The Right Honorable Richard More O'Ferrall

Career He was born in Moyvalley, County Kildare, Ireland, the eldest son of Major Ambrose O'Ferrall (1752–1835) and his first wife, Anne Bagot.[1] He was elected to the British House of Commons in 1832, and represented the Constituencies of County Kildare from 10 December 1832 to 29 July 1847, and subsequently Longford from 21 April 1851 to 7 July 1852 and Kildare again from 28 April 1859 to 11 July 1865. He entered the Government as a Lord of the Treasury in 1835, and remained so until 1837.

On 28 September 1839 he married Matilda (died 1882), the second daughter of Thomas Southwell, 3rd Viscount Southwell KP.[2] the couple had a son, Ambrose, and a daughter, Maria Anne. A week after his marriage, on 4 October 1839, he was appointed to the Government as First Secretary of the Royal Navy, a post he retained until June 1841, when he briefly became Secretary to the Treasury. In October 1847 he became Governor of Malta.[2] On 12 September 1851 he resigned from the post of Governor of Malta, refusing to serve under Lord John Russell, whose Ecclesiastical Titles Act was designed to prevent a restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England.[1]

Death He died in 1880 in Kingstown (present-day Dún Laoghaire), County Dublin.