David Plunket, 1st Baron Rathmore

{{Short description|Irish lawyer and politician}} {{More citations needed|date=August 2009}} {{Use British English|date=October 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Rathmore | honorific_suffix = PC KC | image = David Plunket Vanity Fair 29 May 1880.jpg | caption = "hereditary eloquence" Plunket as caricatured by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) in ''Vanity Fair'', May 1880 | order1 = Paymaster General | term_start1 = 24 March 1880 | term_end1 = 21 April 1880 | monarch1 = Victoria | prime_minister1 = The Earl of Beaconsfield | predecessor1 = Sir Stephen Cave | successor1 = The Lord Wolverton | order2 = First Commissioner of Works | term_start2 = 24 June 1885 | term_end2 = 28 January 1886 | monarch2 = Victoria | prime_minister2 = The Marquess of Salisbury | predecessor2 = The Earl of Rosebery | successor2 = The Earl of Morley | term_start3 = 5 August 1886 | term_end3 = 11 August 1892 | monarch3 = Victoria | prime_minister3 = The Marquess of Salisbury | predecessor3 = The Earl of Elgin | successor3 = George Shaw-Lefevre | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1838|12|3}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1919|08|22|1838|12|3}} | death_place = Greenore, County Louth | resting_place = Putney Vale Cemetery, London | resting_place_coordinates = {{Coord|51.440739|-0.238533}} | party = Conservative | alma_mater = Trinity College Dublin }}

'''David Robert Plunket, 1st Baron Rathmore''' PC, KC (3 December 1838 – 22 August 1919) was an Irish lawyer and Conservative politician.

==Background and education== Plunket was the third son of John Plunket, 3rd Baron Plunket, second son of William Plunket, 1st Baron Plunket, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. His mother was Charlotte, daughter of Charles Kendal Bushe, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, while the Most Reverend William Plunket, 4th Baron Plunket, Archbishop of Dublin, was his elder brother. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin<ref>{{cite news |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/politics-clipping-jul-04-1903-1340773/ |work=Mainly About People |editor-first=Thomas Power |editor-last=O'Connor |first=Thomas |last=Teignmouth-Shore |date=4 July 1903 |page=18 |title=In the Days of My youth - Chapters of Autobiography - CCLXIV |via=NewspaperArchive.com |access-date=4 September 2019 |editor-link=T. P. O'Connor}}</ref> and was called to the Irish Bar in 1862.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}}

==Political and legal career== After practising on the Munster Circuit for a number of years,{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}} Plunket was made a Queen's Counsel in 1868, and became Law Adviser to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland that same year. In 1870, he was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Dublin University, and was Solicitor General for Ireland under Benjamin Disraeli from 1875 to 1877. He was then briefly Paymaster General under Disraeli (then known as the Earl of Beaconsfield) in 1880 and was sworn of the Privy Council the same year.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=24827 |date=26 March 1880 |page=2245 }}</ref> In 1885 he became First Commissioner of Works in Lord Salisbury's first ministry, a post he held until January 1886. He resumed the same post in August of the same year when the Conservatives returned to power, and held it until 1892. On his retirement from the House of Commons in 1895 he was elevated to the peerage as '''Baron Rathmore''', of Shanganagh in the County of Dublin.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=26680 |date=15 November 1895 |page=6182 }}</ref>

Apart from his political and legal career he was a director of the Suez Canal Company, Chairman of the North London Railway for many years and a director of the Central London Railway at its opening in 1900..{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}}

==Personal life== [[File:David Plunket Rathmore grave Putney Vale 2015.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Two granite headstones in a grassy cemetery|The grave of David Plunket and other family members at Putney Vale Cemetery, London, in 2015]] In Dublin, Rathmore was a member of the Kildare Street Club.<ref>Thomas Hay Sweet Escott, ''Club Makers and Club Members'' (1913), [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924028066979#page/n371/mode/2up pp. 329–333]</ref> He died in August 1919, unmarried, at the age of eighty, in the Railway Hotel in Greenore, County Louth{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}} and is buried at Putney Vale Cemetery in London. His peerage became extinct at his death.

== References == {{reflist}}

==External links== *{{Hansard-contribs | mr-david-plunket | David Plunket}} *{{Cite EB1922|wstitle=Rathmore, David Robert Plunket, 1st Baron|short=x}}

{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Dublin University | years = 1870–1895 | with = John Thomas Ball 1870–1875 Edward Gibson 1875–1885 Hugh Holmes 1885–1887 Dodgson Hamilton Madden 1887–1892 Edward Carson 1892–1895 | before = Anthony Lefroy John Thomas Ball | after = Edward Carson W. E. H. Lecky }} {{s-off}} {{succession box | before=Sir Stephen Cave | title=Paymaster General | years=1880 | after=The Lord Wolverton}} {{succession box|title=First Commissioner of Works|before=The Earl of Rosebery|after=The Earl of Morley|years=1885–1886}} {{succession box|title=First Commissioner of Works|before=The Earl of Elgin|after=George Shaw-Lefevre|years=1886–1892}} {{s-legal}} {{succession box | before=Henry Ormsby | title=Solicitor General for Ireland | years=1875–1877 | after=Gerald Fitzgibbon}} {{s-reg|uk}} {{s-new | creation}} {{s-ttl | title=Baron Rathmore | years=1895–1919}} {{s-non | reason=Extinct}} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rathmore, David Robert Plunket, 1st Baron}} Category:1838 births Category:1919 deaths Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Category:Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Plunket, David Robert Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Plunket, David Robert Category:Solicitors-general for Ireland Plunket, David Robert Plunket, David Robert Plunket, David Robert Plunket, David Robert Plunket, David Robert Plunket, David Robert Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages Category:Younger sons of barons Category:Directors of the London and North Western Railway Category:Irish King's Counsel Category:Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria Category:Lawyers from County Louth David Plunket, David Robert