Family and Education

b. c. 1656, 1st s. of John Vaughan of Cwrt Derllys by Rachel, da. and h. of Sir Henry Vaughan^† of Derwydd, Carm. educ. Jesus, Oxf. matric. 23 May 1672, aged 16; G. Inn 1673, called 1680. m. lic. 12 July 1692, Arabella, da. of Sir Erasmus Philipps, 3rd Bt., of Picton Castle, Pemb., s.p. suc. fa. 1684.

Offices Held

J.p. Carm. 1678-Apr. 1688, Oct. 1688-d.; commr. for assessment, Carm. and Carmarthen 1679-80, 1689-90; recorder, Carmarthen 1683-6, Oct. 1688-1722, dep. recorder. 1686-Oct. 1688; dep. lt. Carm. 1685-Feb. 1688, 1689-?d.; bencher, G. Inn 1706; treas. 1716-18; c.j.S. Wales circuit 1715-d.1

Biography

Vaughan came from a cadet branch of the family of Golden Grove. He sat for Carmarthen in fourteen parliaments without interruption from 1685 till his death forty years later. He probably began his career as an Anglican and a Tory, but he was inactive in James II’s Parliament. On the proposed repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws, he answered that he was ‘doubtful till he sees an equivalent security for the Protestant religion’, and he was removed from local office. In the Convention, he did not vote to agree with the Lords on the abdication, and was re-appointed deputy lieutenant in May 1689. He made no speeches but he may have been appointed to three committees, including that to abolish the hearth-tax. Vaughan signed the Association in 1696, and was a country Whig under both William and Anne. He was appointed a Welsh judge on the Hanoverian succession. He died on 27 Oct. 1724, his estates being inherited by a cousin, John Vaughan^†, who had married his niece, and sat for Carmarthenshire as an ‘Old Whig’ from 1745 to 1754.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: Leonard Naylor / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

• 1. Trans. Cymmrod. Soc. 1942, p. 75; W. R. Williams, Great Sessions in Wales, 181.
• 2. G. Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne, 222.