Edward Pennefather

Who was Edward Pennefather?

Edward Pennefather PC, KC was an Irish judge.

Pennefather was born in Tipperary, the second son of William Pennefather of Knockeevan, member of the Irish House of Commons for Cashel and his wife Ellen Moore, daughter of Edward Moore, Archdeacon of Emly. He went to school in Clonmel and graduated from the University of Dublin. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1795 and was King's Counsel by 1816. He was very briefly Attorney-General for Ireland in 1830; Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1835 and again in 1841; in the latter year he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench for Ireland and held the position until he resigned on health grounds in 1846.

He married Susannah Darby, eldest sister of John Nelson Darby, in 1806. They had a daughter, Dora, who married in 1850, as his second wife, James Stopford, 4th Earl of Courtown, and had three sons, two of whom General Sir Frederick Stopford, commander at the Landing at Suvla Bay, and Admiral Walter Stopford, became famous.