Parish of Stillorgan

Parish of Stillorgan

Stillorgan (or Tigh Lorcain, the house of Lorcan), as shown on the Down Survey Map, comprised the modern townlands of Stillorgan, North and South, Stillorgan Grove, Stillorgan Park, Carysfort, and Woodland. It now also includes Waltersiand and the Glebe.

Stillorgan Park

Stillorgan, or the House of Lorcan or Laurence, which was probably known in early times as the place of sepulchre of a chief, whose tomb was discovered in the 18th century in the park, became, under English rule, the centre of a manor hold from the Crown by military service.

There was to be seen, in the centuries succeeding the Conquest, a fortified house, surrounded by a bawn, with the usual manorial adjuncts of a mill and a dovecote, while not far off, on the site of the modern church, stood a primitive place of worship nestling amidst a thick wood. The manor was liable equally with those which adjoined it to the raids of the mountain tribes, and owing to its being laid waste and devastated, the rent for which it was found convenient to commute the service of a knight and a half, was sometimes remitted by the Crown to the owner.

The first English owner appears to have been Raymond Carew, who gave portion of the original lands of Stillorgan, which extended to the sea, as mentioned under Seapoint to St. Mary’s Abbey. He was succeeded by members of the Hacket family, who were prominent people in the district, and great allies and friends of the canons at Kill-of-the-Grange.

At the close of the 14th century the manor came into the possession of a magnate of the Pale, Sir John Cruise, who held the adjoining lands of Merrion and Booterstown, as well as those of Kilmacud and Murphystown, and who was distinguished both in civil and military employment. As a member of the judiciary and of the Parliament of his time, he was sent to England to report on the state of Ireland, and as one foremost in repelling the incursions of the enemies of the King, he was on one occasion severely wounded. Before his death, which took place in 1407, he had assigned the manor to John Derpatrick and his wife Maria, who was possibly a daughter of Cruise, and on Derpatrick being killed soon afterwards, in 1410, while taking part in an expedition under the Lord-Deputy against the O’Tooles, it passed to his eldest son, Robert Derpatrick.

The manor house was, in 1422, occupied by the principal tenant, John Loghenan, but portion of the lands was retained by the owner, and was doubtless cultivated for him by his tenants, who comprised besides Loghenan, another Englishman, Richard Locumbe and two Irishmen.

Robert Derpatrick, who had married a daughter of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, James Uriell, had died before that time, leaving an only daughter, and as the manor was entailed in the male line, his brother Stephen succeeded to it.

Stephen was then a minor, and for some years the manor was vested in Bartholomew de Bathe, of Drumcondra (who had married Robert Derpatrick’s widow) and other trustees, and was the subject of much litigation. Not long after he came of age, Stephen Derpatrick committed some crime, which led to his being proclaimed an outlaw, and the manor then reverted to the Cruise family.

Subsequently, through the marriage of Sir Christopher Cruise’s only daughter to Sir Thomas Plunkett Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in the reign of Edward IV., the manor came into the possession of the Plunketts of Rathmore, from whom sprang the noble houses of Dunsany, Killeen, and Louth, and remained their property for more than 150 years.

The latter part of the 16th century saw the settlement at Stillorgan of a branch of the ancient Suffolk family of Wolverston, or Wolferston, and the granting by the Plunketts of a lease of the manor and lands to the Right Hon. Jacques Wingfield. Both of these events were probably due to the residence in the neighbouring castle of Monkstown of the Master of the Ordnance, Sir John Travers.

The Wolverstons, who first appear as resident at Stillorgan, had served under Travers, and Wingfield had discharged Travers’ duties for some years before his death, and afterwards succeeded to his office. At the time of Wingfield’s death, in 1587, the Wolverstons were probably his tenants for the lands of Stillorgan.

The state of his department, of which he had only retained control through the soundness of his patent and his interest with his relative, Lord Burghley, had long been the source of complaint, and owing to confusion in his accounts, Stillorgan with the rest of his property was seized by the Crown. It was, however, soon surrendered to the Plunketts, and in the following year was leased by them to James Wolverston, who was then residing at Leopardstown.

James Wolverston was the son of George Wolverston, who married one of the Rochforts, of Kilbogget, and who had displayed much valour as captain of the O’Byrne’ country. Like most of his family, James Wolverston saw military service, but after he had acquired Stillorgan, he devoted himself with success to the improvement of his worldly circumstances.

At the time of his death, in 1609, he had become a man of note in the county. He was in occupation of lands in the County Wicklow, as well as in the County Dublin, and was owner of several studs of horses, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and droves of pigs, besides great store of corn, much household stuff, and plate.

These he divided between his widow, a daughter of Richard Archbold, the owner of the adjoining lands of Kilmacud, and his four sons, William, who became owner of Stillorgan; Robert, who succeeded to lands near Baltinglass; Christopher, who settled on the farm of Kill-of-the-Grange, and John, who succeeded to lands near Newcastle.

The manor house of Stillorgan in the 16th century was the largest in the neighbourhood, excepting the castle of Monkstown, and was surrounded by extensive offices and garden, while a little way off an orchard and a grove of ash trees hid from view the mill, which was still in use, on one of the little streams. Its new owner, William Wolverston, lost no opportunity of adding to the lands which he had inherited from his father, and purchased from the Plunketts the fee of Stillorgan.

He was, in his time, one of the most prominent residents, and the most striking personality, in the southern portion of the County Dublin. Like his neighbours, the Cheevers, the Goodmans, and the Walshes, he was a Roman Catholic. His family had been Protestant, but through intermarriage with early English settlers, had become Roman Catholic, and Wolverston was a most devout son of the latter church, maintaining a priest in his house at Stillorgan, and showing much hospitality to travelling friars, who returned, we are told, to their monasteries enriched, not only with his benefactions, but also with those of the poorer people.

The Rebellion of 1641 found him residing at Stillorgan. Related as he was, through his mother, and his grandmother, and through his wife, one of the Barnewalls of Shankill, to the Walshes, the Rochforts, and other leaders in the rising, his sympathy must have been largely with the rebel side, but he kept himself clear from any overt act of rebellion.

He did not however, escape without suspicion. The curate of Kill-of-the-Grange deposed that when the rebels carried off his wife, they brought her across bogs which then lay between that place and Stillorgan, to Wolverston’s house, and that, though Wolverston desired them not to hang her on his own lands, he took no steps to prevent their doing so at Powerscourt.

Possibly he was not in a position to oppose their designs, but in consequence of Mr. Smithson’s allegations, he was arrested and confined in Dublin Castle until Lord Clanricarde, under whom one of Wolverston’s sons was then serving, wrote to the Marquis of Ormonde, begging for his release, on the ground of his being a man of good repute, and well disposed to the King’s cause.

William Wolverston’s death took place two years later, in 1644, and his property passed to his grandson, James, the son of George Wolverston, of Leopardstown. As his grandson was then a minor, the lands were vested in the Marquis of Ormonde who, occupied as he was with more weighty matters, can hardly have given much attention to them, and probably they were utterly derelict when the Commonwealth was established.

They were subsequently assigned by the Parliament to Major Henry Jones, who was arrested in 1663 for complicity in Blood’s plot to take Dublin Castle. Jones was residing at Stillorgan at the time of his arrest, but shortly before a decree of innocence had been obtained by James Wolverston from the Commissioners of Settlement, and under it Jones’ widow and children Wore evicted from the house and lands.

James Wolverston, on taking up his residence at Stillorgan, found, as Cheevers had done at Monkstown, that his property had not suffered during the Cromwellian occupation. The village at the time of the Restoration contained eighteen houses, and there was a population of some thirteen English and twenty-five Irish.

He did not, however, long enjoy his recovered possessions, and died three years later, in 1666, when only 36 years of age. His widow, a sister of the tenth Lord Dunsany, married soon after his death Bryan O’Neill, of Upper Claneboys, who succeeded to the baronetcy conferred upon his father after the battle of Edgehill, and became, in the reign of James II., one of the judges of the King’s Bench. For a time the O’Neills occupied Stillorgan, but prior to the accession of James II. it came into the possession of Sir Joshua Allen.

The first of the Allen family (which became identified with Stillorgan and converted the lands into one of the finest demesnes in the County Dublin) to settle in Ireland was a certain John Allen, who modestly describes himself as a bricklayer, but who was one of the most eminent master builders or architects of his day.

He is said to have come to Dublin from Holland, where he probably acquired his knowledge of building, but soon was successful in obtaining. much employment in Dublin-success to which his handsome person, as Lodge quaintly tells us, largely contributed. Amongst those by whom he was employed was the Earl of Strafford, who confided to him the erection of the mansion which he began to build near Naas. Sir Joshua Allen was his eldest son.

At the time of his father’s death, in 1641, he was only a child, but he was brought up by his mother, in accordance with his father’s injunctions, with tender care, and in the Protestant religion, and on attaining to manhood he displayed great business capacity. He soon acquired an ample fortune, and took a foremost place amongst Dublin citizens. As a prominent member of the Corporation he was elected successively Sheriff and Mayor, and during his tenure of the latter office received from the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Essex, to whom he presented the freedom of the city in a gold box, the- honour of knighthood.

Soon after James II. had ascended the throne, Allen foresaw the coming troubles, and though then extensively engaged in business, began to entertain an idea of removing to England. The Lord Lieutenant the Earl of Clarendon, who says that Allen was as wise a man of his profession as could be met with, and of as clear a reputation as anyone in this kingdom, tried to dissuade him from taking this step, and begged him to lay aside gloomy apprehensions, but Allen was not to be deceived by fair words, and before James II. came to Ireland he took refuge in Chester, to which place his wife’s family belonged. There he came into touch with William III., and acted as his agent in making arrangements for the embarkation of that monarch’s troops for Ireland. He returned to Ireland after the Battle of the Boyne and was appointed the first Sheriff of Dublin under William III., but as his death took place in the following year he did not live to reap the fruits of that victory.

It was Sir Joshua Allen’s intention to form the lands of Stillorgan and of Carrickmines, which he purchased at the same time, and which were connected with those of Stillorgan by the lands which he leased from Christ Church Cathedral, into a manorial estate and great family seat, and with this object he reserved in the patent which he obtained from the Crown, the right to enclose a demesne and deer park.

He lived in times, however, which were not favourable to the execution of such a design, and it was left to his son, Colonel John Allen, to carry out his project, at any rate in part. This Colonel Allen did, by the erection at Stillorgan of a stately mansion. Its ruins, which stood on the site of the residence known as Park House, and which bore the date of its construction, 1695, have only disappeared within the last quarter of a century.

The mansion, which faced the north, consisted of a central building, three stories in height, from which wings, two stories in height, extended on either side. The central building projected from the wings, and was connected by curtain walls, which encircled a large courtyard, with a miniature theatre and out-offices. In appearance the mansion has been compared to one made of cards, and as the picture indicates, the comparison was not altogether without justification.

It was surrounded by extensive gardens, covering thirteen acres, which were laid out in Dutch style, probably by an Englishman called Bullein, who was the principal rural artist in Ireland at that time. The gardens abounded in straight avenues and alleys, with curious edgings of box, carefully clipped yew trees, knots of flowers, topiary work, and grassy slopes, and possibly there may have been, as there was in Bullein’s nursery, the representation of a boar hunt or hare chase cut out in box.

Three artificial fish ponds, laid out, like everything else, on strictly rectangular lines, lay to the south of the house on the other side of an eminence in the undulating surface of the park. The approach to them from the house was through a remarkable passage and tunnel, the only remaining relic of the occupation of the Allens, which were cut through the mound and in the excavations for which it is probable that the tomb, already referred to, was found.

The walls of the passage and tunnel were built of brick, and were decorated with niches, tablets, and sculptural figures, apparently designed on some classic model.

The remaining lands of Stillorgan were converted into a great park, which stretched away on the south to Newtown Park Avenue, on the north to Merrion Avenue, and on the east to Blackrock.

The portion now occupied by the grounds of Obelisk Park, and of Carysfort House, and by Newtown Park village, were enclosed for deer, and a handsome avenue bordered with elm trees was made towards Merrion Avenue.

Colonel John Allen had served in King William’s army, and displayed through life a rigid adherence to the principles which actuated his conduct in early days. As owner of the Stillorgan and Carrickmines estate, he was recognised as one of the leading men in the metropolitan county, and was returned to the first Irish Parliament under William III. as one of its representatives. From that time he became immersed in politics. For twenty-five years he occupied a seat in the House of Commons; during three Parliaments as representative of the County Dublin, during one as representative of the County Carlow, and during another as representative for the County Wicklow.

He largely increased the estate which included lands in the County Kildare, left him by his father, and purchased, in addition to the property at Bullock and Dalkey, the town and lands of Arklow, in the County Wick low, now owned, as well as the former, by his descendant the Earl of Carysfort.

Besides the influence derived from his territorial possessions, Colonel Allen had formed an alliance with one of the most powerful families of his day by his marriage to, the sister of Robert, the nineteenth Earl of Kildare, and his distinguished brother-in-law was a constant guest at Stillorgan.

We find him staying there in 1714, on the accession of George I., when he was appointed one of the Lords Justices, again in 1719, when one of his children was baptized in Monkstown Church.

Colonel Allen strenuously exerted himself to secure the peaceful succession of the House of Hanover. He was one of the principal witnesses against the Rev. Francis Higgins, who has been called the “Irish Sacheverel,” and steadfastly set his face against the Jacobite tendencies of Queen Anne’s Ministers.

At the General Election in 1713 he used his wealth to obtain the return to Parliament of members sharing his views. His eldest son was then elected for the County Kildare, and his second son for the borough of Carysfort, in the County Wicklow, while by the return, at the General Election on the accession of George I., of his youngest son for the borough of Athy, the unusual spectacle was witnessed of a father and three sons all sitting in Parliament at the same time, and, still more remarkable, all returned unopposed.

A Privy Councillorship was Allen’s immediate reward, and three years later a peerage was conferred upon him as Baron Allen of Stillorgan and Viscount Allen of Kildare.

Joshua, the second Viscount Allen, succeeded to Stillorgan on his father’s death, which occurred in London in 1726, and he resided there constantly. He has gained an unenviable notoriety as the subject of some of Swift’s severest satires. The Dean does not allow him the possession of a single good quality; but two letters of his, written from abroad in early life to his friend Joshua Dawson, the Secretary to the Lords Justices, exhibit inherent discretion and a spirit of patriotism in the passionate wish he expresses to be amongst his Dublin friends again “in a little hole about ye Round Church.”

He was certainly easily led; and it is said that his marriage which took place in 1707, when he was twenty-two years of age, was the result of a trick played upon him by his friend Lionel Sackville afterwards Duke of Dorset. It is related that at first he refused to acknowledge the lady, a Miss Du Pass, a relative of the Welbore Ellis family, as his wife, but on her inserting a notice in the newspapers stating that she had succeeded to a large fortune he became as desirous to prove the marriage as he had previously been to disown it, and before he found out that the report was without foundation the lady had gained complete ascendancy over him. Lady Allen, although a warm friend and affectionate wife, was a masterful woman, and as regards her influence with her husband there can be no doubt.

It was probably by the second Lord Allen, during a great famine in 1727, that the Obelisk which now stands in the grounds of Obelisk Park, and was long the pride of the neighbourhood, and the most conspicuous object in the surrounding country, was erected.

It is traditionally reported to have been designed by Sir Edward Lovet Pearce, the architect of the Irish House of Commons, and this report is more or less confirmed by the fact that Pearce came to reside about that time in a house within the Allen’s park, then and until lately known as the Grove, and now as Tigh Lorcain Hall.

The obelisk resembles, in its massive style and in its excellent state of preservation, the great work of Pearce’s life. It is more than 100 feet high of cut granite, and rises from a rustic base formed of huge uncut rocks, containing a large vaulted chamber, and having on each side a double staircase leading to a platform, from which four doorways of Egyptian design furnish the entrance to a small room in the obelisk.

The second Lord Allen and his wife, who is said to have been much admired by the Viceroy, their old friend. Lionel, Duke of Dorset, were prominent figures in the Dublin society of their day, and Stillorgan was in their time the scene of many fashionable and festive gatherings. Thither rode the good Archbishop King (who did not hesitate to apply for some of the famous Stillorgan venison, on which to feast his friends at the Visitation of Marsh’s Library), to solicit Lord Allen’s interest for a parliamentary candidate.

There was welcomed the witty Dean, whose friendship Lord Allen at first caressed and courted, but whose enmity he was rash enough subsequently to incur by “rattling him bitterly under various injurious appellations.”

Thither wont along the road from Dublin, which then commanded “a very fine and charming prospect of the sea all the way,” Mrs. Clayton in her great coach drawn “by six flouncing Flanders mares which outlooked everyone else’s.”

And there came to stay for some weeks that gallant soldier and brilliant diplomatist the second Earl of Stair, escorted from Donaghadee, where he had landed, by many persons of great quality and distinction.

Lady Allen maintained her ascendancy over her husband until his death, which occurred at Stillorgan in 1742, and by a will of a few lines he bequeathed her all his property, real as well as personal.

He left a son and two daughters. The son, John, third Viscount Allen, only survived his father three years, and as he had not married, the titles passed to his cousin, the son of the first Viscount’s youngest son, who had succeeded td the Kildare estate. Lady Allen removed to London after her husband’s death, and there her eldest daughter married Sir John Proby, who became the first Baron of Carysfort, and her youngest, “a little lively sort of fairy,” Sir William Mayne, who was also created a peer as Baron Newhaven, a title which became extinct on his death.

Stillorgan House and grounds were, in 1754, let to the Right Hon. Philip Tisdal, who was then Solicitor-General and Judge of the Prerogative Court, and became Attorney-General and Secretary of State; and for twenty-three years, until his death, it continued to be the country residence of that remarkable man.

“He was a man of first-rate talents, and one of the greatest lawyers of his time,” writes his rival Prime-Serjeant and Provost Hutchinson, “and in the courts of Justice, the Senate, the Privy Council, and the Cabinet, maintained to the time of his death the reputation of a man of great knowledge and ability.”

Tisdal understood so well the farce and fallacy of life, we are told, that he went through the world with a constant sunshine of soul and an inexorable gravity of feature, viewing life as if it had been a scenic representation, and he was in some respects one of the most singular, as he was undoubtedly one of the most able Irish statesman of the 18th century.

He lived in a style of the greatest splendour and magnificence, and during his occupation Stillorgan House was the centre of that unbounded hospitality in which he delighted. There he entertained the Lords Lieutenants of the day - in 1755 the Marquis of Hartington, in 1765 the Earl of Hertford, and frequently, during his Viceroyalty, the Marquis of Townshend, who appreciated Tisdal’s well-known cook and the company of an eight-bottle man, such as Tisdal is said to have been.

There, also, met a small circle of political friends - “the Cabal at Stillorgan” - whom Tisdal was said to attract round him by his profusion, and whose meetings were regarded with suspicion by his rivals. And there, as his guest, Angelica Kauffmann exercised her great talents.

After Tisdal’s death, which occurred at Spa, where he went every year, in 1777, the second Baron Carysfort, who was an active politician and diplomatist, as well as an author, and who was advanced to the dignity of an Earl, resided for a time in Stillorgan House, which he had inherited through his mother.

But the place was soon again let to the Lord Chancellor of the day, the Right Hon. James Hewitt, Baron Lifford, who had previously rented Santry Court as his country residence. Lord Lifford’s appointment to the Chancellorship had been much resented on the ground of his being an Englishman, but by the ability with which he discharged the business of his court, and by his upright and amiable disposition, he gained the respect both of the Bar and of the public.

With the help of a young and handsome wife he dispensed much hospitality at Stillorgan, and, though his entertainments lacked the brilliancy of Tisdal’s, they were as frequently graced by the presence of the Viceroy, then often a near neighbour of the Chancellor’s at Seapoint.

The outlying portions of Stillorgan Park had been advertised for building after Tisdal’s death, and before the end of the 18th century, Carysfort Avenue had been made, and Stillorgan Castle and Carysfort House built.

The grounds of Stillorgan House, to which a new approach through handsome iron gates had been constructed, retained much of their beauty, until the time or Lord Lifford’s death in 1789, but under his successor, Nicholas Le Fevre, the place became much deteriorated.

Le Fevre was a lottery merchant in Dublin, and carried on his business in a house at the corner of Grafton-street and Suffolk-street.

In his time the other residents at Stillorgan included the Hon. Chichester Skeffington, M.P. for Antrim, and afterwards fourth Earl of Massareene; Alderman Nathaniel Warren, M.P. for Dublin, and afterwards for Callan, who resided in the house next the church now known as Woodview; and Alderman Caleb Jenkins, a well-known book-seller, who lived at the Grove, which had been occupied for many years after Sir Edward Pearce’s death by the first Sir George Ribton and his successor in the baronetcy.

Le Fevre came to financial grief, and his mortgagees in 1803 assigned Stillorgan House to Mr. John Verschoyle, brother of Dr. James Verschoyle, Bishop of Killala, and father of Dr. Hamilton Verschoyle, Bishop of Kilmore.

Carysfort House, now the Convent of Mercy, was, about the same time, taken by the Right Hon. William Saurin, one of the most distinguished lawyers the Irish Bar has ever known, and was occupied by him and his family for the greater part of the last century.

Stillorgan Castle, then known as Mount Eagle, and now as the House of St. John of God, was occupied at the time Mr. Verschoyle came to Stillorgan House by Mr. William Monck Mason, the author of the “History of St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” and subsequently by the witty Henry Deane Grady, in whose time it was known, on account of the great marriages made by his daughters, as “the House of Lords.”

The Priory, which obtained its name from some ruins in the grounds marked on the Ordnance map as a monastery, was also built about this time, and was for many years the residence of the Right Hon. Anthony Blake, one of the founders of the National System of Education, and subsequently of Mr. William Pierce Mahony, a celebrated solicitor.

After Mr. Verschoyle’s death, in 1840, Stillorgan House was sold to Mr. Arthur Lee Guinness, brother of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, who restored the place to some of its former magnificence, and revived its reputation for lavish hospitality. The house remained in his possession for about twenty years, and on the termination of his tenancy was allowed to fall gradually into ruin, until finally its walls were levelled with the ground.

Ecclesiastical History

The origin of the name Stillorgan, or the House of Lorcan or Laurence, has been attributed to the erection of its ancient church, by St. Laurence O’Toole, who was Archbishop of Dublin at the time of the English invasion.

The first mention of this church, which stood on the site of the present one and was dedicated. to St. Bridget, is in 1216, when Raymond Carew granted it, together with the church fields, to the Priory of the Holy Trinity. It was then attached to the mother church of Kill-of-he-Grange, and continued under it for the next 300 years.

It was served by a resident chaplain, who held the church lands, and like the other churches under the Priory was, in the 14th century, a subject of contention with the Archdeacon of Dublin as to his right of visitation. After the dissolution of the religious houses it was allowed to fall into ruin, and was leased, together with the manse and lands, by the Chapter of Christ Church Cathedral, to various persons.

Amongst these were the tenants of Stillorgan, the Right Hon. Jacques Wingfield, and the Wolverstons, who were all buried with heraldic honours in the ruined church. Also for a time the premises were leased to Alison and Katherine Ussher, two maiden aunts of Archbishop James Ussher, who are said to have taught him to read. These ladies held a lease of the tithes, which they bequeathed to their nephew by marriage, the Rev. James Donelan.

During the Commonwealth Mr. Thomas Hickes was appointed, at a salary of £120 a year, “by the Church of Christ, sitting at Chichester House” to preach the Gospel at Stillorgan and other places in the barony of Rathdown. After the Restoration the parish, with that of Kilmacud, was united to Monkstown.

The modern church of Stillorgan is one of those which the diocese owes to the energy of Archbishop King, and was probably erected by him in concert with Colonel Allen, for whom he had a great esteem.

As in other cases, the Archbishop found it impossible to secure a provision for a resident clergyman, and it was more than fifty years before one was appointed. The church, which had meantime fallen into disrepair, was then restored by the liberality of Lord Chancellor Jocelyn, who was living at Mount Merrion, and other residents, and the parishes of Stillorgan and Kilmacud were severed from Monkstown, and assigned to the charge of a separate curate.

The right of presentation was vested in the Dean of Christ Church, and in 1764 was exercised in favour of the Rev. Beather King, who also held the curacy of St. John’s Church, Dublin. King showed much vigour in his charge of the cure; he erected a glebe house on land, which belonged to Christ Church Cathedral, in Newtown Park Avenue, and his church was several times chosen by bishops for the purpose of ordination services. He resigned in 1785, and was succeeded by the Rev. Edward Beatty, then assistant curate of Monkstown, in whose time the tower and northern aisle were added to the church.

His successors in the incumbency have been-in 1815, the Rev. Rawdon Griffith Greene; in 1839, the Rev. James Kelly; in 1845, the Rev. John Grant; in 1856, the Rev. Thomas Sill Grey; in 1872, the Rev. St. George French; and in 1879, the Rev. James Houghton Kennedy.

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