Hamilton Cuffe, 5th Earl of Desart

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Hamilton John Agmondesham Cuffe, 5th Earl of Desart, KP, KCB, PC (1848–1934), was an Irish nobleman and a prominent British lawyer. Born in Richmond, Surrey, he was the younger son of the 3rd Earl of Desart. After a early stint as a Royal Navy midshipman, he became a barrister in 1872. He then held several government legal roles: secretary to the Judicature Committee (1877), solicitor to the Treasury (1878), and in 1894 he became Treasury Solicitor, Queen's Proctor, and Director of Public Prosecutions (a post he held until 1908).

In 1898 he inherited the Desart earldom from his brother William and was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Bath. He was also created Baron Desart in the UK peerage in 1909, allowing him to sit in the House of Lords; he was sworn into the Privy Council in 1913 and made a Knight of the Order of St Patrick in 1919. He participated as a Unionist delegate to the Irish Convention (1917–1918) and served as Lord Lieutenant of Kilkenny from 1920 to 1922, a position that ended when the Irish Free State was established.

In 1876 he married Lady Margaret Joan Lascelles; they had two daughters, Joan Elizabeth and Sybil Marjorie. Desart died in 1934 at age 86; with no surviving male heirs, his titles became extinct.