Boyle, John, 5th Earl of Orrery (1707 -1762)

John Boyle, 5th Earl of Orrery, was the only son of Charles, 4th Earl and Lady Elizabeth Cecil, only daughter of John, 5th Earl of Exeter. He succeeded to the Earldom of Orrery in 1731 and to his cousin's Earldom of Cork in 1752. Educated under the tutorship of Elijah Fenton, he attended Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He married Harriet Hamilton, youngest daughter of George, Earl of Orkney. Following a dispute between John Boyle and his father, the latter made a new will leaving his library, with certain small exclusions to Christ Church, Oxford, and though the two were soon reconciled, the 4th Earl died before he could change the will. After his wife’s death in Ireland, 22 August 1732, John Boyle married, in 1738, Margaret, daughter and sole heir of John Hamilton, of Caledon in County Tyrone. John Boyle was a man of literary tastes and a friend of Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Dr Samuel Johnson, and set about building a new library. He published Letters upon the life and death of the celebrated Dr Swift and a translation of the Letters of Pliny the younger. The family library was sold by his descendant, the 10th Earl of Cork, in 1906.