Charles Moore, 2nd Marquess of Drogheda

Charles Moore, 2nd Marquess of Drogheda (23 August 1770 – 6 February 1837), styled Viscount Moore until 1822, was an Irish peer. He went insane when he was about twenty, and spent the rest of his life at the private asylum at Greatford, Lincolnshire, which had been founded by the renowned physician Francis Willis.

Early life He was the eldest son of Charles Moore, 1st Marquess of Drogheda, and Lady Anne Seymour Conway, daughter of Francis Seymour, 1st Marquess of Hertford. Some sources give his first name as Edward.

Career He was elected to the Irish House of Commons as member for Queen's County in 1790, but unseated the following year on foot of a petition that he was disqualified by reason of insanity. Despite this, he was given the rank of captain-lieutenant in the Royal Irish Artillery in 1793. Lord Moore's father was colonel of the regiment.

Mental illness When he was about the age of twenty he began to show signs of mental illness, which may have been hereditary. He was placed in the care of Dr Francis Willis at Greatford Hall. Willis had won renown in 1789 for curing King George III of what was thought then to be insanity but is now generally agreed to have been porphyria. His treatment involved a regimen of fresh air and manual labour. Whether the treatment had any success in Lord Drogheda's case is unclear, but certainly, there was no significant recovery of his mental faculties, as there had been for the King; Drogheda remained at Greatford until his death in 1837. Lord Castlereagh, who committed suicide in 1822, was Lord Drogheda's first cousin and the increasingly strange behaviour which culminated in his death was thought by some to be due to a hereditary mental illness inherited from the Seymour Conway family, to which his mother, as well as Drogheda's, belonged.