Andrew Robinson Stoney

Who was Andrew Robinson Stoney?

Andrew Robinson Stoney, later renamed Andrew Robinson Stoney-Bowes, was an Anglo-Irish adventurer of Greyfort House, Borrisokane, County Tipperary in Ireland. His grandfather, Thomas Stoney, had immigrated to Ireland from Yorkshire, England, in the wake of the Williamite conquest of Ireland, 1689-91. While Andrew Stoney-Bowes was a Member of Parliament for Newcastle-upon-Tyne and also High Sheriff of Durham, he is perhaps best remembered for his marriage to Mary Eleanor Bowes, the Dowager Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She became known as "The Unhappy Countess" due to their tempestuous relationship, which ended in scandal. The story of Stoney-Bowes and the Countess of Strathmore was fictionalized by William Makepeace Thackeray in The Luck of Barry Lyndon. Stanley Kubrick later adapted the novel into the 1975 award-winning film Barry Lyndon.