Family and Education

bap. 30 Nov. 1622, 2nd s. of Sir Richard Newport†, 1st Baron Newport, by Rachel, da. of Sir John Leveson of Halling, Kent and coh. to her bro. Sir Richard Leveson† of Trentham, Staffs.; bro. of Francis Newport†, 1st Earl of Bradford.  educ. Wroxeter g.s.; Christ Church, Oxf. 1640.  unm.1

Offices Held

Esquire of the body ?June 1660–7; capt. of ft. Portsmouth garrison 1662–73; comptroller of the gt. wardrobe 1668–81; commr. customs Nov. 1681–4.2

Member, R. Fishing Co. 1664.3

Freeman, Portsmouth 1665, Much Wenlock 1680, Ludlow 1695; custos rot. Mont. Jan.–Dec. 1679, 1685–7, 1691–2, 1695–6.4

Biography

Newport was an active Royalist conspirator during the Interregnum, and under Charles II became a courtier and a friend of the Earl of Rochester (Laurence Hyde†). In the Convention he voted against agreeing with the Lords over the vacancy of the throne. Not surprisingly he adhered to the Tory interest in King William’s reign, while four members of his elder brother’s family all sat in Parliament as Whigs. He was returned unopposed in 1690 and 1695 at Shrewsbury, where there was a very strong Tory interest.

Newport was listed as a Tory and probably as a Court supporter in March 1690 by Lord Carmarthen (Sir Thomas Osborne†), and in December that year as a probable supporter of Carmarthen in the event of an attack upon him in the Commons. The following April he was classed by Robert Harley* as doubtful but possibly a Country supporter. In 1691 he was reappointed custos rotulorum of Montgomeryshire, where his principal estate lay, and in November of that year it was thought that he would be named once again as a customs commissioner, but the rumour proved to be unfounded. In 1694–5 the Treasury secretary Henry Guy* listed Newport as a supporter in connexion with the expected attack on him that session. Otherwise, it is impossible to distinguish Newport’s parliamentary activity in this Parliament from that of his nephew Hon. Richard Newport I until 11 May 1694, after which the latter was styled Lord Newport. Returned again for Shrewsbury in 1695, Newport was now joined in the House by another nephew, Thomas Newport, again making his parliamentary activity difficult to determine. He was forecast as likely to oppose the Court in the division of 31 Jan. 1696 on the proposed council of trade, refused to sign the Association at first and voted in March against fixing the price of guineas at 22s. When the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick† was debated in November, Fenwick gave evidence that a group of Jacobites had met several times at Newport’s house in Berkeley Street. Newport was ‘out of town and knew nothing of it, but he lent Lord Ailesbury [Thomas, Lord Bruce†] the use of his house, and he [Ailesbury] lay there when his family was in the country’. Newport voted against the bill. In September 1698 he was listed as a member of the Country party.5

Newport did not stand at the general election of 1698, and died on 11 Sept. 1699 at the house at Eyton-upon-Severn, Shropshire, of his nephew Lord Newport, to whose brother, Hon. Thomas*, he bequeathed his estates in Montgomeryshire and Shropshire, together with the sum of £40,000. The Tory Post Boy noted that Newport’s death had been ‘much lamented, he being extraordinarily well beloved’.6

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

• 1. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. ser. 4, xii. 219–20; VCH Salop, ii. 144.
• 2. LC 3/2; CSP Dom. 1661–2, p. 487; 1667–8, pp. 34, 170; 1672–3, p. 587; Cal. Treas. Bks. vii. 290, 403, 1464.
• 3. Sel. Charters, 183.
• 4. R. East, Portsmouth Recs. 358; Salop RO, Forester mss, copy of Much Wenlock corp. bk.; Salop RO, Ludlow bor. recs. min. bk. 1690–1712; CSP Dom. 1690–1, p. 388; Cal. Treas. Bks. x. 1292.
• 5. CSP Dom. 1691–2, p. 1; CJ, xi. 578–9.
• 6. G. T. O. Bridgeman, Newport Fam. 20; PCC 177 Pett; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 562; Post Boy, 28–30 Sept. 1699.