Marquess of Headfort

A carte-de-visite portrait of the Anglo-Irish Whig politician Thomas Taylour (1787-1870), 2nd Marquess of Headfort, styled Viscount Headfort from 1795 to 1800 and Earl of Bective from 1800 to 1829. He was the Member of Parliament for Meath from 1812 to 1830.

Headfort was the son of Thomas Taylour, 1st Marquess of Headfort, and his wife Mary (née Quin), and succeeded his father in the marquessate in 1829. In 1831 he was created Baron Kenlis, of Kenlis in the County of Meath, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, which entitled him to an automatic seat in the House of Lords (his other titles being in the Peerage of Ireland). He was sworn of the Irish Privy Council in 1835 and served in the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne as a Lord-in-Waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) from 1837 to 1841. Between 1831 and 1870 Headfort also held the post of Lord Lieutenant of Cavan. He was made a Knight of the Order of St Patrick in 1839.

He first married Olivia, daughter of Sir John Stevenson, in 1822. After her death in 1834 he married in 1853 Frances, daughter of John Livingstone Martyn and widow of (i) Lieutenant-Colonel James McClintock of the Bombay Army and (ii) Sir William Hay Macnaughten, British Envoy to Afghanistan (murdered in Kabul 1841).

Lord Headfort died on 6 December 1870, aged 83, and was succeeded in the marquessate by Thomas, his son by his first marriage.

Photographed by Cranfield of Dublin.