Mrs William Monsell
(1835-1890)
24 May 1861

Volume 3, page 305, sitting number 3901.

Berthe de Montigny-Boulainvilliers was born in or about 1835, the youngest daughter of Comte Philippe Auguste de Montigny-Boulainvilliers and his wife Victoire née Duchasteau.

On 23 February 1857 in Paris she became the second wife of the Anglo-Irish landowner and Liberal politician the Right Honourable William Monsell (1812-1894), who held a number of ministerial positions between 1852 and 1873. 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. Under William Ewart Gladstone he was Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1868 and 1871 and Postmaster-General between January 1871 and November 1873. He was also the Member of Parliament for County Limerick from 1847 to 1874. He had become a Roman Catholic in 1850.

Their marriage produced one son and one daughter.

On 12 January 1874 William Monsell was elevated to the peerage as 1st Baron Emly, of Tervoe in the County of Limerick.

Lady Emly died on 4 November 1890 at Tervoe, her residence in Limerick.

‘Her ladyship had been ailing for but a brief period, and the news of her death came quite unexpectedly to Lady Emly’s large circle of friends. The deceased Lady Emly was the youngest daughter of Comte de Montigny, a French nobleman, and since she made Tervoe her home, more than thirty years since, she won golden opinions in every walk of life, more especially from her poorer neighbours, to whom she was ever a kind and considerate benefactress. Much sympathy is felt with Lord Emly, and the Hon. Gaston Monsell, his lordship’s only son, at the great loss they have sustained. Lady Emly leaves issue, the Hon. Gaston Monsell, and a daughter married to the Count de la Poer. The funeral takes places on Thursday’ (Irish Times, 5 November 1890).