Popham Seymour-Conway

Who was Popham Seymour-Conway?

Popham Seymour-Conway, born Seymour was an Anglo-Irish landowner and rake, the eldest son of Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Baronet by his second marriage to Laetitia Popham, daughter of Alexander Popham.

On 9 August 1683, the Earl of Conway, his mother's cousin, left him his extensive estates in Warwickshire and Lisburn, on condition that he change his name to Seymour-Conway. Considerable suspicion was aroused by this transaction, displacing as it did Arthur Rawdon, Conway's nephew; it was thought that Sir Edward had taken advantage of the Earl's senility to bring it about.

In 1697, Seymour-Conway became Member of Parliament for Lisburn, site of his new estates, in the Irish Parliament.

On 4 June 1699, during a drunken duel with Captain George Kirk, of the Royal Horse Guards, Seymour-Conway was wounded in the neck. He succumbed to the effects of the wound two weeks later, on 18 June in London. The Conway estates passed to his brother Francis, who also assumed the name of Seymour-Conway and was created Baron Conway.