Rudolph Feilding, 8th Earl of Denbigh

Rudolph William Basil Feilding, 8th Earl of Denbigh, 7th Earl of Desmond (9 April 1823 – 10 March 1892) was a British peer, succeeding to his titles on the death in 1865 of his father, the 7th Earl of Denbigh. He was noted as a Roman Catholic convert, and founder of the Franciscan friary at Pantasaph, North Wales.

A portrait from the Welsh Portrait Collection at the National Library of Wales. Depicted person: Rudolph Feilding, 8th Earl of Denbigh – English nobleman; High Sheriff of Flintshire.

"a Catholic"
The Earl of Denbigh as caricatured by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) in Vanity Fair, March 1878

Life

He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was president of the University Pitt Club[1] and took the degree of M.A. in 1844.[2]

He was received into the Catholic Church in 1850, and took an active part in many Catholic works of charity under Cardinal Wiseman. As Viscount Feilding he was appointed honorary treasurer, jointly with Viscount Campden and Archibald J. Dunn, of the Peter's Pence Association. In 1850 he was appointed High Sheriff of Flintshire.[3]

On 29 June 1860 he raised the 4th (Holywell) Flintshire Rifle Volunteer Corps as captain-commandant. After the unit was incorporated into the 1st Administrative Battalion, Flintshire Rifle Volunteer Corps, he commanded that from 1862 with the rank of major. On 2 July 1873 he became the battalion's honorary colonel, and continued in that role with its successor, the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers.[4][5]

He married first Louisa Pennant, great granddaughter of the Welsh naturalist and travel writer Thomas Pennant. She died of consumption in 1853, and he then married Mary Berkeley of Spetchley, Worcestershire, and had, among others, a son and successor Rudolph Feilding, 9th Earl of Denbigh (1859-1939); his second son Everard Feilding (1867-1936), Hon. Sec. of the Society for Psychical Research;[6] and a daughter Lady Winefride Mary Elizabeth (24 September 1868 - 24 February 1959), who married Gervase Elwes on 11 May 1889.

After his death in 1892, he was interred with his first wife Louisa at Pantasaph, dressed in the habit of the Third Order of St Francis, of which he was a member.

References

1. Fletcher, Walter Morley (2011) [1935]. The University Pitt Club: 1835-1935 (First Paperback ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-107-60006-5.
2. "Feilding, Viscount Rudolph William Basil (CMBL899NR)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
3. "No. 21065". The London Gazette. 5 February 1850. pp. 313–314.
4. Ray Westlake, Tracing the Rifle Volunteers, Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84884-211-3, p. 89.
5. Army List, various dates.
6. Trevor Hall (October 1978). Search for Harry Price. Gerald Duckworth and Company. p. 137. ISBN 0-7156-1143-7.

Further reading

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Rudolph William Basil Feilding". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Denbigh