page_title: William Monsell, 1st Baron Emly
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: William Monsell, 1st Baron Emly / Political career
caption_attribution_description: Caricature of William Monsell, 1st Baron Emly. Caption reads "The painstaking Irishman".
context_page_description: William Monsell, 1st Baron Emly, PC was an Anglo-Irish landowner and Liberal politician. He held a number of ministerial positions between 1852 and 1873, notably as President of the Board of Health in 1857 and as Postmaster General between 1871 and 1873.
context_section_description: Monsell served as the Sheriff of County Limerick in 1835. In 1847, he was elected Member of Parliament for County Limerick as a Liberal, and represented the constituency until 1874. In 1850, he became a Roman Catholic and thereafter took a prominent part in Catholic affairs, especially in Parliament. As a friend of Wiseman, Newman, Montalambert, W. G. Ward, and other eminent Catholics, he was intimately acquainted with the various interests of the Church, and his parliamentary position was often of great advantage to the Church.
  In 1852 Monsell was appointed Clerk of the Ordnance by Lord Aberdeen, a post he retained until 1857, the last two years under the premiership of Lord Palmerston. In 1855 he was sworn of the Privy Council. He was briefly President of the Board of Health under Palmerston in 1857 and later served under Lord Russell as Paymaster-General and Vice-President of the Board of Trade in 1866 and under William Ewart Gladstone as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1868 and 1871 and as Postmaster-General between January 1871 and November 1873. He was also Lord Lieutenant of County Limerick between 1871 and 1894 and Vice-Chancellor of the Royal University of Ireland between 1885 and 1894.
  On 12 January 1874 Monsell was raised to the peerage as Baron Emly, of Tervoe in the County of Limerick. He lost much of his popularity in Ireland during his later years, because of his opposition to the Irish National Land League and to the home rule movement in Ireland. His work being chiefly parliamentary, he wrote little, but published some articles in the Home and Foreign Review and a "Lecture on the Roman Question" (1860).
caption: "The painstaking Irishman"
  As depicted by "Ape" (Carlo Pellegrini) in Vanity Fair, 11 February 1871
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