Colonel Edward Saunderson: Land and Loyalty in Victorian Ireland

Colonel Edward Saunderson, the original leader of Irish Unionism, and the most prominent defender of Irish landlords in the late nineteenth century, has suffered undue neglect. This book, the first detailed account of his life to appear since the Edwardian era, explores the political traditions of the Saunderson family as well as the development and repercussions of the Colonel's career. The twin poles of Saunderson's life, landownership and the Union, represent the central themes of this study. Saunderson's Unionism was intimately bound with this status as a landed proprietor, and the party institutions and strategies which he helped to create owed much to the strengths and preoccupations of his caste. Equally, the retreat of the gentry within Irish society affected the structure and direction of the whole unionist movement. Jackson offers a wide-ranging account of an Irish landed family concentrating on its most notable member, and on the last decades of its influence. This book is both an important political biography and a valuable case-study of the gentry's economic decline and political reorientation. Edward Saunderson's career, significant within its own terms, serves to illustrate the death throes of the class to which he belonged.

About the Author :
Author of The Ulster Party: Irish Unionists in the House of Commons 1884-1911 (OUP (OHM), 1989, £35), which won the Donald Murphy prize for Distinguished First Book in Irish Studies, awarded by the American Conference on Irish history.

Review :
`more than a biography ... he has crafted a detailed study of the complex relationships in modern British politics between one person's social and intellectual environment and that person's political values and attitudes. In the process he has rescued a powerful figure from the past' Amerian Historical Review `Alvin Jackson has written more than a biography of Saunderson. He has crafted a detailed study of the complex relationships in modern British politics between one person's social and intellectual environment and that person's political values and attitudes. In the process, he has rescued a powerful figure from the past.' American Historical Review `Jackson's lucid treatment of Edward Saunderson is only the second book devoted to that important ... figure, since the first in 1908. It is opportune to have it now.' The Times Literary Supplement `exhaustively researched study ... Jackson presents informative chapters on Saunderson's family history, social milieu, experiences as an estate manager, and on his sons' economic and political misfortunes during the Irish War of Independence.' Choice `a crisply written, well argued, thoroughly researched volume providing a timely reassessment of an Irish political leader given insufficiently objective treatment in his own day ... this is a thoroughly worthwhile contribution to an understanding of the Anglo-Irish problem' David Harkness, Queen's University , Belfast, EHR Apr. 97 `With the publication of Sir Edward Carson (1993) and now Colonel Edward Saunderson, Jackson solidifies his status as one of the brightest young stars of modern Irish politics and biography. Jackson's research can only be described as complete. The bibliographic thoroughness pays dividends with a text that is densely knowledgeable, simultaneously narrative and analytical, and elegantly readable.' Stanley H. Palmer, University of Texas, Arlington, Victorian Studies, Summer 1996 `Alvin Jackson now revives this central but often forgotten figure with great care; and it is high time someone did so ... This new study is stylish, even-handed and meticulous. It provides a thoroughly contextualised life of a key political figure in an age of flux, and manages to unite the man and his milieu in impressive style.' Don MacRaild, University of Sunderland, Irish Studies Review, No. 20 Autumn 1997