Anthony Malone

Malone, Anthony, a distinguished politician, was born in Ireland 5th December 1700. In his twentieth year he entered at Oxford, pursued his studies at the Temple, and in May 1726 was called to the Irish Bar. The following year he was elected to represent Westmeath, a seat he held without interruption until 1760. In 1740 he was appointed Prime-Sergeant, a position from which he was dismissed in 1754 for joining in the assertion of the right of Parliament to dispose of unappropriated taxes. In 1757, under the Duke of Bedford's government, he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. From this office he was also removed, for maintaining the right of the Irish House to originate the supplies. Soon afterwards, however, he was placed on the Privy-Council, and granted a patent of precedence at the Bar.

In 1771 he voted against Lord Townshend's government, although, as the Viceroy bitterly complained in a black list forwarded to London, he had "been obliged in everything that he had asked." "To a commanding person, fine voice, an impressive yet conciliatory manner, temper rarely to be ruffled by an opponent, were added powers of argument and persuasion so effective that it was once proposed to transfer him from the Irish to the English House of Commons, in order to oppose Sir Robert Walpole." Grattan declared "Malone was a man of the finest intellect that any country ever produced. The three ablest men I have ever heard were Mr. Pitt (the father), Mr. Murray, and Mr. Malone. For a popular assembly I would choose Pitt; for a Privy Council, Murray; for twelve wise men, Malone."[231] He died 8th May 1776, aged 75. His nephew, afterwards Lord Sunderlin, inherited most of his estates.

Sources

114. Dublin Penny Journal. 4 vols. Dublin, 1832-'6.

141. Froude, James A.: The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century. 3 vols. London, 1872-'4.

154. Grattan Henry, his Life and Times: Henry Grattan. 5 vols. London, 1839-'46.

216. Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, Revised and Enlarged by Mervyn Archdall. 7 vols. Dublin, 1789.

231. Malone, Edmund, Life: Sir James Prior. London, 1860.