Guinness, Edward

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Guinness, Edward (1847–1927). Born at Clontarf, Co. Dublin, son of the proprietor of Guinness brewery, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Eventually he became chairman of the company which, in 1886, became a public company, known as Arthur Guinness & Son. He retired in 1889 and devoted himself to various public services. His many benefactions began with housing schemes to replace slums in Dublin and London. He endowed the Lister Institute for Tropical Medicine in London and, during the Boer War, equipped a field hospital for Irish troops. He made various gifts to Dublin hospitals. Although a unionist, the nationalist majority of Dublin corporation offered him the lord mayoralty, which honour he declined. He became successively Baron Iveagh in 1891, viscount in 1905, and earl in 1919. Among his bequests to the British nation was his celebrated collection of paintings, now at Kenwood, which include Gainsboroughs and Romneys.

Ian John Ernest Keil

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