#3019, Francis Charles Adelbert Henry NEEDHAM

Viscount Newry was commissioned into the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, King's Shropshire Light Infantry in 1901 but in March 1902 transferred to the 1st Life Guards as a Second Lieutenant.  He was promoted Lieutenant in 1904 and Captain in 1907.  He resigned his commission in 1911 but returned to the army during the first World War, reaching the rank of Major.  In 1930 he was appointed Captain in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was second Commanding Officer of HMS Caroline the RNR base in Belfast, where his photograph can be seen today.

He also served as High Sheriff of County Down in 1913, as Lord Lieutenant of County Down from 1949 to 1959 and as Vice-Admiral of Ulster from 1937 to 1961.  From 1916 until his death Kilmorey sat in the  House of Lords as an Irish Representative Peer, becoming the last surviving representative peer.  In 1936 he was admitted to the Privy Council of Northern Ireland and awarded the OBE.  He was an ADC to King George VI between 1937 and 1939. 

The 4th Earl was the last Earl to live in Mourne Park House.  The ancestral estate of some 800 acres in County Down (including the lordships and manors of Newry, Mourne and Greencastle) was not inherited by the 5th Earl who opted to inherit contents to the value of the estate as he lived in England.  The Mourne Park Estate passed down through the female line to be owned one third each by Debonaire Norah Needham Anley, Marion Scarlet Needham Anley and Philip James Needham Anley.