Boyle, Richard, 1st earl of Cork definition of Boyle, Richard, 1st earl of Cork in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Boyle, Richard, 1st earl of Cork, 1566–1643, English settler in Ireland. He first went to Ireland in 1588 and in 1602 purchased for a small sum Sir Walter Raleigh's large landholdings in Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary. His energy and success in improving the lands, building mills, establishing ironworks and other industries, founding towns, and creating trade were remarkable and won him rapid advancement. Created earl of Cork in 1620, he was appointed (1629) one of the lord justices of Ireland and in 1631 became lord high treasurer of the kingdom. In this position he came into conflict with Thomas Wentworth (later 1st earl of Strafford Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of, 1593–1641, English statesman. Regularly elected to Parliament from 1614 on, he became one of the critics of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, and of the
..... Click the link for more information. ), who arrived in Ireland as lord deputy in 1633. In their long struggle Strafford at first was successful in depriving Boyle of a large part of his privileges and income, but Boyle's patient marshaling of the forces of opposition to Strafford's Irish program was an important factor in the latter's downfall. Two of his seven sons became well known—Roger Boyle, 1st earl of Orrery, and Robert Boyle Boyle, Robert, 1627–91, Anglo-Irish physicist and chemist. The seventh son of the 1st earl of Cork, he was educated at Eton and on the Continent and conducted most of his researches at his own laboratories at Oxford (1654–68) and London (1668–91).
..... Click the link for more information. , the scientist.

Bibliography

See D. Townshend, The Life and Letters of the Great Earl of Cork (1904).