724 Edmund Dease

Constituency : Queen's  County  1870-80

Edmund  took  over  at  Queen's  County  when  John  Fitzpatrick   was  elevated  to  the  peerage.

Edmund  was  educated  at  Queen's  University, Dublin. He  was  a  Commissioner  of  National  Education. He had  an  estate  in  the  constituency.

In  1870  Edmund  wrote  to  Gladstone  asking  the  government  to  help  restore  the  pope's  temporal  power  as  a  necessary  prop  to  his  spiritual  authority  and  dignity. Gladstone, who  had  already  written  an  anonymous  article  for the  Edinburgh  Review  celebrating  the  pope's  defeat,  replied  that  the  government  could  not  interfere  in  the  government  of  Italy  but  did  support  the  personal  freedom  and  independence  of  the  pope  which  was  enough  to  upset  Presbyterians  when  the  letter  was  published.

Edmund  was  a  moderate  supporter  of  Home  Rule.

In  1880  Patrick  Cahill  secretary  of  the  Parnellite  Independent  Club  wrote  in  favour  of  supporting  Edmund  in  the  upcoming  election "Dease's  very  presence  and  vote  is  of  immense  weight... We  have, unhappily  too  many  adventurers  in  our  ranks, and  there  are  far  too  few  of  hereditary  position  and  high  personal  character. A  single  vote  from  a  man  like  Dease  outweighs  the  whole  vote  of  seven  obtuctionists... When  men  like  Dease  take  their  proper  place  in  our  ranks  we  cannot  be  cried  down  as  mere  jacquerie". However  Edmund  was  opposed  and  defeated.

He  died  in  1904  aged  75.