CROFTON, Helen A. Records of the Slacke Family in Ireland. Illustrated with the arms of Sir Owen Randal Slacke.

[Dublin?] n.d. (c.1903). Quarto. pp. 60, + errata. Dark green cloth, title in gilt on upper cover. Privately printed. Presentation inscription on titlepage: “Florence Isabel Clarendon / With Mother’s love / July 28 1903’’. Light fading to cloth and toning to title. A very good copy. Exceedingly rare.
Jisc locates 3 copies only.

Provenance: Florence Isabel Clarendon was the daughter of Frederick Clarendon (1820-1904) by his wife Margaret Jane Slacke (1836-1904), daughter of the Rev. William Randal Slacke, curate of Magheralin, County Down. Frederick was the third son of Thomas Clarendon, linen draper and estate owner of Westmoreland Street, Dublin. He was admitted to Trinity College at the age of fourteen and graduated BA in 1839. He was taken on by the Board of Public Works in October 1839 as an assistant for the erection of the Kenmare suspension bridge, and in 1841 he was engaged by the Board as an architectural assistant. However his earliest major works focused on Dublin’s prison system. Arbour Hill Prison was redesigned in 1845 by Sir Joshua Jebb with Clarendon acting as executive architect, and Clarendon was also co-designer of the “Criminal Lunatic Asylum” in Dundrum two years later. He oversaw the renovation and extension of the Royal Irish Academy’s premises on Dawson Street between 1852 and 1854, as their existing Grafton Street location had become overcrowded. Clarendon is best remembered for his work in Ireland’s Natural History Museum on Merrion Street adjacent to Leinster House, known as the “Dead Zoo”. The Royal Dublin Society had been obliged to use a public architect in order to obtain treasury funding, and the building was taken over by the State in 1877. Today the Museum forms part of the National Museum of Ireland. Clarendon provided his services free of charge to design the Mariners Hall, Howth in 1867. This then served as a Presbyterian Meeting House for over thirty years, services being conducted through the medium of Scottish Gaelic, the language of the immigrant seasonal fishermen of the village.

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