Nicholas Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston

(Jenico) Nicholas Dudley Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston (born 19 November 1939), is an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and British hereditary peer, who sat in the House of Lords (as Baron Gormanston) until 1999.



Lord Gormanston is the premier viscount in the Peerage of Ireland (title created 1478).

Family background
The only son and heir of Captain the 16th Viscount Gormanston (1914–1940) and Pamela Hanly, daughter of Captain Edward Hanly and Lady Marjorie Feilding (daughter of the 9th Earl of Denbigh), he succeeded to the family titles before his first birthday; the 16th Viscount (Captain Jenico Preston, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry) was killed in action during the Battle of France in 1940.

His maternal great-grandfather was General Sir William Butler, of Bansha Castle, County Tipperary, and his great-grandmother was the celebrated Victorian painter, Elizabeth Thompson (later Lady Butler). The 14th Viscount Gormanston GCMG, a diplomat, was his paternal great-grandfather.

Education
A Roman Catholic like his forebears, Lord Gormanston attended the Benedictine school of Downside, Somerset. He is a connoisseur of art.

Gormanston Castle
The ancestral seat, Gormanston Castle in County Meath, Ireland, was sold to the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (OFM) in 1947, becoming Gormanston College.

Personal life
In 1974, Viscount Gormanston married, firstly, Eva-Antonie Landzwójczaka (1955–1984), having two sons:


 * Hon. Jenico Francis Tara Preston, born 1974, heir apparent; commercial director, British Fashion Council then Future Olympia, married 2015 Kelly Catherine Reade (born 1978), global communications director Jo Malone, descended via her mother from the Marquises of Chaves, by whom he has one son,
 * (Jenico Bertram Nicholas) Alfred Preston, born 2016, heir in line;
 * Hon. William Luke Preston, born 1976, married 2016 Victoria Christensen.

Viscount Gormanston married, secondly, on 2 November 1997 Lucy Arabella Fox (born 1960), daughter of Edward Fox and Tracy Reed.

Lord and Lady Gormanston live in Kensington, London.