DONOUGHMORE, Rt Hon 8th Earl of 1927-2025

[Tim]

The 8th Earl of Donoughmore died 25 April 2025, aged 97. 

He was b 8 August 1927, s of 7th EARL OF DONOUGHMORE 1902-81 by his w Dorothy Jean 1906-95, dau of John Beaumont HOTHAM 1874-1924 (s of Adm Sir Charles Frederick HOTHAM 1843-1925, gt gs of Gen George HOTHAM 1741-1806 (s of Sir Beaumont HOTHAM 7th Bt 1706-71 and yst bro of Sir Charles HOTHAM-THOMPSON 8th Bt d 1794, Rt Revd John HOTHAM 9th Bt d 1795, 1st BARON HOTHAM 1736-1813 and 2nd BARON HOTHAM 1737-1814) by his w and 1st cousin Diana d 1817 dau of Sir Warton PENNYMAN 5th Bt d 1770 by his w Charlotte HOTHAM, sister of Sir Beaumont HOTHAM 7th Bt 1706-71) by his w Gladys Mary d 1972 dau of Col John Gerald WILSON d 1902 by his w Angelina Rose Geraldine d 1941, dau of Revd Hon Henry O'BRIEN 1813-95 (s of Sir Edward O'BRIEN 4th Bt 1773-1837 and yst bro of 13th BARON OF INCHIQUIN 1800-72) by his w Henrietta GODLEY d 1872.

Lord Donoughmore m 1 Nov 1951 Sheila d 1998 dau of Frank Frederick PARSONS. They had 4 sons, the eldest of whom, John Michael James HELY HUTCHINSON, Viscount Suirdale (b 7 Aug 1952) succeeds as 9th EARL OF DONOUGHMORE. He m 8 Jan 1977 Marie-Claire, dau of Gerard VAN DEN DRIESSCHE of Wondelgem, Belgium. They had 1 s and 2 daus; the son, Richard Gregory HELY HUTCHINSON, now styled Viscount Suirdale (b 3 Jul 1980), is now heir apparent to the titles.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2025/05/01/earl-donoughmore-viscount-suirdale-perdio-radio-portable/

[sven_me...@web.de]

So now 240 who were exccluded in  1999. He took his seat 1983, two years after succeeding. Sat as a conservative and made his maiden speech in 1993 and spoke only once thereafter. 

[dpth...@gmail.com]

And still no one knows where the "Suirdale" title came from?

http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/index33.htm

[bx...@yahoo.com]

DPB Online hasn't updated the page yet, but from what's there, it looks like the line of succession would be as follows:

1. RICHARD GREGORY,  Viscount Suirdale (b. 1980), son and ha of the new (9th Earl)

2. Timothy Mark,  (b. 1953), brother of the new Earl

3. Nicholas David (b. 1955) brother of the new Earl

4. Seamus David (b. 1987), son of #3

5. Ralph Charles (b. 1961), brother of the new Earl

6. Ranulph Edward (b. 1996), son of #5.

Brooke

[dpth...@gmail.com]

Besides the lengthy obituary cited above, the Tekegraph has this family announcement:

Donoughmore, Earl of. Richard Michael John Hely Hutchinson, known as Mick, died on 25 April, aged 97, husband of Meg and father of John, Tim, Nicholas and Ralph Hely Hutchinson with his first wife Sheila (née Parsons). He will be missed by all, including his stepchildren, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and friends, including those from his much loved village of Bampton, Oxfordshire. Funeral at 2.30 p.m. on 15 May at St Mary's Church, Bampton, for family, and close friends by invitation.

On Thursday, May 1, 2025 at 3:02:46 PM UTC-5 Tim wrote:

[colinp]

From the Daily telegraph 2 May 2025: DONOUGHMORE.—Earl of. Richard Michael John Hely Hutchinson, known as Mick, died peacefully on 25th April, aged 97. Beloved husband of Meg and father of John, Tim, Nicholas and Ralph Hely Hutchinson with his first wife Sheila (née Parsons). He will be missed by all, including his stepchildren, grandchildren, great grandchildren and friends, including those from his much loved village of Bampton, Oxfordshire. Funeral at 2.30 p.m. on 15th May at St Mary’s Church, Bampton for family, and close friends by invitation. No flowers, please.

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Thanks for the emphasis, colinp. 

 Hopefully, among those great-grandchildren, there will be a young male heir or two, possibly for  the new Viscount Suirdale.

Maybe we will find out more once DPB Online updates the page.

Brooke

[bx...@yahoo.com]

This is to pick up on a post that Paul made earlier.

Where does the Suirdale title come from?  According to DPB Online, the Earl holds 4 titles ,Donoughmore (as an earldom, viscountcy and barony) and Hutchinson (as a viscountcy.)  

Why is the courtesy title not "Viscount Hutchinson?"

Thanks.

Brooke

[dpth...@gmail.com]

refer to the Cracroft article I cited for possible explanations.

[Patricia Light]

DPB have updated this title but no great-grandchildren mentioned and only one grandchild married.

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[bx...@yahoo.com]

DPB Online has updated the page, but, unfortunately,  there are no additions included.

All of the new Earl's children are still shown as unmarried, as is the Earl's brother,  Hon. Timothy.

The next brother, Hon. Nicholas,  is shown as married, with a son, Seamus (see my previous post) and a daughter, Fiona.  Fiona is shown as married, but with no children.

The youngest brother, Hon. Ralph, is shown as married with a son, Ranulph (see my previous post).

Any other descendants still remain a mystery.

Brooke

[Ivan Prekajski]

Any other descendants of late earl or in general?

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Ivan, the line of succession is what I had previously posted, based on DPB Online.

In general, the late Earl had 4 sons (including the new Earl), 3 grandsons (including the ha, Viscount Suirdale) and 3 granddaughters.

The 9th Earl  also has a living uncle, the younger brother of the 8th Earl.  The Hon. Mark (b. 1934) has 2 sons and a daughter, plus 3 grandsons and 2 granddaughters.

There are also other descendants living from other lines of the family.  Next in the actual line of succession after Hon. Mark and his family, would be descendants from a branch of the 2nd son of the 4rh Earl.

Brooke

[malcolm davies]

I don’t know why the courtesy title Viscount Suirdale was used.There was no courtesy title available from the 1st Earl’s peerage titles,so it is possible to use an informal one.The River Suir runs through the former family seat of Knocklofty in Tipperary,so that may be the explanation.Dale means a valley through which water flows.

[dpth...@gmail.com]

Yes.. that's what Cracroft assumed about the meaning of the name, as well.

However, it may be incorrect to say that there were "no courtesy title available from the 1st Earl’s peerage titles". There are the Viscountcy Donoughmore of Knocklofty and the Viscountcy Hutchinson of Knocklofty, as well as the Barony of Donoughmore of Knocklofty.

I suppose that they could have used the Hutchinson title, or even "Knocklofty"?

[Peter FitzGerald]

"Viscount Hutchinson" may have been thought undesirable because (as the only title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom rather than the Peerage of Ireland) it was the title by which the Earls sat in the House of Lords.

That doesn't explain why "Viscount Knocklofty" was not used, of course.

[Robert Jewell]

Knocklofty sounds a bit feisty. Maybe he wanted to be more low-profile in the English HOL. Or maybe it sounded too Irish, and Suirdale more English. 

[BREMENMURRAY]

Prior to his succession the new earl was the the oldest living son and heir of a peer

[bx...@yahoo.com]

At the time of his death, the late Earl was the 4th oldest living  hereditary peer.

The three who were/ are older are:

the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine (born Feb. 17, 1924)

Baron Walsingham (Born Feb. 21, 1925) and

Baron Gisborough (born July 1, 1927)

Brooke

[BREMENMURRAY]

The fourth and fifth oldest living hereditary peers are now Lord Brain born 6 August 1928 and the Earl of Westmeath born 21 November 1928 both teachers

[Jonathan]

I was thinking of making a wise crack about Brain being a good name for a teacher. Then I discovered that the 1st Lord Brain was a neurologist. Talk about nominative determinism!

[Robert Jewell]

There was a dentist named Geoffrey Tooth.

He m. Princss Xenia Andreevna of Russia and later Princess Olga Alexandrovna Galitzine

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[Richard R]

Obit in the Times of 9 May 2025:

E X T R A C T

Earl of Donoughmore obituary: pioneer of handheld transistor radio

Doctor who turned to business and became part of the Swinging Sixties radio craze with the launch of Perdio

An advertisement in The Times led to Michael Hely Hutchinson, the future eighth Earl of Donoughmore, becoming a driving force behind the 1960s craze for brightly coloured portable transistor radios to listen to pop music from the North Sea pirate radio stations. But within a few years the business over-extended and went bust.

Under the courtesy title Viscount Suirdale, Hely Hutchinson was a medical doctor who turned to business to pay his four sons’ school fees. The advert was placed by Derek Willmott, a former wartime RAF pilot who had discovered that the transistors used to power radar detectors could be adapted for radio…

… In return for investing £500, the softly spoken Suirdale took a controlling stake and became chairman and managing director. They started production in 1957, also making portable television sets, but that proved too far ahead of its time… the firm was [eventually] liquidated owing £926,380… Ironically, Perdio radios are now prized by collectors, and there is a lively trade on eBay.

Richard Michael John Hely Hutchinson, known as Mick, was born in 1927, the son of John Hely Hutchinson, the seventh Earl of Donoughmore, a wartime Tory MP for Peterborough, and Dorothy Jean Hotham, who was in charge of the Red Cross in London’s East End during the Second World War. She worked with Edwina Mountbatten and in 1947 was appointed MBE. In 1974 John and Dorothy were kidnapped for four days by the Provisional IRA and released when their members ended a prison hunger strike.

Mick’s younger brother is Mark Hely Hutchinson, the former chief executive of the Bank of Ireland, and they had a sister, Sara. They were sent to America during the Second World War to stay with relatives and attend Groton School in Massachusetts, where Mick discovered an interest in sciences...

… In 1951 he married Sheila (née Parsons), a nurse he had met when he was training at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, west London. She died of complications from kidney failure in 1999.

Mick and Sheila had four sons: John, Timothy, Nicholas and Ralph. John, who became Viscount Suirdale and is now the ninth Earl, was an executive with Dunhill and Burberry in Asia. Tim has run Headline Books, later Hodder Headline, which his father chaired from 1986 to 1997. Nicholas is an artist and Ralph a stockbroker. A shooting friend introduced Mick to Margaret “Meg” Morgan (née Stonehouse) and they married in 2001…

… Hely Hutchinson retired largely because of Sheila’s kidney failure. They moved to the Oxfordshire village of Bampton to be near Oxford’s John Radcliffe infirmary, an early specialist in renal treatment. Mick operated a home dialysis machine until she could receive a kidney transplant. He succeeded to his father’s titles in 1981 and sat in the House of Lords under the UK peerage Viscount Hutchinson, contributing to health debates but losing his seat after the House of Lords Act 1999 restricted the number of hereditary peers…

The Earl of Donoughmore, doctor and businessman, was born on August 8, 1927. He died on April 25, 2025, aged 97

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/earl-of-donoughmore-5c8p09t2r

[colinp]

The Secretary of State for Justice has approved the succession of John Michael James Hely-Hutchinson as Earl of Donoughmore in the Peerage of Ireland (College of Arms website)

This is interesting as I thought that petitions for recognition as peers in the peerage of Ireland had to proceed by way of petition to the House of Lords.  Maybe the HoL Standing orders have already been changed.  I check the HoL MInutes of Proceedings regularly and I don't think I have missed this one

[sarac...@googlemail.com]

Slightly bemused,as to the present status of the Peerage of Ireland,as they are officially not recognised by the present Irish Republic & Constitution,while the Wikipedia entry used the ambiguous verb 'administered' by the UK's House of Lords.

In the Earls of Donoughmore,they would seems to still come under the HoL's jurisdiction,as they still carry the subsidiary peerage of 'Viscount Hutchinson of Knocklofty' (1821) in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.   

[Matthew Kilburn]

The UK Department of Justice continues to register the accessions of peers of Ireland as peers of Ireland. Their status has never been addressed by inter-governmental discussions, as far a I know, and has been left undetermined. I suspect they will remain as long as Northern Ireland exists, at least.

[colinp]

From the House of Lords Minutes of Proceedings 17 July 2025:

Earldom of Donoughmore, Viscountcy of Donoughmore and Barony of Donoughmore in the Peerage of Ireland The Lord Chancellor reported that John Michael James Hely Hutchinson (otherwise known as Viscount Suirdale) had established his claim to the Earldom of Donoughmore, the Viscountcy of Donoughmore and the Barony of Donoughmore in the Peerage of Ireland.

[Patricia Light]

(Richard) Gregory Hely-Hutchinson b.1980 (Viscount Suirdale) married 2009 Laura Wardle & has a son

HON JOHN SELBY HELY-HUTCHINSON B.20/11/2011

Source; WHO'S WHO ONLINE 2026

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Thank you, Patricia!

Brooke