Colvill, William

by C. J. Woods

Colvill, William (1737–1820), corn merchant and MP, was born 6 December 1737, the second son of William Colvill (1675?–1755), an agent at Newtownards, Co. Down, and his wife Jane, daughter of John Thompson of Blackabbey, Co. Down. From his father he inherited £5,000, part of which he is said to have invested and lost in the slave trade. He joined a firm of flour merchants, Wyld's of Molesworth Street, Dublin, and eventually succeeded to ownership of the business. He was a director of the Grand Canal Company at its foundation (1772) and became involved (1790) in the Barrow Navigation Company, in which he invested between £20,000 and £30,000. Colvill subscribed £5,200 to the founding of the Bank of Ireland (1783), was a director for many years (1783–95, 1799–1813), and served as its governor (1801–3). In 1804 he gave evidence to the parliamentary committee considering Irish monetary conditions. He was a wide streets commissioner, a member of the Ouzel Galley Society, and treasurer of the Royal Exchange. Owing to his friendship with William Burton Conyngham (qv), he was returned as MP for Limavady, Co. Londonderry (1773–83), and Killybegs, Co. Donegal (1783–90), and generally voted with Conyngham and the government. In the 1790s he was a supporter of catholic relief and an opponent of the union of Ireland with Great Britain. Colvill held various offices under the crown, the most lucrative of which (£1,500 p.a.) was the paymastership of pensions for the widows of army officers (1780–89, 1793, 1795–9), which he inherited from John Chaigneau, treasurer of the ordnance, whose daughter and heir, Hanna, he married in 1777. She was a niece of William Chaigneau (qv), the army agent and novelist. Colvill's residences were Gracefields, Clontarf, and 1 Rutland (later Parnell) Square, Dublin. He died 5 July 1820.

William and Hanna Colvill had three sons and five daughters. The second son, William Chaigneau Colvill (1784–1864), was born in Co. Dublin on 23 May 1784, studied at TCD (1801–5), and joined his father in the flour business. He too was a director (several times in the period 1815–44) and governor (1832–4) of the Bank of Ireland. He was a chairman of the Barrow Navigation Company, a deputy lieutenant of Dublin city, and a member of the RIA; on the abolition of his father's paymastership he was compensated with a life pension of £500 p.a. William Chaigneau Colvill married (1812) Hester, daughter of James Lowry of Rockdale, Co. Tyrone, and with her had nine sons and three daughters. On retiring from the board of the Bank of Ireland he moved from his home at Clontarf to Reading, Berkshire, where he died on 11 December 1864.

William Chaigneau Colvill's son James Chaigneau Colvill (1814–97), born on 12 September 1814, was in turn a flour merchant and a director and governor of the Bank of Ireland (1848–97 and 1870–73). He was also agent to the National Insurance Company, a commissioner of Irish lights, a director of the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland), and chairman of the Great Southern & Western Railway Company (1877), as well as president of Dublin chamber of commerce. James Chaigneau Colvill died on 29 March 1897, leaving five sons and four daughters, the children of his marriage to Helen, daughter of John Maconchy of Edenmore, Co. Dublin. One of their sons, Robert Frederick Stewart Colvill (1860–1936), born 4 August 1860, was educated at Repton School in Derbyshire and at Cambridge University. Thereafter he followed three previous generations of Colvills into the flour trade and the Bank of Ireland, of which he was a director (1903–28) and governor (1916–18). It was he, however, who wound up the family business in 1897. He married (1891) a cousin, Sophia Maconchy, inherited Coolock House near Dublin from his father, and died on 15 March 1936.