James Rochfort Maguire

Maguire as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) inVanity Fair,March 1894

James Rochfort MaguireCBE(4 October 1855 – 18 April 1925) was a British imperialist andIrish Nationalistpolitician andMPin theHouse of Commonsof theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.As a member of theIrish Parliamentary Partyhe representedNorth Donegal(1890–92) and as aParnelliteMember he representedWest Clare(1892–95). He was a friend and associate ofCecil Rhodes(1853–1902), and was one of the three men who signed the original concession on which was based theBritish South Africa Company,of which he was president in 1923–25.

Family life and education

He was the second son of John Mullock Maguire, rector of Kilkeedy,co. Limerick,and his wife Anne Jane née Humphreys. He was educated at Cheltenham College andMerton College, Oxford,where he obtained first classes in mathematics and jurisprudence. He was elected a Fellow ofAll Souls College, Oxfordin 1878 and was called to the bar in 1883, although he never practised the law.

In Q2 1895, in St. George's, Hanover Square, London, he marriedthe Hon. Julia Beatrice Peel, eldest daughter ofViscount Peel,a former Speaker of theHouse of Commons.In 1913 she laid the Foundation Stone for Bulawayo Railway Station.

Career

While at Oxford, Maguire became friendly with Cecil Rhodes. In 1888, Rhodes sent him with Charles Rudd and Francis Thompson to negotiate aconcessionof land and mineral rights inMatabelelandfrom ChiefLobengulaatBulawayo.This was signed on 30 October. TheBritish South Africa Companywas chartered the following October and Maguire was associated with it for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, in 1888, Rhodes had reached an agreement with Parnell, whom he admired. Rhodes supportedHome Rule for Ireland,but saw it as only part of anImperial federal schemefor the wholeBritish Empirein which all the self-governing territories would send members to the Imperial Parliament. He therefore objected to the terms ofGladstone's unsuccessful Home Rule Bill of 1886, which would have ended Irish representation atWestminster.He gave Parnell £10,000 for the Irish Party's funds in exchange for an undertaking that the Party would promote the continuation of Irish members at Westminster (in the event both later Home Rule Bills, in 1893 and 1912, did provide for this).

Maguire, who shared Rhodes' admiration for Parnell, became the main link between Rhodes and Parnell, and a seat was found for him at an uncontested by-election at North Donegal in June 1890. Less than six months later, however, the Irish Party split over Parnell's leadership. Maguire continued his support for Parnell, and, after Parnell's death in October 1891, for the embattledParnellites.This meant that he was faced with a real fight at the general election of 1892. Then, he contested West Clare, defeating theAnti-Parnellitecandidate convincingly by over 1,000 votes. However, at the following general election in 1895, after the destruction of thesecond Home Rule Billby the House of Lords in 1894, Maguire lost the seat to a fresh Anti-Parnellite candidate, by 403 votes.

His later career was almost entirely concerned with South and central Africa. He went through theSiege of Kimberleyin theBoer Warwith Rhodes, accompanied by his wife. After Rhodes' death in 1902, Maguire carried on his work as a businessman, in the British South Africa Company, as a director of the Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, and particularly in the development of theRhodesianrailway system of which he was chairman for many years.

He was appointed a Commander of theOrder of the British Empirein the1918 New Year Honoursfor his efforts during the First World War.

According toThe Times,among dozens of friends and associates from his imperial career who attended his funeral on 24 April 1925, there was only one representative of the Irish nationalist movement, namely his former Parnellite colleagueJohn O'Connor.

Publications

• The pioneers of empire: Being a vindication of the principle and a short sketch of the history of chartered companies, with especial reference to the British South Africa Company,London, Methuen, 1896
• Cecil Rhodes: A biography and appreciation(Macmillan's colonial library), 1897
• The case of Ireland: "The Times" proposal. My suggestions, 1919
• "Rhodesia,"Journal of the African Society(continued asAfrican Affairs), Vol.22 No.86, January 1923, pp. 81–95

Sources

• Irish Independent,20 April 1925, pp. 6 and 7
• F. S. L. Lyons,Charles Stewart Parnell,London, Collins, 1977, pp. 442–4, 587–9
• Newbury, Colin (2008) [2004]. "Maguire, James Rochfort (1855–1925)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34832.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
• The Times,20 and 23 April 1925
• Brian M. Walker (ed.),Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922,Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978
• Who Was Who1916–1928

External links

• Hansard1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by James Rochfort Maguire
• Portrait photo of James Rochford Maguire’s wife Julia, née Peel (National Portrait Gallery, London)
• Social network diagram for James Rochfort Maguire (based on shared entry on same pages)(Archive)
• "Maguire, James Rochfort".Thom's Irish Who's Who.Dublin:Alexander Thom and Son Ltd.1923. p.158– viaWikisource.