Bredfield House (or White House as it was also known) was a now-demolished country house situated in the village of Bredfield, around 2 miles north of Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom. It was a Jacobean building and was traditionally the seat of the Jenney family.
In the seventeenth century Bredfield belonged to the Marryot family, who built the house. It passed to the Jenney family in 1683 by the marriage of Dorothy, daughter and co-heiress of Robert Marryott, to Edmund, the second son of Sir Robert Jenney. A later Edmund Jenney was High Sheriff of Suffolk for 1740.
The house is best known as the birthplace Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883), [1] who translated the Rubàiyàt of Omar Khayyàm. Edward's father, John Fitzgerald, had rented it in 1801 from the Jenneys on his marriage to Edward's mother. Edward described it in his poem of 1839, Bredfield Hall which starts thus: [2]
"Lo, an English mansion founded
In the elder James's reign,
Quaint and stately, and surrounded
With a pastoral domain."
Fitzgerald described the house as overlooking Hollesley Bay at the time when Horatio Nelson anchored there in 1801. [2]
It was also described elsewhere as somewhat gaunt and charmless, but in a good park with gardens and ponds and fine stables and kennels. [3]
Bredfield House was severely damaged by a V-1 flying bomb during World War II and has since been completely demolished. In 1984 the park was described as desolate and overgrown, with conifers indicating where the house once stood.
Duke of Leinster is a title in the Peerage of Ireland and the premier dukedom in that peerage. The subsidiary titles of the Duke of Leinster are: Marquess of Kildare (1761), Earl of Kildare (1316), Earl of Offaly (1761), Viscount Leinster, of Taplow in the County of Buckingham (1747), Baron of Offaly, Baron Offaly (1620) and Baron Kildare, of Kildare in the County of Kildare (1870). The viscounty of Leinster is in the Peerage of Great Britain, the barony of Kildare in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, and all other titles in the Peerage of Ireland. The courtesy title of the eldest son and heir of the Duke of Leinster is Marquess of Kildare. The Duke of Leinster is the head of the House of Kildare.
Francis Hindes Groome was a writer and foremost commentator of his time on the Romani people, their language, life, history, customs, beliefs, and lore.
The FitzGerald dynasty is a Hiberno-Norman noble and aristocratic dynasty, originally of Cambro-Norman and Anglo-Norman origin. They have been peers of Ireland since at least the 13th century, and are described in the Annals of the Four Masters as having become "more Irish than the Irish themselves" or Gaels, due to assimilation with the native Gaelic aristocratic and popular culture. The dynasty has also been referred to as the Geraldines and Ireland's largest landowners. They achieved power through colonisation and the conquest of large swathes of Irish territory by the sons and grandsons of Gerald de Windsor. Gerald de Windsor was the first Castellan of Pembroke Castle in Wales, and became the male progenitor of the FitzMaurice and FitzGerald Dynasty. His father, Baron Walter FitzOther, was the first Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle for William the Conqueror, and was the Lord of 38 manors in England, making the FitzGeralds one of the "service families" on whom the King relied for his survival. Some of its members became the Black Knights, Green Knights and White Knights.
Sir Robert Drury (1456–1536) was an English knight, Lord of the Manor of Hawstead, Suffolk, and Knight of the Body to Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII. As a politician he was Knight of the Shire for Suffolk, Speaker of the House of Commons, and Privy Councillor. He was also a barrister-at-law. His London townhouse was on the site of today's Drury Lane.
Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, also counted as 15th or 16th, owned large part of the Irish province of Munster. In 1565 he fought the private Battle of Affane against his neighbours, the Butlers. After this, he was for some time detained in the Tower of London. Though the First Desmond Rebellion took place in his absence, he led the Second Desmond Rebellion from 1579 to his death and was therefore called the Rebel Earl. He was attainted in 1582 and went into hiding but was hunted down and killed.
Campsea Ashe is a village in Suffolk, England located approximately 5 miles (8 km) north east of Woodbridge and 6 miles (10 km) south west of Saxmundham.
Boulge is a hamlet and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is about 3 miles (5 km) north of Woodbridge. The population remained minimal at the 2011 Census and was included in the civil parish of Debach.
Frescati House was a Georgian house and estate situated in Blackrock, Dublin. It was built in 1739 for the family of John Hely Hutchinson, the Provost of Trinity College.
Knodishall, a village in Suffolk, England, lies 3.5 miles (6 km) south-east of Saxmundham, 1 mile (2 km) south-west of Leiston, and 3 miles from the coast, in the Blything Hundred. Most dwellings are now at Coldfair Green; just a few remain in the original village by the parish Church of St Lawrence, which falls gently on the north side of the Hundred River valley. It is now an outlier of Knodishall Common, a settlement a mile to the south-east. The estimated parish population was 790 in 2019.
Lord Henry FitzGerald PC (Ire) was the fourth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Duchess of Leinster. A younger brother was the revolutionary Lord Edward FitzGerald.
Sir Maurice FitzGerald, 18th Knight of Kerry was an hereditary knight and an Irish Whig politician.
This is a list of Sheriffs and High Sheriffs of Suffolk.
The High Sheriff of Clare was a High Sheriff title. Records show that the title was in existence from at least the late 16th century, though it is not used today in the modern Republic of Ireland. The title existed within County Clare in the west of Ireland during the time of the Kingdom of Ireland and then as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Edward FitzGerald or Fitzgerald was an English poet and writer. His most famous poem is the first and best-known English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which has kept its reputation and popularity since the 1860s.
The High Sheriff of Queen's County was the British Crown's judicial representative in Queen's County, Ireland, Ireland from the 16th century until 1922, when the office was abolished in the new Free State and replaced by the office of Offaly County Sheriff. The sheriff had judicial, electoral, ceremonial and administrative functions and executed High Court Writs. In 1908, an Order in Council made the Lord-Lieutenant the Sovereign's prime representative in a county and reduced the High Sheriff's precedence. However, the sheriff retained his responsibilities for the preservation of law and order in the county. The usual procedure for appointing the sheriff from 1660 onwards was that three persons were nominated at the beginning of each year from the county and the Lord Lieutenant then appointed his choice as High Sheriff for the remainder of the year. Often the other nominees were appointed as under-sheriffs. Sometimes a sheriff did not fulfil his entire term through death or other event and another sheriff was then appointed for the remainder of the year. The dates given hereunder are the dates of appointment. All addresses are in Queen's County unless stated otherwise.
John Fitzgerald was a British Member of Parliament.
FitzGerald or Fitzgerald, is an Irish surname of Hiberno-Norman origin. It is a patronymic derived from the prefix Fitz- from the Latin filius- plus Gerald, thus meaning "son of Gerald”. In Gaelic it is rendered Mac Gearailt.
Rushbrooke Hall was a British stately home in Rushbrooke, Suffolk. For several hundred years it was the family seat of the Jermyn family. It was demolished in 1961.
Wherstead Park Mansion in Suffolk is a house of historical significance and is listed on the English Heritage Register. It was built in 1792 for Sir Robert Harland (1765–1848) by the famous architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville on the site of an older house. It was the residence of many notable people over the next two centuries. It is now a venue for weddings, conferences and special events, but had previously been the headquarters of Eastern Electricity from 1948.
John Purcell-Fitzgerald (1803–1879) was an English lay preacher, and the elder brother of the poet Edward FitzGerald. He has been called "eccentric and religiously fanatical".
