Mark Bence-Jones


Life
1930-2010 [Mark Adayre Bence-Jones; occas. pseud. “Mark Adayre”]; b. 30 May, in London, the son of Colonel Philip Reginald Bence-Jones, and grand-son of William Bence Jones [q.v.]; his mother May [née Thomas] was half-French and half-Egyptian and a Catholic, causing his father to convert to Catholicism; ed. Ampleforth College; confirmed by Cardinal Hinsley; lived with his family in India especially from the time when World War II rendered travel to school in England impossible; grad. Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read history and he was mentored by Fr. Monsignor Alfred Gilbey, the Catholic aristocrats’ chaplain;
 
afterwards studied agriculture at Cirencester and ran the family farm at Glenville Park, the family home at Lisselane, Co. Cork; m. Gillian Pretyman, dg. of E. P. Pretyman, MP (Conserv.), and cousin of Princess Alice of Gloucester, 1965; divided time between her house in Suffolk, and his in Cork; reviewed books for the Cork Examiner; wrote Palaces of the Raj (1973), Clive of India (1987) and The Viceroys of India (1982), and pioneered the serious study of Indian architecture; he acted as consultant on Burke’s Irish Family Records (1977); issued Ancestral Houses (c1984);
 
issued The Twilight of the Ascendancy (1987), a study of the Anglo-Irish in decline; A Guide To Irish Country Houses (1978), covering more than 2,000 houses; also issued Catholic Families (1992) and Life In An Irish Country House (1996); also All a Nonsense (1957), and Paradise Escaped (1958), novels set in Ireland, London, and Rome; a devout Catholic, he attended the annual Lourdes pilgrimage in his capacity as chancellor of the Irish Association of the Knights of Malta, and a worker in in its Ambulance Corps; he commenced a biography of his friend Elizabeth Bowen but was prevented by ill-health from continuing with it; d. 12 April 2010, in Suffolk; passed on Glenville to his dg. Silvia; also survived by his wife and two sons. DIW

 

Works
Irish Novels
  • All a Nonsense (London: Peter Davies 1957), 213pp.
  • Nothing in the City (London: Peter Davies 1958), 223pp.
  • Paradise Escaped (London: Peter Davies 1958), 223pp.
Non-fiction,
  • Clive of India (London: Constable 1974), xiv,377p,[24]p of plates : ill. [maps, ports].
  • Burke’s Guide to Country Houses, Vol. 1, Ireland (London: Constable 1978).
  • The Viceroys of India (London: Constable 1982), xviii, 343pp.;
  • Ancestral Houses [The National Trust] (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson [1984]).
  • The Twilight of the Ascendancy (London: Constable 1987, rep. 1993) 327pp. [see contents].
  • The Catholic Families (London: Constable 1992), 341pp. [Bibl. by D. V. Connolly, pp.327-30 ; seen note].
  • Life In An Irish Country House (London: Constable 1996), xviii, 270pp. [see contents]
  • Palaces of the Raj: Magnificence and misery of the Lord Sahibs (London: Allen & Unwin 1973), 225pp. [see contents].
See also The British Aristocracy (1979) with Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd.
Journalism
  • ‘Ireland’s Great Exhibition [Dublin 1853],’ Country Life, Vol. 153, No. 3951 (1973), pp. 666-69.
 

Also listed Burke’s Guide to Country Houses of Ireland (1978); The National Trust Ancestral Houses (W&N 1984); and The British Aristocracy, with Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd [COPAC/DISCOVER].

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Bibliographical details
Twilight of the Ascendancy (London: Constable 1987), 327pp., approx. 200 ills.; ded. to John Bellingham ( ‘a son of the ascendancy who is my no means in the twilight’). Chapters incl. ‘The Happiest Country I Ever Knew’; The Land War; Drama in Muslin [treating of George Moore]; Celtic Unionism; ‘George, George, the Bonus!’ [incl. account of Edward Martyn and the Kildare St. Club]; ‘A doomed aristocracy’ [after Birmingham]; The shadow of Home Rule; Terrible beauties; The Last September [after Elizabeth Bowen]; Both Side Admired the Atirrhiniums; ‘No petty people’ [Yeats]; ‘No bells ring here’; ‘The heart is still sound’; ‘Dior and dogs’ dinners’; select bibliography; source references; index.

The Catholic Families (London: Constable 1992) - families treated: Acton; Arundell; Beaumont; Bedingfeld; Bute; Camoys; Clifford; Constable Maxwell; Denbigh; De Trafford; Dormer; Fitzalan-Howard; Howard; Jerningham; Lovat; Montagu; Norfolk; Petre; Shrewsbury; Stafford; Stonor; Stourton; Swinburne; Talbot; Throckmorton; Tichborne; Towneley; Traquair; Vaughan; Weld;

Life In An Irish Country House (London: Constable 1996), xviii, 270pp. CONTENTS: 1. Adare Manor, County Limerick; 2. Ardfert Abbey, County Kerry; 3. Ardfry, County Galway; 4. Ballyfin, County Leix; 5. Barmeath Castle, County Louth; 6. Carton, County Kildare; 7. Castle Forbes, County Longford; 8. Castle Leslie (or Glaslough), County Monaghan; 9. Coole Park, County Galway; 10. Curragh Chase, County Limerick; 11. Drishane, County Cork; 12. Edgeworthstown, County Longford; 13. Grey Abbey, County Down; 14. Gurteen Le Poer, County Waterford; 15. Kilfane, County Kilkenny; 16. Lismore Castle, County Waterford; 17. Lissadell, County Sligo; 18. Mitchelstown Castle, County Cork; 19. Mount Stewart, County Down; 20. Newtown Anner, County Tipperary; 21. Rockingham, County Roscommon; 22. Springhill, County Derry; 23. Tullynally Castle (formerly Pakenham Hall), County Westmeath

Palaces of the Raj: Magnificence and misery of the Lord Sahibs (1973); and Do. [rep. edn.; Routledge Lib. Edns.: British India, Vol. 18] (Oxford: Routledge 2017): CONTENTS: Introduction; 1 Government House, Madras; 2 Government House, Calcutta; 3 Barrackpore, Calcutta; 4 Parell, Bombay; 5 Hyderabad Residency; 6 Lucknow; 7 Poona; 8 Simla; 9 Government House, Allahabad; 10 Government House, Lahore; 11 Government House, Naini Tal; 12 The Viceroy's House, New Delhi; Glossary of Indian and other Eastern Words; The Lord Sahibs (a list of Viceroys, Governors-General, Governors and Residents); Manuscript Sources and Bibliography; Index.

 

Criticism
Obituary in The Times (24 April 2010) [as attached]; also obit. in The Independent (25 April 2010) [see online].

There is also a Wikipedia page online.

See Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s lines: ‘I left the Bence-Joneses in the long grass / And drove back to the cross / And downhill again past the secret monument // To the dead of the battle of Kilnagros / Where the spruces whistle to each other and the carved stone is lost.’ (The Sun-fish, Gallery Press 2009.)

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References
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. 2] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), lists All a Nonsense (London: Peter Davies 1957), John wants to bring Caroline to tumble-down Rathgarden Castle, but both marry the wrong partners at first; set during religious controversies, Catholic and Protestant, and Paradise Escaped (London: Peter Davies 1958), high-born low-life pranking ’30s-style in Ireland find parish priest more tolerant of them than of parishioners; regards both as ill-judged explorations of social loyalties in post-Ascendancy Ireland.

Brian Cleeve & Anne Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers [rev. 1 vol. edn.] (Dublin: Lilliput 1985): lives at Glenville, Co. Cork; author of novels, All a Nonsense (1957); Paradise Escaped (1958); Nothing in the City (1965); also documentary works, The Remarkable Irish (1966); Burke’s Guide to Country Houses, Vol. 1, Ireland (1978), as well as Palaces of the Raj; Clive of India; The Cavaliers.