John Meade, 1st Earl of Clanwilliam

John Meade, 1st Earl of Clanwilliam (21 April 1744 – 19 October 1800) was an Irish nobleman, known as Sir John Meade, 4th Baronet until 1766. Elevated to the Irish peerage, his debauchery and reckless spending led him to sell the family estate.

The son of Sir Richard Meade, 3rd Baronet, he was born a few days before his father's death. He inherited a baronetcy and estates worth about £10,000 per year, in Cork, Kilkenny, and Tipperary. He was returned as Member of Parliament for Banagher in 1764.

In 1765, he married Theodosia Magill, a wealthy heiress with estates in Gilford and Rathfriland, County Down worth £4,000 per year. The marriage settlement provided her with a jointure of £3,500 per year should she survive Meade, of which £2,500 was to be charged to his Tipperary estates. On 17 November 1766, he was created Viscount Clanwilliam and Baron Gilford, and entered the Irish House of Lords.

The couple had five sons and five daughters:

The Clanwilliams were extravagant spenders, the Viscount dissipating large sums on horseracing, gambling, and keeping mistresses. (In 1779, Horace Walpole repeated a rumor, almost certainly exaggerated, that Clanwilliam had arranged the murder of one of his romantic rivals.) His elevation in the peerage as Earl Clanwilliam on 20 July 1776 probably exacerbated matters, encouraging acts of ostentation like keeping open house at his townhouse (now part of Newman House) on St Stephen's Green, Dublin. Around 1783, the Clanwilliams' personal property was seized and auctioned; by 1787, his debts had grown to over £72,135. Clanwilliam was forced to sell and mortgage his Cork and Kilkenny estates to pay off the debts; they were also charged with providing marriage portions for his daughters Anne and Catherine in 1788 and 1789. As these estates had provided maintenance for his eldest son Lord Gilford, Gilford was given £1,700 per year from the Tipperary and Down estates instead.

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