Vere Hunt

Sir Vere Hunt, 1st Baronet, also known as Aubrey de vere Hunt (1761 – 11 August 1818), was an Irish politician, landowner and businessman. He is chiefly remembered for founding the village of New Birmingham in County Tipperary, for his ill-advised purchase of the island of Lundy, and for his entertaining diary. He was a srong and colourful character, noted for heavy drinking and gambling, but also for his intellectual interests, and stern criticism of his own class.

He was the son of Vere Hunt of Curragh Chase, County Limerick and Glengoole, County Tipperary, by his second wife, Anne Browne, daughter of Edmund Browne of New Grove. His father was the eldest son of the Reverend Vere Hunt (died 1759), and his wife Constantia Piers. He was a descendant of the Earls of Oxford through Jane de Vere, a granddaughter of the 15th Earl, who married Henry Hunt in 1572. Sir Vere's great-great grandfather, yet another Vere Hunt, was an army officer who served with Oliver Cromwell and who settled in Ireland in 1657.

The Hunt/de Vere family estate, which they owned for 300 years (1657–1957), including the period of the de Vere Baronetcy of Curragh, is the present day Curraghchase Forest Park, in County Limerick.

Hunt was created a baronet, in the Baronetage of Ireland, in 1784 and was appointed High Sheriff of County Limerick the same year. Hunt raised and commanded three regiments of foot during the French Revolutionary Wars, including the 135th (Limerick) Regiment of Foot. He was a member of the Irish House of Commons for Askeaton from 1798 to 1800. He married Hon. Eleanor Pery, daughter of William Pery, 1st Baron Glentworth, with whom he had one son, Aubrey. The marriage is said to have been unhappy, although he always referred to his wife with respect, and they generally lived apart. She died in 1821.He was the grandfather of the poet and critic Aubrey Thomas de Vere and the politician and social commentator Sir Stephen de Vere, 4th Baronet.

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