The Hon. Lawrence Harman King Harman 1816 : Short Biography

The Hon. Lawrence H. King-Harman (1816–1875) was the second son of Robert Edward King, 1st Viscount Lorton and The Lady Frances Parsons-Harman of Rockingham House. His maternal home at Newcastle House near Ballymahon became his home. Local sentiment remains very favourable towards him.

In 1841, upon the death of his mother, he assumed the additional surname of –Harman when he succeeded to her family estate at Newcastle (near Ballymahon, County Longford).

In 1869, upon the death of his eldest brother, Robert King, King-Harman inherited the Lorton/Kingston estate of Rockingham, County Roscommon (by way of his father's great efforts to protect Rockingham from the mess created by the 2nd Viscount's disastrous marriage).  Thus, King-Harman inherited the family estate but not the peerage.

In 1875, at the Royal Marine Hotel in Bray, he died age 69. He was the last family member to be buried in the King vault at Boyle Abbey. 

It appears that every member of the King- Harman family is buried by torchlight and the funeral of the Hon. L. H. King-Harman, whose death has been recorded, has just taken place in accordance with the peculiar custom. The family mansion is three miles from Boyle, in Ireland, where the interment took place, and all the space was Crowded from end to end. [Liverpool Mercury - 20 October 1875]

OBITUARY OF EMINENT PERSONS, THE HON. L. H. KING-HARMAN

The Hon. Laurence Harman King-Harman, of Newcastle, in the county of Longford, and of Rockingham House, in the county of Roscommon, J.R. and D.L., High Sheriff of the former county in 1844 and of the latter in 1845, died at Bray, near Dublin, the 10th inst. was born Feb. 6, 1816, the second son of Robert Edward King, first Viscount Lorton, by Lady Frances, his wife, daughter and heiress of Laurence Parsons, first Earl of Rosse, and was consequently brother of Robert, second Viscount Lorton, who became eventually sixth Earl of Kingston. Mr King-Harman, who assumed the additional surname and arms of Harman in 1838, succeeded to the great Newcastle estate, in the county of Longford, by bequest of his grandmother, the Countess of Rosse, and at the death of his nephew, the seventh Earl of Kingston, became possessed of Rockingham, in the county of Roscommon. He married, May 17, 1837, Mary Cecilia, seventh daughter of the late James Raymond Johnstone, Esq., of Alva, in the county of Clackmannan, and leaves, with one surviving daughter, six sons, the eldest of whom, Captain Edward Robert King-Harman, inherits his father’s extensive property. [Illustrated London News - 16 October 1875 ].

In 1878, the King Harman Memorial Clock Tower in the centre of the village of Kenagh was erected as a testimonial of King-Harman ‘a good landlord and an upright man’. The largest landowner in Co. Longford, he resided at Newcastle House and was highly popular with his numerous tenantry. This public sentiment for a resident landlord is extraordinary. One thousand pounds was raised locally by subscription.  

Likewise, a tower (now the Boyle Clock Tower) was erected in his memory in 1880, by the tenants of the Boyle and Rockingham Estate in Co. Roscommon. (The clock was a later addition in memory of his inheriting grand-daughter). His estate passed to his eldest son, the Right Hon. Edward Robert King Harman (1838-88).

YOUR ANCESTRAL LANDLORD?

The King-Harman family kept and preserved extensive records of the management of their estate, which they transferred to a number of libraries and archives for research purposes. Their collections include some potentially useful records of their many tenants:

National Archives of Ireland

National Library of Ireland

Public Record Office, Northern Ireland

Sligo County Library