Day Twenty Seven

Brooke House Asylum, London where  Abraham Creighton,  the second Earl of Erne was incarcerated for forty years.

The committal for insanity of Abraham Creighton by his father John, the First Earl of Erne, and his subsequent lifelong incarceration in Brooke House, London,  had ramifications for the title and the Crom Estates, including Crom Castle.  Abraham assumed the title in 1828 upon the death of his father, but the terms of his committal specified that neither the title nor the Crom estate would pass to his offspring. Both were passed to his nephew,John Creighton in 1842.  Abraham officially died without offspring.

In 1799 when the Stuart-Wortley family enquired as to the causes of Abraham Creighton's insanity, concerned that their son, James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, 1st Baron Wharncliffe, was to marry Caroline Creighton, daughter of John Creighton first Earl of Erne and Mary Hervey, daughter of the Frederick Augustus Hervey, Earl of Bristol , they were told by the Creighton family that Abraham's  insanity was not of the hereditary kind but had been caused "by immersion in a bath of mercury".

The Public Records Office of Ireland in The Erne Papers notes that  "Since the insanity was apparently not of an hereditary kind, it had the advantage to the Creighton family that, during the period 1828-1842 when the 2nd Earl held the title, his financial requirements were extremely modest (a maintenance allowance of c. £780 per annum in the 1830s), as indeed the 1st Earl's must also have been in the period 1785-1828. Because of the 2nd Earl's incapacity, a whole generation of marriage settlement charges was skipped. The money saved was used for purchases of land which were made from 1810 onwards and, eventually, for the building of the new Crom Castle. Somewhat surprisingly, the 2nd Earl died worth over £52,500 and was allowed to dispose of this large sum of money by will, which he did by leaving almost all of it to junior branches of his family. Earlier, his heir, the future 3rd Earl, had tried unsuccessfully to apply it to Crom Castle."

http://www.proni.gov.uk/introduction_erne_d1939.pdf  refer page 19

Day Twenty Six

In October 1798 committal papers  declaring  Abraham Creighton to be insane were signed by his father John Creighton, 1st Earl of Erne. 


Referring to the matter of the committal of Abraham Creighton The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, John Fitzgibbon later first Earl of Clare,  had written previously to King George 111  that noting  "all that remains now is for  the father to sign the papers of committal"  (cited in PRONI  Rhyss Williams unpublished papers).  It appears therefore that the declaration off Abraham's insanity may have been of some interest to George 111.  Is it of any significance that Abraham had previously disagreed with his father over the issue of Ireland being controlled from London by England and that, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 seeking to end British control of Ireland,  in August of 1798 boats used by the revolutionaries had sailed from France and had landed on beaches in County Mayo and Donegal where the Earl of Erne had significant property holdings?  Following the failed rebellion the trial of several important supporters of the uprising took place in the Court House in Lifford.  Abraham Creighton  was MP for Lifford in the Irish parliament from 1790 to 1798.

Following the committal  Abraham Creighton spent the remainder of his life in Brooke House Asylum  London,until his death in 1842. Though incarcerated in Brooke House he assumed the title of Earl of Erne upon his father's death in 1828.

Day Twenty Five

 

Today whilst checking the Wikipedia entry on Abraham Creighton, the second Earl of Erne, I noticed that new information hasadded recently to the entry.  It now appears that Abraham was a prominent member of Kildare Street Club.

This Club, founded in 1782, eventually became a bastion of the Anglo Irish Protestant Ascendancy, but in its early days included many individuals, including members of the aristocracy, who were deeply opposed to the British rule of Ireland. 

Members of The Kildare Street Club included the MP Arthur O'Connor who embraced the Irish Republican movement, becoming a member of the Society of United Irishmen in 1796.   In the wake of the French Revolution and inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of the American Revolution O'Connor and Lord Edward Fitzgerald petitioned France for aid in support of an Irish revolution to end British monarchical rule.  Lord Fitzgerald was also a member of the Kildare Street Club and a close friend of Abraham Creighton having studied together as young men.  By the mid 1790's it seems clear that Abraham Creightons politics were moving in a direction that his father, the first Earl of Erne, a staunch supporter of the Hanoverian King George, a believer in the necessity of continued British rule and a pillar of the Protestant Ascendancy would have found deeply disturbing.  Ireland at this time is on the brink of armed revolution, British rule is under threat and a clash between father and son seems inevitable.

Day Twenty Four

Abraham is a common name in the Creighton family up until the death of the Abraham the second Earl and the subsequent change in spelling from Creighton to Crichton following Abraham's death in 1842.

The Wikipedia entry on Abraham the second Earl Erne clearly shows this.  At one time in the mid 1790s  there are two Abraham Creightons sitting as MP for Lifford. These are  

1. Abraham Creighton, elder son of John the first Earl of Erne. This Abraham , who  was declared insane in September 1798, was incarcerated in Brookes House Lunatic Asylum London until his death in June 1842.  Although inheriting the title Earl Erne and the Crom estate upon the death of his fathe in 1826, the pappers committing him to Lunacy ensured  that neither the title nor the estate could pass to his descendants , passing instead to the Earl's younger son, John, who was made Governor of Hurst Castle, Lymington in 1801, by Royal decree.
2. and his uncle Abraham, the first Earl's younger brother. 

Both of these  Abraham Creightons vigorously opposed the Earl's views on Irish unification with England and argued that Ireland should maintain its own parliament with increased rights given to Catholic Irish. Abraham believed that British insistence on unification  would result in bloodshed and tragedy for the Irish people.

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Day Twenty Three

Abraham Creighton, born in Ireland about 1782, died in Lymington in 1847.  This area adjoining the New Forest appears to have become a geographical focus for the family throughout the nineteenth century, commencing in 1801 when John Creighton the younger brother of Abraham Creighton second Earl of Erne  (1765-1842) was appointed governor of Hurst Castle.

This map shows four places which will be investigated as I attempt to catch glimpses of these long gone ancestors. 

• 1. Lymington, where my great -great-great grandfather Abraham Creighton dies in 1847

• 2. Milford-on-Sea where Abraham's son Fitzmaurice is born to his second wife Constance in 1835

• 3.Hurst Castle In 1801 Colonel John Creighton,  the second son of John, first Earl of Erne and  younger brother of Abraham, the second Earl,  was made Governor of Hurst Castle.

• Nettley Castle ;bought by Henry, the younger brother of the Third Earl of Erne

Day Twenty Two

This information from an online genealogy site might prove to be a small breakthrough in the quest to unravel the mysteries of the Creighton  family.

It shows two records neither of which I had been aware of.  One records the death of Abraham Creighton, father of Fitzmaurice Creighton , in Lymington in 1847.  This was no great surprise and is in accord with many other pieces of information I have.  Of more interest is his birth in Ireland about 1782.  

The question of who were Abraham Creighton's parents is the unanswered question.   And there are no records that have been found that provide an answer to this. Why?