James Butler, 1st Marquess of Ormonde

James Wandesford Butler, 1st Marquess of Ormonde KP (15 July 1777 – 18 May 1838) was an Irish nobleman and politician. He was the second son of John Butler, 17th Earl of Ormonde and Frances Susan Elizabeth Wandesford.

Butler was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Kilkenny City in the Irish House of Commons in 1796 (he never took his seat and resigned after 3 months) and served then for Kilkenny County until the Act of Union in 1801. He sat subsequently for the Irish county constituency of County Kilkenny and was member of the UK House of Commons from 1801, until he succeeded to the peerage, as 19th Earl of Ormonde, in 1820, on the death of his elder brother, Walter, the 18th Earl and 1st Marquess of Ormonde in the Irish peerage (the latter title becoming extinct upon his death).

Having joined fashionable society in London, he became a companion of the Prince Regent. Subsequently, at the Prince's coronation as George IV, he was created a Peer of the United Kingdom, as Baron Ormonde, of Llanthony, in the county of Monmouth and in 1825, Marquess of Ormonde.

Marriage and Children

He married Grace Louisa Staples, daughter of Rt. Hon. John Staples and Hon. Henrietta Molesworth, on 12 October 1807. They had five sons and five daughters:

• John Butler, 2nd Marquess of Ormonde (1808–1854), who married Frances Jane (d. 26 Aug. 1903), daughter of Gen. Hon. Sir Edward Paget, GCB
• Lord Walter Wandesford Butler (1814–1861), Army officer
• Captain Lord James Wandesford Butler (1815–1893), who married Lady Rachel Evelyn Russell, daughter of the 6th Duke of Bedford
• Lord Richard Molesworth Butler (died 1863)
• Lieut Lord Charles Wandesford Butler (died 1885), married Robert Fowler, 1st son of Rt Rev Robert Fowler DD, Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin
• Anne Butler (died 1849), married John Wynne, of Hazlewood House, Sligo
• Louisa Grace Butler (1816–1896), married Thomas Fortescue, 1st Baron Clermont
• Lady Elizabeth Butler (died 1892)
• Lady Mary Charlotte Butler (died 1840)