Theodosia Meade, Countess of Clanwilliam

Theodosia Hawkins-Magill (1743 – 1817), later Countess of Clanwilliam, was a great heiress and landowner in County Down, Ireland.

She was daughter and heir of Robert Hawkins-Magill (d. 10 April 1745), of Gill Hall, Dromore, County Down, by his second wife, Anne Bligh, daughter of John (Bligh), first Earl of Darnley.

She married John Meade (21 April 1744 - 19 October 1800 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin) on 29 August 1765, son and heir of Sir Richard Meade, 3rd Bart., of Ballintober, co. Cork, by Catherine, daughter of Henry Prittie, of Kilboy, co. Tipperary. Sir John Meade, 4th Bart., was created Baron Gillford, of the manor of Gillford, co. Down, and Viscount Clanwiliam, of co. Tipperary, on 17 November 1766, and Earl of Clanwilliam on 20 July 1776; all in the peerage of Ireland. Previously he had been MP for Banagher, 1764-66. Between them (hers being the far greater share) their estates in 1799 were said to be worth £14,000 per annum, which made them approximately the 11th largest landowners in Ireland.

She was born 5 September 1743 and died at Brighton 2 March 1817. When young she was painted by both Reynolds and Gainsborough.

She lived at Gill Hall and at Burrenwood; a cottage ornée put up near Castlewellan on some land half way between her mother's house* (*Mrs Pendarves/Mary Delany of Bernard Ward and the former Lady Anne Hawkins-Magill: 'He wants taste and Lady Anne is so whimsical that I doubt her judgement') at Castle Ward (the mother had married (December 1747) Bernard Ward after the early death of her first husband, Robert Hawkins-Magill (d.1745)), the Greenore Ferry, Rathfriland, and her ancestral seat at Gill Hall.

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