Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/46

Upington UPINGTON, THOMAS (1845–1898), South African statesman, born in 1845, was the son of Samuel Upington (d. 1875) of Lisleigh House, co. Cork, by Mary (Tarrant). Though a Roman catholic, he was made welcome at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was admitted on 11 Oct. 1861, and whence he graduated B.A. in 1865 and M.A. in 1868 (Cat. of Dublin Graduates). He was called to the Irish bar in 1867, and a few years later was made a queen's counsel, having in the interval been appointed secretary to the Irish chancellor, Thomas O'Hagan, baron O'Hagan [q. v.]. In 1874 he settled in Cape Colony, was in 1878 elected to the representative assembly, and in the same year, upon the fall of the Molteno ministry, became attorney-general in (Sir) Gordon Sprigg's administration, and one of the most prominent politicians of the colony, identifying himself to a large extent with Sir Bartle Frere's policy; he resigned in 1881, and became leader of the opposition in the Cape parliament. In August 1883 he was chosen counsel for Patrick O'Donnell, the bricklayer who shot James Carey [q. v.], the informer, on his way to the Cape. He did all that he could to prevent O'Donnell's extradition, and was offered a big fee on condition of his returning to England to defend his client there; but he returned the brief (Critic, 17 Dec. 1898). In 1884 Upington became premier, taking office as attorney-general, with Sir Gordon Sprigg as his treasurer. Vigorous retrenchment had to be combined with such forward movement as the annexation of Walfisch Bay. Froude, who gives a personal description of Upington and his wife, both of whom he liked, interviewed Upington (by the latter's desire) during the term of his ministry, and was impressed by his opposition to Sir Charles Warren's expedition on the ground that it would widen the breach between the English and the Dutch, who were, as a whole, ultimately loyal to British sovereignty as knowing that it would be infinitely less irksome than any other (Oceana, 1886, pp. 65–7). In 1886 Upington resigned the premiership in favour of Sir Gordon Sprigg, but continued in the cabinet as attorney-general down to 1890. He was appointed puisne judge in the supreme court of the Cape in 1892, but resumed the attorney-generalship in succession to Mr. Schreiner in 1896. He was on the commission appointed to inquire into native laws and customs of the colony, and was a delegate at the colonial conference in 1887, when he was made a K.C.M.G. He died at Wyberg, near Capetown, on 10 Dec. 1898. He married, in 1872, Mary, daughter of J. Guerin of Edenhill, co. Cork, and left issue. A village and district in Bechuanaland are named after Upington (South African Gazetteer).

[Times, 12 Dec. 1898; Trinity Coll. Dubl. Matric. Book (per the registrar); Colonial Office List, 1898, p. 480; Walford's County Families, 1898, p. 1045; Wilmot's History of our own Times in South Africa, 1897; The [Cape] Argus Annual, 1896, p. 128.]  UPPER OSSORY,. [See, 1535?-1581.]

UPTON, ARTHUR (1623–1706), Irish presbyterian leader, eldest son of Captain Henry Upton of Castle-Upton (formerly Castle-Norton), co. Antrim, by Mary, daughter of Sir Hugh Clotworthy and sister of Sir John Clotworthy [q. v.], was born at Castle-Upton on 31 May 1623. His father, a Devonshire man, had come into Ireland with Essex in 1599. Upton was a strong presbyterian [see ] and a strong royalist. He refused the ‘engagement,’ and by proclamation of 23 May 1653 was ordered to remove to Munster with other presbyterian landholders. The order came to nothing, and Upton was made a magistrate by Henry Cromwell. After the Restoration he was elected (1661) M.P. for Carrickfergus, and sat in the Irish parliament for forty years; on the disfranchisement of Carrickfergus by James II he was elected M.P. for co. Antrim. He took a very active part on the side of William III. In December 1688 he forwarded to Dublin Castle a copy of an anonymous letter seized at Comber, co. Down, and supposed to reveal a plot for the massacre of protestants. In January 1689 he attended the meeting of protestant gentry at Antrim Castle under his relative, Lord Massereene, was placed on the council of the protestant association for co. Antrim, and appointed to represent it on the supreme council of Ulster. He raised a regiment of foot, and, as its colonel, took part in the disastrous ‘break of Dromore’ (15 March 1689). He was attainted by James's Irish parliament in June 1689. With Patrick Adair [q. v.] and another he was sent to London (November 1689) with a loyal address from Ulster presbyterians to William III. His last public act was the promotion of a petition to the Irish House of Commons (14 March 1705) against the Test Act. He died late in 1706. An anonymous ‘elegy’ on him by James Kirkpatrick [q. v.] was printed at Belfast in 1707, 4to. His funeral sermon, also by Kirkpatrick, is said to have been published, but no copy is known. He married Dorothy, daughter of Michael Beresford of Coleraine, co. Derry,