Thomas Wandesford, on his marriage in 1503, acquired the Kirklington estate in Yorkshire which his family still occupied in the noneteenth century. In 1637 Christopher Wandesford, who became Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1640, came into possession of estates in Castlecomer, where he settled a number of English families. In 1769, Anne Wandesford married John Butler who assumed the Wandesford name by royal licence and to whom the Earldom of Ormonde was restored in 1791 by the House of Lords. The practice of assuming the Wandesford name was repeated in 1882 when the Prior family of Yorkshire came into possession of the Castlecomer and Limerick estates on the death of Charles Butler Clarke Wandesford who was childless and the last of the Wandesford line. The estates went into decline in the late nineteenth century and were acquired and divided by the Irish Land Commission.

Archival history
The Wandesford papers are part of the archives of the firm of Franks & Oulton, solicitors, 21 Lower Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, acquired in 1971. The parent collection is being listed on the basis of individual clients, usually landed families.