Portrait of Barry Maxwell, 1st Earl Farnham, seated three-quarter- length, wearing a blue velvet suit with gold buttons and white lace cuffs, before a table draped with an oriental carpet, an open window beyond

Barry Maxwell, an Anglo-Irish politician, succeeded his brother as 3rd Baron Farnham in 1779, and was created a Viscount in 1781 and an Earl in 1785. Trained as a barrister, he was Prothonotary of the Committee of Common Pleas in Dublin from 1741 until his death in 1800, and an MP in the Irish Parliament for County Cavan and Armagh City from 1756 to 1779. In a letter criticising Farnham's conduct in announcing his intention of voting against the government at the same time as he acknowledged his Earldom, the 4th Duke of Rutland mentioned his 'dirt, meanness, and ingratitude'. In Sketches of Irish Political Characters (1799), however, Farnham was described as 'a temperate supporter of the administration and perfectly respectable in private life'. He married twice, first in 1751 to Margaret, daughter of Robert King, and second, in 1771 to Grace, daughter of Archer Burdett (see The British Face, loc. cit.).