Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough

Life & Legacy

Vere Brabazon Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough (27 October 1880 – 10 March 1956), was an Anglo-Irish businessman and politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the fourteenth since Canadian Confederation.
Born and educated in England into 'the Ascendancy', the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, he graduated with a law degree from Cambridge University. In 1910 he became a member of the London County Council and a member of the British House of Commons. Upon the death of his father ten years later, Ponsonby succeeded as Earl of Bessborough and took his seat in the House of Lords. In 1931 he was appointed as governor general by King George V, on the recommendation of British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, to replace The Earl of Willingdon as viceroy. He occupied the post until succeeded by the Lord Tweedsmuir in 1935. Lord Bessborough is remembered for promoting new communication technologies as well as giving support to Canadians during the Great Depression.
After the end of his viceregal tenure, he returned to London, where he continued in business and worked with the Dominions Office and the Foreign Office before his death in March 1956.
Ponsonby was the last Earl of Bessborough to own Bessborough House, the Ponsonby family's ancestral seat near the village of Piltown in the south of County Kilkenny in Ireland. The country house was primarily built in the 1740s for the 1st Earl. It was gutted by fire during the Irish Civil War in February 1923. Ponsonby had the house rebuilt in the late 1920s. However, he sold the house in the late 1930s as he primarily lived in Britain. The house now forms the central part of Kildalton Agricultural College.