Colonial Despatches

In Ward, Emily Elizabeth to Colonial Office 8 July 1862, CO 60:14, no. 6823, 510, Mrs. Ward uses Bruce, 3rd Baronet Bruce of Downhill, Londonderry as a character reference for emigration purposes to British Columbia. Bruce was a prominent landowner in Ireland and held many prestigious titles in Londonderry County.1 He was an officer in the Life Guards,2 and he went on to become High Sheriff for Londonderry in 1846;3 he served as an MP for Coleraine from 1862–1874 and from 1880–1885.4 Bruce was a privy councillor and honorary colonel in the 9th Brigade for the Northern Ireland Division of the Royal Artillery.5

Bruce married Marianne Margaret in 1842; they had two children: Sir Hervey Juckes Lloyd Bruce, born in 1843, and Sir James Andrew Thomas Bruce, born in 1846.6 After 49 years of marriage, Lady Bruce passed away in 1891.7 Bruce was deeply affected by her loss and died 16 years later, in 1907, at age 87.8 PRONI notes that Lady Bruce…was buried in the Bruce mausoleum in old Dunboe churchyard, where, presumably, Bruce was buried thereafter.9

• 1. Hervey/Bruce Papers, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, 15.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Person Page - 18593, The Peerage.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.
• 6. Ibid.
• 7. Hervey/Bruce Papers, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, 15.
• 8. Ibid.
• 9. Ibid.