that period he took an active interest in the progress and development of railways. He made himself conversant with the design and construction of the successive types of locomotive which were brought into use; and it was said that no railway director had ridden more miles upon the footplate than Lord Richard Grosvenor during the early years of his directorship. He was also actively concerned with many schemes for helping the employees of his company, by such means as the improvement of their savings bank, their superannuation fund, and the fund for their widows and orphans. From 1897 he presided over the meetings of their ambulance centre, established in connexion with the St. John Ambulance Association. Lord Stalbridge's interest in railway matters was not, however, limited to the affairs of the North Western. The Universal Exhibition held at Paris in 1867 had given a great impulse to plans for bringing nations into closer contact by improving their communications: the Mont Cenis tunnel was nearly completed; that under Mont St. Gothard was about to be undertaken; and the project of an Anglo-French tunnel under the straits of Dover was revived. Lord Richard Grosvenor became the head of an Anglo-French company formed to promote the last project, and he continued throughout his life to advocate linking up the English and continental railway systems by a submarine tunnel.
As a sportsman Lord Stalbridge was extremely fond of hunting, an enthusiastic deer-stalker, and a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron. He died, after a prolonged illness, 18 May 1912 at his house in Sussex Square, London, and was buried at Motcombe.
Lord Stalbridge married twice: first, in 1874 the Hon. Beatrice Charlotte Elizabeth Vesey (died 1876), daughter of Thomas, third Viscount De Vesci, by whom he had one daughter; secondly, in 1879 Eleanor Frances Beatrice Hamilton (died 1911), daughter of Robert Hamilton Stubber, of Moyne, Queen's county, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. He was succeeded in the title by his eldest son, Hugh (born 1880).
[The Times, 20 May 1912; Daily Telegraph, 20 May 1912; Book of Matriculations and Degrees, University of Cambridge 1851–1900.]
GUINNESS, Sir ARTHUR EDWARD, second baronet, and first Baron Ardilaun (1840–1915), philanthropist, the eldest son of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, first baronet, M.P. [q.v.], by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Guinness, of Dublin, was born at St. Anne's, Clontarf, co. Dublin, 1 November 1840. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1862. Upon the death of his father in 1868 he succeeded to the title as second baronet and became the head of the famous brewery at St. James's Gate, Dublin, founded by his grandfather, from which he retired in 1877. He was at once returned unopposed in the conservative interest as member of parliament for Dublin city in his father's place. At the next election in 1869 he lost the seat. He re-entered parliament for the same constituency at the general election in 1874 and held the seat until 1880, when he was raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Ardilaun, of Ashford, co. Galway. In 1871 he married Lady Olivia Charlotte White, daughter of the third Earl of Bantry.
Guinness's generous devotion to the interests of the city of Dublin was conspicuous from the beginning of his public life. In 1872, with his younger brother, Edward Cecil, afterwards Earl of Iveagh, he originated, and took financial responsibility for, the Dublin Exhibition of Arts and Science. He completed the restoration, begun by his father, of the fabric of Archbishop Marsh's Library, Dublin. In 1877 he rebuilt the Coombe Lying-in Hospital; while the building by the government of the Science and Art Museum in Dublin was due to his advocacy in the House of Commons. He took a practical interest in the improvement of working-class dwellings and was president of the artisans' dwellings company, the first company inaugurated in Dublin for this purpose. It was entirely due to his munificence that the beautiful public park of some twenty-two acres in the centre of the city, known as St. Stephen's Green, was acquired, laid out, and handed over under a special act of parliament to the Board of Works for the use of the citizens of Dublin. As a mark of the general appreciation in which he was held, a bronze statue of Lord Ardilaun was erected in St. Stephen's Green by public subscription in 1891. In 1899 he purchased the Muckross estate, co. Kerry, which adjoins the lakes of Killarney, in order to save it and the lakes from falling into the hands of a commercial syndicate.
Lord Ardilaun was a generous supporter of the Church of Ireland. At the time of its disestablishment he contributed largely to its capital funds, and up to his death he
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