Jenico Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston

(Jenico) Nicholas Dudley Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston (born 19 November 1939), a British hereditary peer, sat as Baron Gormanston (created 1868) in the House of Lords until 1999.[1]

An Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Lord Gormanston is the Premier Viscount of Ireland (created 1478).[2]

Family background

The only son and heir of Lieutenant the 16th Viscount Gormanston (1914–1940) and Pamela Hanly, daughter of Captain Edward Hanly and Lady Marjorie Feilding (daughter of the 9th Earl of Denbigh), he succeeded to the family titles (Irish viscountcy and UK barony) before his first birthday; the 16th Viscount (Lieutenant Jenico William Preston, KOYLI) was killed in action at Dunkirk during the Battle of France, 1940.

His maternal great-grandfather was General Sir William Butler, of Bansha Castle, County Tipperary, and his great-grandmother was the celebrated Victorian painter, Elizabeth Thompson, aka Lady Butler. The 14th Viscount Gormanston GCMG was his paternal great-grandfather.

A Roman Catholic like his forebears, Lord Gormanston attended the Benedictine school at Downside, Somerset. He is a connoisseur of art and lives in Kensington, London.

Gormanston Castle

The ancestral seat, Gormanston Castle in County Meath, Ireland, is no longer in the family's possession. The castle is fully maintained by the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (OFM), bought in 1947. Shortly after its purchase, the order opened a boarding school for boys, Gormanston College, in the adjacent grounds; the college has since become a coeducational day school.

Personal life

Nicholas married his first wife Eva-Antonie Landzwójczaka (1955–1984) in 1974. They had two sons:[3]

He married secondly, Lucy Arabella Fox (born 1960) in November 1997. She is the only daughter of the actor Edward Fox and his first wife, the actress Tracy Reed (qv., a daughter of Penelope Dudley-Ward and Anthony Pelissier).[6]

See also

References
  1. "Parliamentary career for Viscount Gormanston - MPs and Lords - UK Parliament". members.parliament.uk.
  2. "Burke's Peerage & Baronetage".
  3. "Gormanston, Viscount (I, 1478)". www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk.
  4. "Toye, Kenning & Spencer". toyekenningspencer.firebaseapp.com.
  5. "Home". Jo Malone London.
  6. www.thepeerage.com
Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by
Jenico William Richard Preston		 Viscount Gormanston
1940–present		 Incumbent
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