Robert Adair, 1st Baron Waveney

Robert Alexander Shafto Adair, 1st Baron Waveney (25 August 1811 – 15 February 1886)[1] was a British Liberal Party politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Cambridge for 8 of the years from 1847 to 1857.

Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland,[2] he was the older of the two sons of Sir Robert Shafto Adair, 1st Baronet, and his first wife Elizabeth Maria Strode.

[13] He served as Lord Lieutenant of Antrim from 1884 until his death in 1886,[12][14] aged 74, when the peerage became extinct and he was succeeded in the baronetcy by his younger brother Hugh (1815–1902), who had been MP for Ipswich from 1847 to 1874.

[16] In 1865 Adair began the construction in the demesne of Ballymena Castle, a substantial family residence in the Scottish baronial style.

[17] The castle was not completed until 1887,[18] and was demolished in 1957 after having lain empty for some years and being vandalised; the site is now a car park, where said Saturday market is held.