Updating The Mayburys
Michael A. Smithson
June 2026
In the introduction to the chapter on ‘The Mayburys of County Kerry’ in “The Mayburys”, published in 2011, readers were cautioned that the story of the Mayburys in Kerry was constantly evolving as research continued into this fascinating branch of the family. Indeed, Don Collins’ brief for “The Mayburys” in 2011 was to produce a compendium of what was known of this extended family to date.
Soon after, the opportunity arose to conduct research in libraries and archives in England and Ireland. Secondary sources unavailable at the time of writing were accessed and, most importantly, original documents were reviewed and new documents located. The new information obtained has cast new light on several issues examined in ‘The Mayburys of County Kerry’ chapter and are discussed below in these sections:
William Mabury’s Leases
The Orpens
William Maybury of Cleady
Richard Maybery’s Duckett Connection
Augustus Maybury of Kilgortaree
A further and more extensive re-evaluation of all the available evidence relating to the early Mayburys in County Kerry was undertaken in 2021 after the results of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) DNA testing were received. This test, marketed by FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) as BigY, had begun to be employed in the Maybury DNA Project in 2016.
This re-evaluation clarified many issues in early County Kerry Maybury history and genealogy. Some theories and understandings could be dismissed and the evidence for other possibilities strengthened. A paper presenting this review: ‘The Early Mayberry and Maybury Families of Co. Kerry, Ireland’, that updates the information contained in ‘The Mayburys of County Kerry’ 2011 chapter is coming soon to this website.
The sections in ‘The Mayburys of County Kerry’ chapter most affected were:
Mabury, Mayberry and Maybury
In search of William Maybury
Discovering 18th Century Mayburys
Maybury Mysteries
William Maybury’s Leases
Research into the 17th and 18th century Shelburne/Lansdowne papers held at Bowood House, Calne, England, conducted soon after the publication of The Mayburys in 2011, enabled close examination of William Mabury’s lease over Dromoughty. Gerard Lyne in his article, ‘Land Tenure in Kenmare and Tuosist 1696-c.1716’, could not recall its date and grouped it with several other ‘Grand Lease’ leases signed in 1697/98.¹ It had, in fact, been signed in 1712 and was most probably a renewal of a 21-year lease negotiated in 1691 in the midst of Richard Orpen’s struggle to regain the Glanarought agency. Examination of these leases in 2011 also answered a question that had arisen over the identity of the Maybury who had uncharacteristically signed a lease 'in a very shaky hand'. ² The signatures on the original documents were closely examined and all were signed by the one William Mabury. The ‘very shaky hand’ reported by Lyne was the result of William signing in a very cramped space.
The Orpens
When the Kerry Maybury chapter of The Mayburys was written, it was not possible to access a complete volume of Goddard Henry Orpen's book, The Orpen Family. Today, this volume can be easily found on the internet. The full text of Orpen’s work revealed some errors and some myths perpetuated in The Mayburys. Goddard Henry Orpen discounted much of the romantic early Orpen genealogy contained in John Burke’s, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland. Rachel and her brother, Richard's father, Robert, may have lived in Ireland, but the claim that he was related by marriage to influential Gaelic families is very tenuous.³ As for Rachel's supposed grandfather, Richard, if he was who he was claimed to be, he probably died of plague rather than on the battlefield of Naseby in 1645.⁴ Then there is the matter of Richard Orpen and the race to Kenmare in 1691 following the Williamite War that had seen the expulsion of Protestant planters from the Petty Estate. Richard, it seems, won the race to Kenmare and assumed that he would resume his position of agent in Kerry. His rival, Captain Topham, definitely a Protestant and not a Catholic, ran instead to influential persons and was appointed chief agent in Kerry.⁵ Thus was set the scene for the struggle between Topham and Orpen to gain the Kerry agency, from which Richard Orpen emerged victorious and William Mabury regained his land at Dromoughty.
William Maybury of Cleady
A good deal of discussion in The Mayburys centres on reconstructing the genealogy of the family at Kenmare in the late 17th and first half of the 18th centuries. Research at Bowood House, Calne, England, conducted soon after the publication of The Mayburys in 2011, enabled close examination of known documents and located new documents, including papers that documented a dispute in 1796-7 at Kenmare between Cornelius Hawkes, on one side, and Augustus Maybury's widow, Mary, and her son, William Bowen, an executor of Bastable Maybury's estate, on the other.⁶
The first genealogical issue to be resolved was confusion over the identity of two William Mayburys mentioned in documents generated by property dealings between the Mayburys and Lord Shelburne in 1773: William Maybury of Cleady and ‘William Maybury, Gent., deceased’, whose estate was administrated by one, ‘Francis Maybury, Gent.’. Was this ‘William Maybury, Gent., deceased’ actually William Maybury of Cleady, signatory of an Attornment of Lease in 1763 and a Proposal for Renewal in 1764, who had died in or before 1773? Was the William Maybury who signed documents in 1773 actually the son and heir of William Maybury of Cleady - a William Maybury III of Cleady?
These possibilities proved groundless, not only from the evidence contained in the Hawkes' case papers, but also from an examination of original documents signed by Augustus and William Maybury and John Mayberry between 1763 and 1773. If the supposed William Maybury II had died by 1773, a new signature - that of William Maybury III of Cleady - should have appeared on the documents of that year. Instead, William's signature remained unchanged from 1763. In addition, a memorial submitted by Corless Hawkes in 1796 stated that Augustus Maybury (c.1710-1785) had taken out the last lease over the townland of Gortnadullagh with his brother William Maybury. That lease was taken out in 1773 and Hawkes stated that William had died in 1794. There was no William Maybury II (died 1773) nor William Maybury III of Cleady; there was only William Maybury of Cleady (c.1710-1794). William Maybury II (died 1773) and an assumed generation of Cleady Mayburys had to be deleted from the Kenmare Maybury family tree.
Richard Maybery's Duckett Connection
A copy of a marriage contract included in the Hawkes case papers also clearly established that Petra Duckett, daughter of Samuel Duckett and Margaret Palmer, had married Bastable Maybury, son of Augustus Maybury, on c.20 January 1779 and not Richard Maybery, father of John Mayberry of Greenlane.⁷ This vindicated the claim made by Richard Hawkes Maybury for this marriage in his 'An Account of Richard Hawkes Maybury's Forefathers'. Richard Maybery did marry a Duckett - a sister of William Duckett, who the 19th century Orpen family genealogist, Emanuel Hutchinson Orpen, named as Mary Duckett.⁸
Augustus Maybury Of Kilgortaree
The Hawkes case papers have also assisted in explaining how Augustus Maybury of Kilgortaree (otherwise of Gortascrehane, Gortree [Gentree] or Dromaphihane, d.1785 – see the discussion on these names in ‘Richard Hawkes Maybury’s Kenmare Pedigree’ on this website) came to hold the townland of Kilgortaree. Augustus married Mary, the widow of Robert Bowen of Kilgortaree.
In his discussion of the Hawkes case, Henry Pelham, Lord Lansdowne's agent, identified William Bowen, executor of Bastable Maybury's estate, as the son of Augustus Maybury's wife by a former husband.⁹ The Hawkes case papers name Augustus' wife as Mary (also known as Molly).¹⁰ In Burke's Commoners, William Bowen is shown to be the son of Robert Bowen and Mary Bastable, although the assertion that he married Hannah, daughter of Augustus Maybury is questionable (as will be discussed below).¹¹ The Bowens had held the townland of Kilgortaree at least since 1713 when it was in the possession of William Bowen.¹² Around 1743, Robert Bowen, most probably a relative of William, had taken over as tenant at Kilgortaree.¹³By 1763, Robert had died and the Widow Bowen was in possession of Kilgortaree and its mill.¹⁴ It is apparent that Augustus married the widow Mary (Bastable) Bowen because Kilgortaree was recorded as tenanted by a Maybury by 1766, almost certainly Augustus Maybury who held it until 1785.¹⁵ The marriage also explains the origin of the given name of Augustus Maybury's only son, Bastable.
The Hawkes case papers cast light on the events of 1785, a tragic year for the Kilgortaree Mayburys, when Augustus, then his son Bastable died within months of each other. Bastable's widow, Petra, remarried a year later, to Thomas Palmer in around 2 September 1786 (date of Marriage Articles).¹⁶ he papers also confirm what had already been deduced in The Mayburys, that Bastable and Petra's only child, Mary Maybury, inherited a good deal of the land inherited by Bastable from his father, Augustus, in 1785.
Returning to William Bowen, the son that Mary (Bastable) Bowen brought to her marriage with Augustus Maybury; it is now difficult to accept the claim made in Burke's Commoners that William married Hannah, daughter of Augustus Maybury.¹⁷ If Hannah was the daughter of Mary (Bastable) Bowen and Augustus Maybury, a marriage to her half-brother William Bowen would be impossible. Even more doubt is cast on such a union by the Hawkes case papers that establish that Hannah Maybury was married to someone else. The papers mention two daughters of Augustus Maybury: Hannah and Peg (Margaret?), as well as their husbands: Myles Reardon of Cahir and William Gill of Whiddy, Bantry Bay.¹⁸ Unfortunately, it is unclear who was married to whom.
Hannah and Peg (Margaret?) appear not to have been the only daughters of Augustus Maybury. The Hawkes case papers also identify a grandson of Augustus, Richard Aldwell. As Richard was a beneficiary of Augustus' estate, it is expected that he is evidence for a daughter (probably deceased) who had married an Aldwell.¹⁹
As for Cornelius Hawkes' claim over the townland of Gortnadullagh, it was dismissed and Lord Lansdowne allowed Augustus' widow, Mary, to continue possession of this land. This was not the end of the matter. Chancery Bills indicate a case brought by Corless Hawkes and Catherine [sic] his wife against Robert Bowen, William Bowen, Mary Mayberry senr., Thomas Palmer and Celia his wife in 15 January 1801. The matter was not settled until June/July 1804 and that year’s rental suggests Hawkes’ claim was again unsuccessful.
Michael A. Smithson
January 2012; revised December 2023 and July 2026.
¹ Gerard Lyne, Land Tenure in Kenmare and Tuosist 1696-c.1716, Journal of the Kerry Archaeological & Historical Society, No. 10 (1977), p.42
² ibid.
³ Goddard Henry Orpen, The Orpen Family, Butler & Tanner: Frome & London, 1930, p. 22.
⁴ ibid., p.38.
⁵ ibid., pp. 88-91.
⁶ Henry Pelham, 'A Report on the Several Petitions & Memorials of Thomas Palmer, Corless Hawkes etc', c.1797, Co. Kerry 1792-1803, No. 75, The Trustees of the Bowood Collection.
⁷ Articles of Intermarriage between Bastable Maybury, Augustus Maybury, Samuel Duckett and Petra Duckett, 20 January 1779, Henry Pelham, 'A Report on the Several Petitions & Memorials of Thomas Palmer, Corless Hawkes etc', c.1797, No. 75, attachment 13, Co. Kerry 1792-1803.
⁸ ‘Family of Mayberry’, in Emanuel Hutchinson Orpen (John H. Glascott J.P., amanuensis), A Pedigree and Genealogical History of the Family of Orpen of the County of Kerry with the collateral descendants thereof. Copied from the Collections of the late Emanuel Hutchinson Orpen, Esq. For his nephew John Herbert Orpen Esq., Barrister at Law, LL.D., With the later Generations added on thereto., Co. Wexford, Ireland, 1874, Monksgrange Archives, Wexford, Ireland.
⁹ Henry Pelham, 'A Report on the Several Petitions & Memorials of Thomas Palmer, Corless Hawkes etc', p.III - IV.
¹⁰ Affidavit of Thomas Duckett of Clonmel, 13 October 1796, attachment 6. Joint Affidavit of Myles Reardon, Richard Aldwell and John Harrington, 15 Dec 1796, attachment 8, Henry Pelham, 'A Report on the Several Petitions & Memorials of Thomas Palmer, Corless Hawkes etc'.
¹¹ John Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Enjoying Territorial Possessions or High Official Rank: But Uninvested with Heritable Honours, Vol.4, Henry Colburn, London, 1838, p.ix.
¹² Papers relating to College estates, Munster, Trinity College Dublin manuscript collection, Mun/P/23/1508. This document is undated, but as it shows William Mawberry holding Currabeg, it would date prior to 1722. In fact, the document is most probably associated with the Trinity College vs Lord Shelburne legal case of 1713, acted upon in 1714. William Bowen is also shown on a list of people to be served injunctions in the College vs Shelburne case c.1713 (Mun/P/23/1101).
¹³ 23 Jan 1743/4, Trinity College Dublin, Mun/P/23/1453.
¹⁴ List of Orpen sub-tenants (post 1743, but pre-1766 - most certainly pre-1763 as Richard Mayberry is shown to hold Curraghbeg and part Gortalinny).
¹⁵ Survey and valuation conducted around 1766 by Mrs Elizabeth Lavery, College Chief Tenant of Gortagass, Trinity College Dublin manuscript collection, Mun/P/23/1509.
¹⁶ Petition of Thomas Palmer of Cahir, Henry Pelham, 'A Report on the Several Petitions & Memorials of Thomas Palmer, Corless Hawkes etc', p. 3.
¹⁷ Burke, Commoners, p.ix.
¹⁸ Joint Affidavit of Myles Reardon, Richard Aldwell and John Harrington, 15 Dec 1796, attachment 8, Henry Pelham, 'A Report on the Several Petitions & Memorials of Thomas Palmer, Corless Hawkes etc'.
¹⁹ ibid.