Sir John Lees, 1st Baronet

Sir John Lees, 1st Baronet (c. 1737– 3 September 1811) was Secretary of the Irish Post Office.

Family John Lees was born about 1737, probably at Cumnock in Ayrshire, the son of Adam Lees and his wife Agnes Goldie. though Bayley Butler mentions two daughters and observes that Lees son's are named after people connected to his life. though other sources suggest £100,000. Unfortunately, his will was destroyed during the Four Courts fire in 1922. and there is a mural tablet to his memory in Monkstown Church. In October 1780 he accepted the post of Usher of the Black Rod in the Irish House of Lords, but had relinquished it by the time the Lords next met in October 1781.

Lees second tenure as secretary to the Irish Post Office was officially made in 1784 and lasted until his death in 1811. they essentially administered the Irish post office for almost 50 years. Father and son were rather enterprising in their post office work, such as encouraging improvements to the post roads and a better Penny Post system, opening new letter offices, they organised more frequent postal deliveries, and introduced mail coaches on all the main roads in Ireland. He was a Protestant conservative and an ally of Speaker Foster's in demanding severe punishments during the 1798 rebellion.

On 30 September 1800 Lees was presented with his freedom of the city of Cork in a silver box.

His son, Edward Smith Lees, solely held the position in his own right upon his father's death until he was transferred to the same position in Edinburgh, following investigations and reports into fraud and mismanagement in Ireland.

Blackrock House

He became wealthy and acquired several parcels of sea-front land ranging from 50 ft x 50 ft to 19 acres, between Maretimo House, Lord Cloncurry's house, in Blackrock, a Dublin suburb, and the Martello Tower at Seapoint. The building was described thus in 1825 by his eldest brother Harcourt Lees:

It stands in a beautiful situation at the upper end of the town. There is something heavy however in the external appearance of the place, the lofty gates lined with sheet iron, trebly barred and closed at all hours indicating something like fear or uneasiness in the mind of the man who deems them necessary. The bodies from the shipwreck were recovered and laid out for the inquest in the coach house of Blackrock House and buried in the small Merrion Graveyard, in Booterstown.

Upon Lees' death his eldest son, Harcourt Lees inherited Blackrock House but houses have been built on a more recent street, Maretimo Gardens East, between the rear of the house and the railway.

Baronage On 23 June 1804 he was created a Baronet 'of Blackrock in the County of Dublin'. He was succeeded by his eldest son Harcourt,