The Cardiganshire Whigs were headed by the Lisburnes of Crosswood and Thomas Johnes of Llanfair; the Tories by the Pryses of Gogerddan and the Powells of Nanteos. In 1715 Lewis Pryse defeated the sitting Member, Johnes, but was expelled for contempt in 1716. At the ensuing by-election and in 1722 Tories were returned with the support of the Gogerddan and Nanteos interests.1 A Gogerddan minority enabled the Whigs to recover the seat in 1727, when Lord Lisburne defeated Thomas Powell, and again in 1734, when there was no opposition to Walter Lloyd of Peterwell,2 whose return marked the rise of a third important Whig family in the county. Lloyd was returned again in 1741 by the partisan conduct of a Whig sheriff but on petition the seat was awarded by the anti-Walpole majority in the House of Commons to his Tory opponent, Thomas Powell. Lloyd’s son John was returned unopposed in 1747, another minority having occurred in the Gogerddan family, whose trustees were inclined to support him ‘for the peace of the county’.3