Edmund Boyle, 7th Earl of Cork

Edmund Boyle, 7th Earl of Cork and 7th Earl of Orrery (21 November 1742 – 30 May 1798) was an Irish peer.

A younger son of the 5th Earl of Cork and Margaret Hamilton, he succeeded to his half-brother's titles in 1764. He died, aged 56 in Marston House and was buried in St John's Church in Frome in Somerset.

File:The children of Edmund Boyle, 7th Earl of Cork by Richard Cosway.jpg

The children of Edmund Boyle (Richard Cosway)

On 31 August 1764 he married firstly Anne Court(e)nay (1742-1785), daughter and eventual heir of Kelland Courtnay (1707-1748). They had six children, one daughter and five sons including Edmund Boyle and Admiral Sir Courtenay Boyle, and separated in 1782.

On 17 June 1786, he married secondly Mary Monckton, daughter of the 1st Viscount Galway: her salon was one of the centres of intellectual life in London for half a century.

The ODNB considers that Charles Dickens used Maria, Lady Cork as the template for Mrs Leo Hunter in The Pickwick Papers and that 'Benjamin Disraeli, who knew Lady Cork well, is said to have described her accurately as Lady Bellair in his 1837 novel Henrietta Temple'.

References

Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by Hamilton Boyle	Earl of Cork 1764–1798	Succeeded by Edmund Boyle