Marquess of Headfort

Marquess of Headfort is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1800 for Thomas Taylour, 2nd Earl of Bective. Despite the official title, the family unfailingly use the alternative rendering Marquis of Headfort, and this is the spelling more commonly encountered in references to family members.

The Marquess holds the subsidiary titles of Earl of Bective (1766), Viscount Headfort (1762), Baron Headfort, of Headfort in the County of Meath, (1760), and Baron Kenlis, of Kenlis in the County of Meath (1831), all but the last in the Peerage of Ireland. He is also an Irish baronet. Before the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999, the Marquess sat in the House of Lords as Baron Kenlis in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.

The family descends from Thomas Taylor who came to Ireland during the 1650s from Sussex in England to oversee on behalf of Parliament the fiscal expenditure of Oliver Cromwell's campaign in Ireland and later undertook the duties of a cartographer assisting with Sir William Petty's project of mapping Ireland. Taylor's son also Thomas Taylor represented Kells in the Irish House of Commons and in 1704, he was created a Baronet, of Kells in the County of Meath, in the Baronetage of Ireland. His grandson, the third Baronet, also sat for Kells in the Irish House of Commons. In 1760 he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Headfort, of Headfort in the County of Meath. Two years later he was created Viscount Headfort, of Headfort, in the County of Meath and in 1766 he was even further honoured when he was made Earl of Bective, of Bective Castle, in the County of Meath. He was succeeded by his eldest son, the second Earl. He was one of the 28 original Irish Representative Peers in the House of Lords. In 1800 he was created Marquess of Headfort in the Peerage of Ireland. His son, the second Marquess, assumed the surname of Taylour in lieu of Taylor. In 1831 he was created Baron Kenlis, of Kenlis in the County of Meath, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. This gave the Marquesses an automatic seat in the House of Lords. Lord Headfort served as a Government Whip in the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne and was also Lord Lieutenant of Cavan. His son, the third Marquess, represented Westmorland in Parliament as a Conservative and also served as Lord Lieutenant of County Meath. His son from his first marriage, Thomas Taylour, Earl of Bective, also sat as a Conservative Member of Parliament. However, he predeceased his father and on Lord Headfort's death the titles passed to his son from his second marriage, the fourth Marquess. He was a Senator of the Irish Free State. As of 2010 the titles are held by his great-grandson, the seventh Marquess, who succeeded his father in 2005.

As of 30 June 2006, the present holder of the Marquessate has not successfully proven his succession to the Baronetcy and is therefore not on the Official Roll of the Baronetage. However, the case is under review by the Registrar of the Baronetage (for more information follow this link).

Another member of the Taylor family was Clotworthy Rowley, fourth son of the first Earl of Bective. He assumed the surname of Rowley in lieu of Taylor and was created Baron Langford in the Peerage of Ireland in 1800. Also, the Honourable the Reverend Henry Edward Taylor, fifth son of the first Earl of Bective, was the father of the Conservative politician Thomas Edward Taylor, who served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880.

The ancestral seat of the Marquesses of Headfort was Headfort House, a country house just south of Kells in County Meath in the Republic of Ireland. The House and 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) estate were sold by the 6th Marquess in 1981. Headfort House itself is currently being used as a school.