the late Duke of Leinster’ his pedigree ‘and all the documents relative to the claim of Lord Verdon and the Verdon estates’14. ‘He left London for Jamaica on the day ‘Dr. Dodd was hanged’15 – 27th June 1777 - his first time to return home for fourteen years. The mansion to which he returned had ‘40 bed chambers with two projecting wings’. When he came to investigate into ’the accounts of his overseers, and the management of his Jamaica estates during his absence, he found that he had been plundered to a vast amount‘16. He found that he was ‘without remedy’. The overseers gave evidence of having transmitted moneys to him and could not account for their non arrival. Worse still, Doctor McQuestion had acquired a new young wife and subsequently an heir. If matters were bleak in Jamaica, they were not good back in Ireland for his young wife and son who he had left in the care of his father in law, Thomas Benson. Their financial circumstances became precarious when Thomas Benson died leaving them without an income. Elizabeth Benson sold her assets in Dublin and moved to Stratford-on-Slaney in Wicklow where she died a couple of years later, leaving young Edward alone in the world. Edward was returned to the Verdon family home at Ushers Island where he was taken in by Miss Elizabeth Ottey, ‘a maiden lady then in advancing years’. At age 16 she had him apprenticed to Mr. Jacob Bryan, solicitor. She died when Edward was 20 and left him everything that she had including her interest in the property at Ushers Island. In 1795, Edward married Miss Mary Anne Galway, daughter of Captain Galway of the Ligoneer Horse. In 1796, their first son John Thomas Verdon was born, sponsors at his baptism were Lord Mountjoy and the Rev. Richard Powell, Rector of Rathdrum. The couple had four other sons, Edward, Thomas, William and Griffith. Edward entered the church and as Rector of Oldham died in 1849. Thomas also entered the church and became missionary to the army during the Crimean war. William also entered the church and became Rector of Pendleberry near Manchester. He died in 1855. Griffith left for America and purchased property in Michigan17.
14
The Sligo Champion 13/5/1858 Infamous case of the hanging of an Anglican Minister at Tyburn 16 The Sligo Champion 22/5/1858 17 The Sligo Champion 26/6/1858 15
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