Caulfeild, James Edward Geale (1880–1949), 8th Viscount Charlemont , politician, was born 12 May 1880 in London, only son of Marcus Piers Francis Caulfeild (1840–95) and Louisa Gwyn Caulfeild, fourth daughter of Robert Williams of Fryars, Anglesea. Educated at Cheam School and Winchester, he succeeded his uncle, James Alfred, in the viscountcy (1913). Opposed to home rule, he took part in the Ulster Volunteer movement before being commissioned to the Coldstream Guards in 1914. He was appointed an Irish representative peer (1918), became vice-lieutenant of Tyrone (1922–39) and was elected a member of the Northern Ireland senate in 1925. In January 1926 he became leader of the senate and succeeded Lord Londonderry (qv) as minister of education in Northern Ireland. Londonderry's education act of 1923, due to its secular nature, was virulently opposed by the Orange order and protestant clergy. In 1930 Caulfeild conceded local protestant clergy an influential role in appointing teachers. Two years later he gave them the right to sit on the management committee of Stranmillis training college. Regarded as a liberal unionist, Caulfeild disliked these changes and the gerrymandering of Derry city in 1936. He retired on the advice of doctors in 1937.
In the following year he co-founded, with Major-Gen. Hugh Montgomery (qv) (1870–1954), and became first president of the Irish Association for Cultural, Economic, and Social Relations (the Irish Association), a position he held for eight years. A member of the advisory committee on ancient monuments in Northern Ireland, he also chaired a commission on Northern Ireland's resources. He was awarded an honorary LLD by QUB and was an honorary associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, acting on juries that awarded the Ulster architectural medal. He died 30 August 1949 in Newcastle, Co. Down, having sold the family estate of Drumcairne, Co. Tyrone, the previous year.
He married (1914) Evelyn (d. 1941 during an air-raid in London), daughter of Edmund Charles Pendleton Hull of Surrey. They were divorced in 1940. He later married a distant cousin, Hildegarde, daughter of Rodolphe Stock-Mandell of Ruiselede, Belgium. He had no children.