Plantation descendant’s long career in politics and Orange

John Archdale died in 1621 and was succeeded by his elder son, Edward Archdale.In 1641 the castle which his father had erected was taken and burned by the rebels under Sir Phelim O'Neill. Only two children of Edward Archdale’s large family survived: a daughter, who was absent and married; the other, an infant son, William whose life was saved through the loyalty to the family of his Irish Roman Catholic nurse.

In the early eighteenth century the male line of the family died out leaving Angel Archdale as sole heiress. On her marriage to Nicholas Montgomery of Derrygonnelly, Nicholas assumed the name Archdale, giving the family an Ulster-Scots dimension. Nicholas and Montgomery are names which occur repeatedly in the family tree. Another recurring family name is Mervyn because of a seventeenth-century marriage to the Mervyns of Trillick, a Tyrone landed family.

Although Fermanagh is not a maritime county, there was, as we will see, a strong naval tradition in the family which extended well into the twentieth century, represented by the 2nd baronet (Vice-Admiral Sir Nicholas Edward Archdale)

and the 3rd baronet (Captain Sir Edward Folmer Archdale). The 2nd baronet served as ADC to George V, the 3rd Baronet was ADC to Elizabeth II prior to his retirement from the Royal Navy in 1971.

There was also an impressive Parliamentary tradition. Colonel Mervyn Archdall was elected in 1761 as MP for Co. Fermanagh, marking the beginning of a remarkable record by which five members of the family, over four generations, provided an unbroken succession of the county's MPs in the Irish and later the UK Parliaments, for no less than 154 years. This is thought to be the longest continuous representation by one family of any Irish constituency. (The family name was originally Archdale, became Archdall in the eighteenth century but reverted to Archdale around 1785.)

Edward Mervyn Archdale was born on 26 January 1853 at Rossfad, near Ballinamallard, Co. Fermanagh.

He was the eldest son of Nicholas Montgomery Archdale (1820–77), sometime agent of the Archdale estate, high sheriff of Co. Fermanagh, and DL for Co. Longford, and his wife Adelaide Mary, daughter of the Rev. John Grey Porter (1789–1873) of Belle Isle, Co. Fermanagh.

Edward was educated at Knight's Naval School, Portsmouth. He had an interesting and varied career in the Royal Navy, seeing service in China, the Mediterranean and West Africa, between 1866 and his marriage in 1880.

On his marriage he returned to Co. Fermanagh, where he took up farming at Riversdale (to which he succeeded on the death of his uncle, William Archdale), along with his other large holding at Rossahilly, and was appointed high sheriff of Co. Fermanagh in 1884.

First elected as unionist MP for North Fermanagh at a by-election in November 1898, he was unopposed in the general election of October 1900.

He took friends and colleagues by surprise when he resigned the seat in early 1903, pleading that he had neither the time nor the money to attend properly to his parliamentary duties.

In March 1905 he was elected chairman of the standing committee of the newly established Ulster Unionist Council, a position which gave him high standing and influence in Unionist politics.

He was returned unopposed to the House of Commons for North Fermanagh at a by-election in October 1916 and retained the seat in the general election of December 1918.

He did not seek re-election to Westminster in the general election of November 1922 because he had been elected on the first count to the eight-seat constituency of Fermanagh and Tyrone in the first election to the Northern Ireland Parliament in May 1921 and became Northern Ireland’s first minister of agriculture and commerce. As a landowner and practical farmer, it was a position he was eminently well qualified to fill.

In 1925 a separate the ministry of commerce was created but he remained agriculture minister and was re-elected on the first count to the constituency of Fermanagh and Tyrone in the NI general election of April 1925.

Following the abolition of proportional representation for Northern Ireland parliamentary elections, he was returned unopposed for the newly-created constituency of Enniskillen in the general elections of May 1929 and November 1933.

He retired as minister of agriculture in 1933 but remained an MP till 1938. At various times he was lord lieutenant of Fermanagh, a JP, a member of Fermanagh county council, and council vice-chairman, as well as a district councillor, and for almost twenty years served as a member of the Enniskillen board of guardians.

Like his successor Basil Brooke, he was regarded as a successful minister of agriculture whose department improved standards in the quality and marketing of its products and developed research and training in agricultural sciences and farming techniques. Archdale was especially proud of the eggs marketing act (1924), claiming that it broke new ground in the UK by ensuring that only fresh, clean, and graded eggs would be offered for sale on the British market.

A senior Orangeman and one-time County Grand Master of Fermanagh, he served as Imperial Grand Master between 1926 and 1937 and as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, 1924-40.

He was appointed to the Irish Privy Council in March 1921 to the Privy Council of Northern Ireland in December 1922. In 1926 he was awarded the honorary degree of LLD by QUB and was created a baronet in 1928.

His interest in the agricultural sector is underscored by his membership of the Fermanagh county committee of agriculture, the agricultural committee of the RDS, and the Agricultural Wages Board in Ireland.

He also served as honorary secretary of Fermanagh Farming Society and chairman of the Ballinamallard Agricultural and Dairy Society.

He was also vice-president of the Fermanagh Protestant Orphan Society and president of Enniskillen Golf Club.

Archdale, aged 90, died on 1 November 1943. He was buried at Trory.