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Life
1842-1891 [Lewis Strange Wingfield; youngest son of Richard Wingfield, 6th Viscount Powerscourt]; b. 25 Feb., London; brought up at Powerscourt; ed. Eton and Bonn; adventures incl. attending Derby as a negro minstrel, nights in workhouses and pauper-lodgings, madhouse and prison attendant; studied painting and surgery at Antwerp, continuing the latter under Couture in Paris, where be obtained diploma; appeared at Haymarket Theatre, London, 1865; joined Germans as medical man at battles of Woerth and Wissembourg, and returned to Paris for first siege, 1870, worked in the American hospitaland as correspondent for London Daily Telegraph; got Paris dispatches out by balloon;
[ A forebear, Richard Wingfield, inherited the Powerscourt property in 1608 which had been acquired with the murder of Phelim O"Toole and an act of forfeiture for rebellion granted by James I. The name of the estate descends from its Norman possessor, la Poer. The Georgian country house was designed by Richard Cassels in 1731-41 on the site of a 13th century castle and incorporated 16th century stone-work. George IV was a house-guest in 1821. The 7th Viscount, Mervyn, undertook extensive an renovation of the gardens in 1844, including a Japanese Garden, the Triton Lake and fountain, and the Pet Cemetary. In 1961 Ralph and Gwen Slazener of the tennis equipment fortune purchased Powerscourt from the 9th Vicount, Richard Wingfield, with a view to harnessing the waterfall for hydroelectric power. In 1963 their daughter Wendy married Mervyn Wingfield, who succeeded to the title in 1973 as 10th Viscount Powerscourt, to be succeeded in turn by Mervyn, 11th Viscount - Wendy"s son and sibling to Julia Wingfield. On 4th Nov. 1974 a fire broke out in the house shortly after a large-scale refurbishment had been completed by the Slazengers and at a moment when the house was due to be opened as a public attraction - the garden and estate having already been available to visitors for some time. (Indeed, the waterfall has long been a public attraction.) Powerscourt was restored and reopened in 1996 with its gardens, a golf-course - all under the management of Sarah Slazenger, grand-daughter of the Slazengers whose lineage continue as owners of the estate.]
Lewis acted as special corr. for The Times during second siege; his novel My Lords of Strogue deals with Irish affairs at the period of the Union, and marked by eloquence and descriptive power; travelled widely; also reported on Gordon in Khartoum, and suffered damage to his health, 1884; exhibiting paintings at RHA; elected MRHA; issued Wanderings of a Globetrotter in the Far-East (1889), incl. an account of an earlier journey to China; other novels include Slippery Ground (1876); Lady Grizel (1878), an 18th century romance; In Her Majesty’s Keeping (1880), set in Dartmoor prison; also Abigail Rowe (1883); Barbara Philpot (1885), and The Maid of Honour (1891), set in the French revolution; a picture of his in the Orléans mairie; d. London. ODNB DIW CAB JMC SUTH OCIL
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Commentary
Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (1904), extract from My Lords of Strogue entitled ‘Ennisown’.
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References
Dictionary of National Biography also lists English Wingfields incl. Sir Anthony (1485?-1552), who arrested Somerset, 1549; Sir Richard
(d.1634), deputy vice-treasurer of Ireland c.1580, present at siege of Kinsale and other actions; Downpatrick MP; created Viscount Powerscourt, 1619.
John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (Harlow: Longmans 1988), notes 11 fiction titles in the British Library.
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