Purcell O'Gorman (1820 – 24 November 1888) was an Irish nationalist politician and member of parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected as a member of the Home Rule League to represent Waterford City. He was elected only once, in the 1874 United Kingdom general election, and served until 1880.
Life A scion of the landed gentry of Ireland,Sir Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (Harrison & sons, 1899), p. 344 but a Roman Catholic, O'Gorman was born in Kilkenny, the son of the successful barrister Nicholas Purcell O'Gorman QC,Brendan Barrington, ed., The Dublin Review issues 10–13 (2003), p. 15 who was the Secretary of Daniel O'Connell's Catholic Association.Nick Harding, Hanover and the British Empire, 1700–1837 (2007), p. 267 He was educated at Clongowes, a Jesuit school, then at the age of sixteen matriculated at Trinity College Dublin. There he graduated BA in law in 1840. On 3 February 1843 he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Ceylon Rifle Regiment. On 9 December 1845 he transferred to the 90th Foot (Perthshire Volunteers) as a Lieutenant and was promoted Captain on 2 April 1852. He served in the Crimean War from 1854 to 1855, and on 17 August 1855 sold his commission.'O'GORMAN, Purcell', in Frederic Boase, ed., Modern English Biography: I-Q (1897), p. 1,887: "O'GORMAN, Purcell (2 son of the preceding). b. 1820; educ. Trin. coll. Dublin, B.A. 1840; 2 lieut. Ceylon regiment 3 February 1843; lieut. 90 foot 9 Dec. 1845, captain 2 April 1852, sold out 17 August 1855; served in Crimean war 1854-5; M.P. Waterford 1874–80. d. Springfield, co. Kilkenny 24 November 1888."
O'Gorman served as one of Waterford's two Home Rule League members of parliament from February 1874 until 1880. In March 1875, barely a year after his election to the House of Commons, he was caricatured by "Ape" (Carlo Pellegrini) in the London Vanity Fair magazine as "The Joker for Waterford".Ruth Pollard, Official Price Guide to Collector Prints, 1986 (Random House, 1986), p. 75In Vanity Fair: Original Lithographs of Elegant & Ignominious Edwardians (Lyons Limited Antique Prints, 1999), p. 29
O'Gorman died at Springfield, County Kilkenny, in November 1888.
Private life In 1853, O'Gorman married Sarah, a daughter of Thomas Mellor, of Ashton, Lancashire, and they had one son and two daughters. They settled at Bellevue, in County Clare.Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, ed., Burke's Irish Family Records (London: Burkes Peerage Ltd., 1976), p. 212 In 1860 their elder daughter, Frances Alice O'Gorman, married Captain E. J. Anderson, Royal Engineers. He was later a Brigadier-General.Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes (Kell's Directories, 1918), p. 90 In 1905 their younger daughter, Mary O'Gorman, became the second wife of Lt. Colonel Robert Thomas Carew, a former high sheriff of County Waterford.
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