CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam

British politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 28, 2025
Entity authorityQ7325690 ↗
Source-derived summary

Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam, PC (Ireland) (c. 1677 – 6 June 1743), of Mount Merrion in Dublin, was an Irish nobleman and Whig politician.

Origins

He was the only son of Thomas FitzWilliam, 4th Viscount FitzWilliam by his first wife Mary Stapleton, a daughter of the English statesman Sir Philip Stapleton and his first wife Frances Hotham. The FitzWilliam family is recorded in Ireland from about 1210, and by the seventeenth century had become one of the largest landowners in Dublin.

Career

He succeeded to the Viscountcy of FitzWilliam in 1704, and became a member of the Irish Privy Council in 1715. He was elected a member of parliament for Fowey in 1727, a seat he held until 1734. His father and grandfather had been Roman Catholics, and his father had been under attainder for a time for his loyalty to the Catholic King

James II; but Richard conformed to the Church of Ireland.

Properties

In 1711, he built Mount Merrion House in Dublin. The older family home of Merrion Castle was, rather surprisingly, allowed to fall into decay: it was a ruin by 1730, and was pulled down later in the century. Richard spent his later years in England, but his heirs returned to Mount Merrion.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam” as british politician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Richard, FitzWilliam and Viscount.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1677, 1743, 1210, 1704—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1677-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Richard, FitzWilliam and Viscount providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam”, the useful work is to connect “british politician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7325690. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1677, 1743, 1210 and 1704.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam primary sources, Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam archive and Richard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Richard FitzWilliam, 5th Viscount FitzWilliam” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.