(1.) The Irish Lefroys. Their modern chief was Lieut-Colonel Anthony Peter Lefroy. He was born at Leghorn in 1742, and was sent to England in 1752 along with his brother, for education. It was his choice of a profession that eventually destined him to be the founder of an Irish family. His name was put down for a commission in the army, and on 11th January 1763 he became an ensign in the 33d Foot. The regiment was quartered in Ireland; thither he went, and there he remained. Regiments once quartered in Ireland during last century were usually allowed to stay there. There our hero served, and received his several steps of promotion during twenty-eight years, and he lived for other twenty-eight years as a retired Lieut-Colonel in his house at Limerick. It was on 25th June 1785 that he obtained his Lieut.-Colonelcy and the command of the 9th Light Dragoons (that regiment, in 1785, had been in Ireland for sixty-seven years, and it remained for sixteen years thereafter). Lieut-Colonel Lefroy resigned his commission on 30th July 1791 . He was a member of the Royal Irish Academy (M.R.I. A.). He died at Limerick on 8th September 1819, aged seventy-seven. His children (besides five daughters) were:—
- The Lord Chief-Justice of Ireland, Right Hon. Thomas Lefroy, born 1776, died 1869. His decision to study for the Irish bar, and his success in life, strengthened the claim of his family to be called Irish.
- Captain Anthony Thomas Lefroy, 65th Regiment, born 1777, died 1857.
- Captain Benjamin Lefroy, Royal Artillery, born 1783, died 1869. Some of his descendants went to Upper Canada and to Melbourne.
- Christopher Lefroy, R.N., born 1784, midshipman on board H.M.S. San Fiorenzo; killed in action, 13th February 1805.
- John Lefroy, died in infancy.
- Rev. Henry Lefroy, M.A., born 1789, vicar of Santry, near Dublin, and Rural Dean. Some of his descendants settled in Western Australia.
The Lord Chief-Justice (of whom I shall give a memoir in another chapter) was, as a landed proprietor, Lefroy of Carrig-glas, in the County of Longford. He married, in 1799, Mary, only daughter and heir of Jeffry Paul, Esq., of Silver Spring, County Wexford. His children are:—
- Anthony Lefroy, of Carrig-glas, LL.D., born 1800, M.P. for County Longford from 1830 to 1837 and from 1841 to 1847, and for Dublin University from 1858 to 1870; he married in 1824, Hon. Jane King (who died 1st December 1868), daughter of Viscount Lorton and grand-daughter of Robert, second Earl of Kingston. They had two daughters, Frances, who was married on 22d March 1849 to Colonel David Carrick Buchanan of Drumpellier, and Mary Louise, who was married in June 1852 to Lieut.-Colonel Hon. William Leopold Porsenna Talbot (he died 12th August 1881), youngest son of the third Lord Talbot de Malahide. Mr. Lefroy well upholds the politics and religion of his family, as is illustrated by his being a member of the Carlton Club and National Club, London, of the University Club of Dublin, and the Kildare Street and Sackville Street Clubs in that city.
- Thomas Paul Lefroy,[1] born in Dublin in 1807, and baptized in St. Anne’s Church, Dawson Street, on 27th January. He is M.A. of Trinity College. He married, on 1st July 1835, Hon. Elizabeth Jane Sarah Anne Massy, youngest daughter of the third Lord Massy (she died 30th July 1874). Mr. Lefroy was a Queen’s Counsel in Ireland, and is now County Judge of Down; he is his father’s biographer. His eldest son is Thomas Langlois Lefroy.
- Very Rev. Jeffry Lefroy, M.A., born in 1809, Dean of Dromore. (see Chapter XII.)
- George Thompson Lefroy was born in Dublin in 1811, baptized privately on June 11, and publicly on August 30. He was treasurer of the Irish Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and after the Disestablishment he retired on a pension and took up his abode in France.
- Benjamin Lefroy, born in Dublin 25th March 1815, died young.
(2.) The English Lefroys. This line in its senior representatives has not been migratory, though through varying nomenclature it appears at an earlier date as Lefroy of Ewshott House, and at a later as Lefroy of Itchell Manor. Ecclesiastically, it was always similarly localized. Its founder was the second son of Mr. Anthony Lefroy, of Leghorn, the Rev. Isaac Peter George Lefroy. He was born at Leghorn on 12th November 1745, and came to England for his education in March 1752. He had among his luggage two little suits of clothes, “one of scarlet cloth with a belt and a sword, the other of purple camlet turned up with red.” Along
- ↑ Another Thomas Paul Lefroy died in Dublin in 1806.