Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Malone, Anthony
MALONE, ANTHONY (1700–1776), Irish politician, eldest son of Richard Malone of Baronston, co. Westmeath, and Marcella, daughter of Redmond Molady, was born on 5 Dec. 1700. Edmund Malone [q. v.] was his nephew. A younger brother, Richard (1706–1759), was M.P. for Fore from 1741, and second serjeant-at-law from 1750. His father, only son of Anthony Malone and Mary, daughter of John Reily of Lismore, was born in 1674, and while student at the Temple had had some diplomatic employment in Holland, where he attracted the favourable notice of William III. Called to the Irish bar about 1700 he practised with much success. He died 6 Jan. 1744–5. He is said to have resembled Sir Robert Walpole in appearance.
Anthony was educated at Mr. Young's school in Abbey Street, and on 6 April 1720 was admitted a gentleman-commoner of Christ Church, Oxford. After spending two years at the university he entered the Middle Temple, and was called to the Irish bar in May 1726. In 1737 he was created LL.D. of Trinity College, Dublin. From 1727 to 1760, and again from 1769 to 1776, he represented the county of Westmeath, and from 1761 to 1768 the borough of Castlemartyr, in the Irish parliament. He was an able lawyer, and at an early period his professional income amounted to more than 3,000l. a year. He was a liberal-minded but somewhat timid politician, and in parliament inclined rather to government than to opposition. In 1740 he was appointed prime serjeant-at-law, but was dismissed from office in 1754 for opposing the claim of the crown to dispose of unappropriated revenue. He did not resent this treatment, and in 1757 he was made chancellor of the exchequer. But owing to his attitude in council in regard to the Money Bill of 1761 he was again removed from office. His punishment was regarded as unnecessarily severe by Pitt, who on this point differed from his colleagues, and Malone, who drew a distinction between advice offered in council and his conduct in parliament, introduced the measure as chairman of the committee of supply. He was shortly afterwards granted a patent of precedence at the bar, but his conduct exposed him to much censure, and he was unjustly charged with having sold his political principles for money. He supported Monck Mason's bill for enabling catholics to invest money in mortgages upon land, and on the catholic question generally his attitude was one of enlightened tolerance. In 1762 he was appointed, with Sir Richard Aston, to try the whiteboys of Munster, and concurred with him in ascribing their outrages to local and individual grievances. Malone died on 8 May 1776. He was a man of large and even robust stature, and in later years his abundant grey hair gave him a commanding and venerable appearance. He had great natural abilities, a sound judgment, an even temper, and a very tenacious memory, but was not remarkable either for learning or extensive reading, and in private affairs, to judge from his will, a man of very unpractical habits. As a lawyer he held the foremost place in his profession. A fine marble bust of him used to adorn Baronston House, with an inscription from Cicero on Scaurus (De Claris Oratoribus, c. 29), which was regarded as accurately describing both his character and his style of eloquence: ‘In Scauri oratione sapientis hominis et recti, gravitas summa, et naturalis quædam inerat auctoritas, non ut causam sed ut testimonium dicere putares, cum pro reo diceret.’ A portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds was engraved by J. R. Smith.
Malone married in 1733 Rose, daughter of Sir Ralph Gore, speaker of the Irish House of Commons, but had no children. By his will, made in July 1774, he left all his estates in the counties of Westmeath, Roscommon, Longford, Cavan, and Dublin to his nephew, Richard Malone, afterwards Lord Sunderlin, eldest son and heir of his brother Edmund, ‘in the utmost confidence that they will be settled and continue in the male line of the family and branches of it, according to priority of birth and seniority of age.’ Unfortunately Lord Sunderlin, who had no children, did not obey this injunction, and on his death in 1816 the right of succession was disputed.
[The chief source of information is the Life in Lodge's Peerage, ed. Archdall, vol. vii., written apparently (Prior's Life of Edmund Malone, p. 385) by his nephew, Edmund Malone, the Shakespearean critic; Grattan's Life and Times of Henry Grattan; Hardy's Life of Charlemont; Taylor's History of the University of Dublin; Baratariana, pp. 170–9, Dublin, 1777; Prior's Life of Edmund Malone; Burke's Extinct Peerage; Bedford Corresp. iii. 6; Caldwell's Debates; Dublin Penny Journal; Alumni Oxonienses; Lecky's Hist. of England; A. Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography.]