Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Needham, Charles
NEEDHAM, CHARLES, fourth Viscount Kilmorey (d. 1660), descended from Thomas, elder brother of Sir John Needham [q. v.], was second son of Robert (d. 1653), second viscount, by his second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Thomas Dutton of Dutton, Cheshire, and widow of Gilbert, lord Gerard of Gerard's Bromley, Staffordshire. He succeeded to the title in January 1657 on the death, without issue, of his brother Robert, third viscount, who had three years previously surrendered to him his interest in the family estates at Shavington, Shropshire. He was a staunch royalist, and these estates suffered in consequence by sequestration and otherwise (cf. Act of Parliament for the Payment of the Debts of Charles, late Lord Viscount Kilmorey, 29 Charles II, ch. v.). In August 1659 he joined with Sir George Booth and the Earl of Derby in an attempt to restore Charles to the throne, which was defeated by General Lambert [q. v.]; and Lord Kilmorey was taken prisoner to London, where he died suddenly the following year.
He married, in February 1654, Bridget, eldest daughter of Sir William Drury of Drury House, London (which occupied the site of the present Drury Lane theatre), and Beesthorpe, Norfolk, by whom he had five sons (Charles, who died in infancy; Robert and Thomas, who succeeded to the family honours as fifth and sixth viscounts respectively; Byron, and a second Charles) and one daughter. His widow remarried Sir John Shaw, bart. His descendant, Francis Jack Needham, twelfth viscount Kilmorey, is noticed separately.
[Case and Pedigree of Robert viscount Killmorey on Claim to vote at Elections of Irish Peers, April 1813; Harrod's Hist. of Shavington, pp. 90 et seq.; Lodge's Peerage, iv. 224; information kindly supplied by W. H. Weldon, esq., Windsor Herald.]