Life
?1708-1764; b. London, ed. Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford; chaplain of lord lieutenant, Duke of Dorset, Dublin; Dean of Ferns, 1733; Dean of Derry, 1734; Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, 1740; bishop of Kildare and dean of Christ Church, 1743; Bishop of Derry, 1745; Archbishop of Armagh, March 1747; Lord Justice and member of Irish Privy Council, April. 1747; supported claim of Crown to surplus revenues against Henry Boyle, 1749-53; claim succeeding in 1751 and renewed in 1753 with Irish Commons rejecting Crown right; emerged as virtual dictator of Ireland with dismissal of crown servants opposed to Bill; figures as Cardinal Lapidario in Baratariana; on Boyle becoming Earl of Shannon his power waned; excluded from Regency, 1756; restored 1758; shared power with Shannon (Boyle) and Ponsonby; Lord Justice in April 1758, with Shannon and Ponsonby; carried down govt. in 1764; d. London; Bishop Stone is a sternly Govt. prelate and autocratic in J. A. Froude’s Two Chiefs of Dunboy (1889). ODNB DIB
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Criticism
The Adventures of a Bishop: A Phase in Irish Life, a Personal and Historical Narrative by Charles Frederick D’Arcy (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1934), in which his reputation is defended, citing calumnies reported in James Stuart’s History of Armagh where they are called ‘foul aspersions’; Stone is said here to have spoken long and eloquently against the bill to impose further restrictions on Catholic priests in Ireland, at the third reading in the House of Lords, 29 Jan. 1756. (D’Arcy, p.229f.)
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Commentary
James Kelly, ‘lord lieutenancy’, in W. J. McCormack, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Irish Literature (Oxford 1999; 2001): ‘The most threatening development in these years for domestic political stability was the encouragement given the ambitious Ponsonby family by the duke of Devonshire. This did not excite especial concern until the late 1740s, when the Ponsonbys, now allied with the primate, George Stone, endeavoured to take Henry Boyle’s place as the leading Undertaker interest in the Irish House of Commons. They received the opportunity they craved with the reappointment of the duke of Dorset to the lord lieutenancy in 1750, but his decision to place his confidence in the Ponsonby-Stone interest inaugurated a period of instability in Irish politics, which served only to make British politicians acutely aware of the power exercised by leading Irish politicians and the weaknesses of current arrangements as far as the security of the Anglo-Irish nexus was concerned. The upshot was that they began to reassess the role of the lord lieutenant in the Irish administration.’ (p.359.)
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