[PB / 9.1.2013:

A clandestine marriage? A posthumous son?

In early 2013 it came to notice that a number of people on Ancestry.com were claiming descent from Lieutenant Fitzgibbon's posthumous son, William John Gerald FitzGibbon, the result of a marriage he made to a Frances Murphy in Cork in 1854, shortly before setting off for the Crimea.

According to Wikipedia, this child was not allowed to inherit:

But can this be true?

Reference 11 is simply to "www.thepeerage.com". A search on that site (5.1.2013) yielded:

http://www.thepeerage.com/p12529.htm#i125290

This asserts that Lieutenant FitzGibbon married a Frances Murphy in a "clandestine marriage" in 1854. But their authority seems to be no more than personal email correspondence:

I have been able to find no earlier source that makes any reference to this alleged marriage, clandestine or otherwise.

Frances Fitzgibbon (nee Murphy) and her son William John Gerald Fitzgibbon

According to unverified online sources Frances Murphy was born in Ireland around 1819, and married Viscount Fitzgibbon in 1854 in Cork. If so, she would have been about 35, and he 24. She is said to have died, aged 81, in 1900.

(Click on image to enlarge)

1871 Census

70 Rotherfield Street, Islington, Middlesex

In the 1871 Census she was described as a lodger, an "Annuitant", living with her son, William, 17, a "Clerk to Timber Merchant". Both were born in "Ireland".

Again according to unverified sources (which I have yet to replicate) he is said to have appeared in all subsequent censuses to 1911. His age is said to have been consistent with birth in 1854: 17 in 1871, 27 in 1881, 37 in 1891, 47 in 1901, and 57 in 1911. He is said to have lived in Islington 1871 — 1891, in nearby Hornsey in 1901, and in Battersea in 1911; and to have died at the age of 80 in Rochford, Essex, in 1934.

According to www.thepeerage.com, this William John Gerald Fitzgibbon was married twice — to an Emma Smith (1873) and then (1908) to a Mabel Smith — and to have had several children [http://www.thepeerage.com/p12530.htm#i125291]. It is descent from these children that is now being assumed to imply descent from the Earls of Clare.

I have located a marriage certificate for William Gerald Fitzgibbon's marriage to Emma Smith in Islington, Middlesex, in 1873, yet it clearly says that his father was not John Fitzgibbon, 8th Hussars, but a "Gerald Fitzgibbon, Captain, 11th Hussars".

Both William and Emma are described as "of full age" — i.e. over 21 — which would seem to conflict with his age as given in Censuses (which would have made him 19 or 20).

Marriage certificate for William Gerald Fitzgibbon and Emma Smith, 1873

(Click on image to enlarge)

Yet this does not resolve the mystery. I have checked a number of Hart's Army Lists (1856, 1859, 1863) but there was no "Gerald Fitzgibbon" in the 11th Hussars, though there was a Gerald FitzGibbon in the 59th regiment of Foot from 8.7.1856. Could this be William John Gerald's father? If so, why the claim that he was a Captain in the 11th Hussars? And how did this become transmuted into a claim that William John Gerald was really the son of Viscount Fitzgibbon?

It would be good to know more, and (as seems necessary) to correct the errors in the Wikipedia and thepeerage.com websites.