John Bennett Piers, 6th Baronet

Sir John Bennett Piers, 6th Baronet, of Tristernagh Abbey, (1772 – 22 July 1845) was an Anglo-Irish baronet, now largely remembered for his part in a major scandal of the early 19th century and for being the subject of an early poem by John Betjeman, Sir John Piers.

Piers came from an established family of the Anglo-Irish gentry, seated at Tristernagh Abbey in County Westmeath. He was the eldest son of William Pigott Piers, 5th baronet, and succeeded to the latter's estates in 1794. He first married Mary Pratt, the daughter of Rev. Joseph Pratt, in August 1796; she died in 1798. Piers was later to gain a reputation as a rake, duelist, and gambler. In 1803 he met Elizabeth Denny, an actress at Astley's theatre in Dublin, who he moved in with him. The couple had seven children: Henrietta, Henry, John Edward, William Stapleton, George, Louisa, and Florence, born between 1803 and 1819.

Piers gained public notoriety after an 1807 "criminal conversation" trial. He was seen with the wife of an old school friend (and creditor), Lord Cloncurry, and it later emerged they had been conducting an affair. Moreover, it was established that Piers had seduced Lady Cloncurry as part of a bet: if he succeeded, a sum of money would be deposited in his bank account. The evidence included letters in which he addressed Lady Cloncurry, sensationally by the standards of the time, as his "beloved Eliza", and referred to her husband as a "poor tame wretch". Piers did not attend the trial, having fled for the Isle of Man, and Lord Cloncurry was awarded the enormous sum of £20,000 in damages. Lady Cloncurry was sent to live with her father, and divorced by her husband in 1811. The scandal was of great interest to the media of the time, particularly in view of what were regarded as the "humorous" circumstances of the discovery, as the "preoccupied" couple had been observed by an Italian mural-painter, Gaspar Gabrielli, working in the same room on a ladder.

After a period in the Isle of Man, Piers returned to Ireland, where he had a house built surrounded by a high wall to keep out creditors. Despite this he was eventually forced to pay the damages, with great reluctance. Piers was not necessarily able to avoid his old ways in the Isle of Man, as he is recorded as appearing before the Deemster along with two others (a Major-General Stapleton and Captain Edwards) after they started a fight while part of a theatre audience. He was also recorded, a matter of months after the trial, as fighting a duel with a John Meredith Esq. over a bet made at dinner; Meredith fired early, missing Piers, but was later shot dead in a further duel by a Mr Boyes, one of Piers' seconds.

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