So who was Robert Algernon Persse?

First a word of apology: I have spelled words as found on the original documents I’ve consulted, and have not tried to make these consistent. Hopefully, the story will still make sense! I should also apologise for referring almost entirely throughout to the Hon. Mrs Algernon Persse simply as Mrs Persse. I must also apologise for the dense text and lack of photographs.

I’ve just been reading an interesting story of a former pupil of the Loughborough Grammar School (1876-1881), a boarder from Ireland, who went on to win Wimbledon in 1889. This has prompted me to consider what happened to other LGS alumni, and in this case, specifically Robert Algernon Persse …

Persse’s father was Dudley Persse, who was born on 19 February 1802 to Robert Persse and Maria Wade. In November 1826, Dudley married the Honourable Katherine O’Grady, who was the daughter of Standish O-Grady, 1st Viscount Guillamore, and his wife, Katharine Waller. Together they had three children: Katherine Henrietta, Maria and Dudley (jnr.).

However, in July 1833, Dudley (snr.) marries again, this time to Frances Barry, who was the daughter of Colonel Richard Barry. There followed the birth of 13 children between 1834 and 1859, all of whom survived into adulthood, and of whom Robert Algernon was the 7 th, and therefore the middle child, to Dudley and Frances. Let’s call him Algernon, for reasons that will become clear later.

Algernon was born on 14 June 1845 at Roxborough, Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland. I have been unable to find very much information about his early years …

Algernon was educated at Mr Vincent’s School, but I have been unable to identify for certain where this was. The name Vincent is significant to education, particularly Catholics in Ireland, as St Vincent was associated with a style (for want of a better word) of teaching. However, Algernon was of the church of Ireland, not a Catholic, although such schools did take non-Catholic children. It’s possible that he attended either Rathmines, or Castleknock, but this is only a possibility.

In 1862, Algernon began his university education at Dublin University. Apparently, he was good at playing cricket, being a good upper order right-handed batsman, and a useful bowler. As well as playing for Dublin University, where he gained his colours in 1863 and 1865, he also played for Phoenix, Gort, Roxborough, Ballinasloe and County Galway. He actually made his debut for the Ireland team on 11 May 1865, when the team played the United South of England XI at Rathmines, who had raised a team for the very first time. Actually, this was his debut and his only appearance for the national side. Whether it was his occupation or his family commitments that got in the way of his cricket playing is not known, but apparently, had he been able to play for Dublin more often, he may well have progressed further. In his book ‘All out: the birth, growth and decline of cricket in County Galway, 1825-1925’  Dolan tells us that Ballinasloe formed the first cricket club in Ireland in 1825, and highlights contributions made by what he deems as significant players, of which Algernon was one.    

And now we skip forward to 1874 when we find Algernon attending the Ballinasloe animal fair. This is an event that he also attends in 1878, when he sold 33 ewes to a Mr Dunne. This implies that Algernon may have been a farmer.

When Algernon was about 31, in February 1876 he attends the funeral of Mrs Beauchamp in Gwennap, near Redruth in Cornwall, along with his older half-brother, Dudley (jnr.), being recorded as a member of the family. Two years later, in September 1878, Algernon would have attended his own father’s funeral.

In December 1881, the ‘Belfast News-Letter’ carries the following article:

“HIGH SHERIFFS FOR 1882.

The following are the names of the gentlemen returned by the Judges of the Assize to serve the office of High Sheriff for the undermentioned counties in the ensuing year: …Galway Town -John O’Flaherty, Esq., Villa, Galway; Algernon Persse, Roxborough, Loughrea; Bernard O’Neill power, Esq., Barfield, Galway” Note, however, that this is not for the County of Galway as this has a separate entry, which precedes this one.

Little wonder then, that in January of 1883, the proprietor of the newspaper, the ‘Tuam News’ (Tuam being a town in County Galway) is prosecuted for offences against the provisions of the Prevention of Crime Act, having intimidated a number of people, which included Algernon, in articles he had printed in the newspaper.  

In July 1884, Algernon visits the Palace Hotel in Buxton, where Mr Schaerer is the manager. The first recorded date for his visit is around the 5th, and the last around the 30th. Did he stay for the whole month of July? Perhaps this was a holiday?

In 1885, Algernon becomes the High Sheriff of County Galway, a role which his father, Dudley, had held 20 years earlier, in 1835. In the following year, on 11 June, an announcement was placed in the ‘Morning Post’:

“A marriage is arranged, and will take place towards the end of July …”. By ‘arranged’ I have to assume they mean organised!! And so it was that on 29th July 1886, Algernon marries the Honourable Eleanor Laura Jane Gough, usually known as Nora. She was the daughter of George Stephens Gough, 2nd Viscount Gough of Goojerat and Jane Arbuthnot, and had been born on 13 October 1854 in Ireland in County Tipperary. The marriage of Algernon and Nora took place in parish church of Booterstown, near Dublin. According to many newspaper reports, it was a ‘fashionable marriage’, attended by the Prince and Princess of Saxe-Weimar. The bride wore a magnificent costume of silver brocade and pearl white satin, and the four bridesmaids wore dresses in mauve. Lord and Lady Gough hosted 150 guests to a garden party at St Helen’s after the ceremony, and the bride and groom departed for a honeymoon in Killarney. You might think the bride’s and bridesmaid’s outfits were fashionable, or perhaps the ‘going away outfit’ of silver-grey with ruby and gold embroidery, but it was more likely to be because the wedding took place rather late, between 4 and 5pm!

It wasn’t long before the Persses started a family. First to be born was daughter Olive Nora, on 13 September 1887 in St Helen’s Booterstown, followed on 27 June 1889 by another daughter, Daphne, at Roxborough, Loughrea, in County Galway. Very shortly after this, in October 1889, the family attended the marriage of Nora’s brother, Hugh Gough to Georgiana Pakenham, at St George’s in Hanover Square, London.

Roxborough

Algernon and Nora’s third child, Rodolph Algernon Persse, was born on 12 May 1892 at Roxborough, County Galway. In July of the same year, Algernon finds himself acting as executor to the will of his sister’s husband. She was Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory, a famous Irish playwright, folklorist and theatre manager.

Algernon and his wife, Nora, are supporters of various causes, contributing to the Coal Fund several times and notably, in 1895 and 1902. The Coal Fund was a charity which traced its roots back to the 1870s, but was established by Sir John Arnott in 1891, and aimed to assist folk during particularly harsh winters. It was apparently one of the first ecumenical charities in Dubln, and still exists today, and one of the charities helped by the fund was St Vincent De Paul. The Persses also contributed to the fund for the repairs to the fishing boats that had been wrecked in December 1899 at Arran Island.

When we find Algernon yet again attending the Ballinasloe fair in 1897, where he sold six lots of 30 each, heifers and bullocks, at £11 to £14 each, he is clearly a farmer. In 1900 he sent some of his cattle to be sold at the great cattle auction that was held in Dublin, and his status as a farmer is confirmed by his entry in the 1901 Ireland census, in which his occupation is recorded as a farmer, now aged 55. He and his family are living at Hollypark, Moyode, Galway, Ireland, along with 8 servants, and on the night of the census they had two visitors.

Over the next few years, there are many holidays, events and weddings to attend. In July 1906, Mrs Persse and one of her daughters arrived at Hope’s Hotel, 28 Brompton Square, London, to stay for a fortnight. In

February 1909, Mrs Persse and her two daughters were presented to the Persian Minister Resident at the court of their majesties. On 5 January 1911 Mr and Mrs Persse attended the marriage of Neville Chamberlain to Annie Vera Cole, at St Paul’s in Knightsbridge, and gave silver salt sifters as a wedding gift.

On the Ireland census taken on 2 April 1911, the family were recorded as living at Cregaclare Demesne, Ardrahan, Galway. Algernon was listed as a landowner and a JP, and was living with his wife, listed as Eleanor, and two of their children, Daphne, now aged 21, and Olive, aged 23. There were also 6 servants. Two visitors were also recorded: Marion O’Loughlin, born in County Clare, and Mary O’Connell, born in County Cork. Both visitors were nurses.

On 25 May 1911 Algernon, of Clegg Clare, Ardrahan County Galway, died. Probate was granted on 18 November 1911, at Tuam, to The Right Honourable Hugh Viscount Gough and Arthur Henry Courtnay C.B., D.L. The effects were recorded as £36,567 6s. 5d. (From National Archives). Extra detail emerged from Scotland probate, which noted that Viscount Gough of Lough, Cutra Castle, Gort, County of Galway, and Courtenay, C.B., D.L., of Trimleston, Booterstown, County Dublin, were the Executors. The ‘Leinster Reporter’ of January 1912 records that Algernon left his personal effects to his wife, £52 per annum to Alfred Persse, his brother, and the residue to his wife for life, and the remainder to his children, and, in default of appointment, his real estate to his son, and his personal estate to all his children in equal shares.

On 6 January 1915, ‘The Times’ carries the following report:

“Second Lieutenant Rodolph Algernon Persse was the only son of the late Algernon Persse and the Hon. Mrs Persse, of Creg Clare, Ardrahan, Co. Galway, and was born in 1891. He was gazetted to the Rifle Brigade last August, but was attached to the 2nd Batt. King’s Royal Rifle Corps. He played in the Eton Eleven and at Oxford won the Magdalen Grind and rode in the Inter-Varsity Point-to-Point.”

As she had done in January 1912, Mrs Persse again travelled from her home in Ireland to spend time in London. In the winter of 1921, she and daughter Daphne spend the season in Rome, and in January 1922, the Honourable Mrs Algernon Persse goes to Monte Carlo. The sport of pigeon shooting at Monte Carlo, which was held just under The Terrace in the centre of the town, behind the casino, had recently been quoted as a barbarous sport which should be stopped. Begun in 1872 it continued until 1960 using live pigeons, and from then until its complete stoppage in 1972 used robotic devices instead. In September 1922, Mrs Persse attended the wedding of Captain de Stacpoole and Miss Francis, at Stanhope Place in Hyde Park, London. Sometime in 1922, the house at Roxborough burned down.

Daughter Daphne now takes centre stage as in January 1923 she sails to South Africa from Southampton, on the Arundel Castle returning into Southampton on the Saxon in October 1923. Her permanent address recorded on both journeys is 32 Dover Street, London. Then, on 3 September 1924 an announcement appears in ‘The Times’ - the engagement of Charles Joseph Newbold, second son of the late William Newbold and Mrs Newbold of Imberly Lodge, East Grinstead, to Daphne, younger daughter of the late Algernon Persse and of the Hon. Mrs Persse. It is a very short engagement and on 27 September 1924, Daphne Gertrude Persse (aged 35) marries Charles Joseph Newbold (aged 43), a company director, in Mayfair, London. Both fathers – Algernon Persse, and William Newbold, were deceased, the former listed as a gentleman, the latter as a company director. Newbold was living at 98 James Street, Dublin, and Daphne at the Garden Club, Chesterfield Gardens (London?) The witness was Nora Persse (on the top line) Gough (on the second) which looks like Daphne’s mother, and possibly another member of Nora's family.

The birth of Charles and Daphne’s son, Oliver, registered in Marleybone, in July 1927, is followed by a bit of a gap until we find Mrs Persse attending the wedding of Morris Yates and Rosanna Sherbrooke,  at St Saviour’s church, Walton Street in Knightsbridge, in February 1932. Later that year, in November, she sailed from Tilbury to Lisbon on the Almeda Star. Whether or not she returned before 1935, I don’t know, but I do know that she died on 21 February 1935. The probate record says: “the honourable Eleanor Laura Jane of c/o Coutts and Company 440 Strand Westminster, widow, died 21 February 1935 at Lushington South Marandellas Southern Rhodesia. Probate London 5 September to Daphne Gertrude Newbold (wife of Charles Joseph Newbold). Effects £4294 19s. in England. Resworn £4358 2s. 5d. Resworn £4065 13s. 5d.”

Following this, I only have news of more deaths: in October 1946, the death of Charles Joseph Newbold, wife of Daphne, youngest daughter of Algernon and Nora. He was the chairman of the Brewer’s Society, and MD at Guinness. On 12 February 1960, the death of Daphne Gertrude Newbold, herself, and on 13 September 1963, the death of Olive, spinster, aged 75, in Marondera, Mashonaland East, Zimbabwe. Oliver Newbold, grandson of Algernon Persse, died in 2007, in Northamptonshire.

So, this is quite a story for a young teenager who once attended Loughborough Grammar School, between 1858 or 1859 and June 1860! Following a contretemps in 1860 with the headteacher, Rev’d Gordon, Gordon expelled him and despite the protestations of Algernon’s father, Dudley Persse, a well-respected gentleman, Algernon never returned to the school, and probably completed that period of his education either at Rathmines or Castleknock, before attending Dublin University.

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 7 November 2021

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Dyer, Lynne (2021). So who was Robert Algernon Persse? Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/11/so-who-was-robert-algernon-persse.html [Accessed 7 November 2021]

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