one really notable antecedent. She was Olivia Marianne Devenish (1771-1814), the daughter of John’s great, great grand uncle, who married, first, Dr. Jacob Fancourt. On his death, she married (as his first wife) Stamford Raffles, the legendary founder of Singapore. It was believed that before she married Raffles she was the inamorata of Thomas Moore, the great Irish poet, who addressed “many of his amatory elegies to her.”² As the wife of Raffles, she was to make him very happy, and her early death in Java in 1814 was a great grief to him.