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Name: BOURKE, Ulick Henry
Nee: became ninth Earl of Mayo on 6 May 1939
Birth Date: 13 Mar 1890 Barton, Lancs.
Death Date: 17 Dec 1962 Hastings
Profession: Coffee planter
Married: In Westminster 31 July 1937 Noel Jessie Wilson b. 25 Dec 1890 Kendal, d. 1992 Melrose, Scotland (prev. m. to John Selwyn Haliburton)
Children: None
Book Reference: Hut, Red 1919, KAD
War Service: King's Royal Rifle Corps
School: Wixenford School
General Information:
Leinster Leader 13 May 1939 Earning 45s. a week as a builder’s labourer at Croydon, 49-year-old Lord ("plain Bourke without the mister") Naas has become the ninth Earl of Mayo. Lord Naas, ex-Kenya coffee planter, former film actor, married two years ago, succeeds his father, the eighth Earl of Mayo, who has died at his Maidenhead (Berkshire) home at the age of 79.
As a labourer Lord Naas was known as Ulick Henry Bourke ? the family name. "Otherwise plain Bourke without the mister, that’s me," he said at the time. "I would rather be a bricklayer and be a free man than be pushed into a cushy job to be continually under the thumb of other people," he said. "Why not this job? I admit it hasn’t been easy. There was a time when I had only one meal a day."
Lord Naas, when a bricklayer, lived in a Pimlico boarding-house room. Now he lives in Chesham Place, Belgrave Square. He studied a film course for six months, and appeared on the screen for one minute in the film "The Gap." He had to register horror. Then, in 1937, he married Miss Noel Haliburton Wilson at a London registry office. He shared the wedding ring that day. A wide gold ring was sliced horizontally, the bride and bridegroom each wearing half.
Lady Naas stated at the wedding reception: "Lord Naas is independent and ambitious. He did not want to marry money," she said to me today: "Since our marriage my husband has gone in for business. He is now interested in a rifle invention, which he hopes the Government will take up."
The new earl’s father, a chartered civil engineer and land agent, was on the chief engineer’s staff during the construction of the Forth Bridge, and was resident engineer on the Manchester Ship Canal during its construction.
A few years ago he devised a scheme for the storing of the Thames flood waters in four lake reservoirs. He estimated that it would cost £3,400,000. He was twice married. His first wife, whom he married in 1887, was Miss Ethel Freeman, of Rockfield, Herefordshire. She died in 1913, and three years later he married Miss Margaret Scott.
Red 31 has U.H. Bourke, Tulimani, Machakos
Gazette - 14/1/1930 - Bankruptcy Ordinance - Ulick Henry Bourke, c/o Nairobi Corporation, Corporation Employee - debtor's petition
Red Book 1919 - V H Bourke - Changet Estate, Koru
KAD W. H. Bourke, Ngong Rd., Nairobi