Monmouthshire

County

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Number of voters:

about 2,000

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
3 Mar. 1715JOHN MORGAN 
 THOMAS LEWIS 
24 Mar. 1720JOHN HANBURY vice Morgan, deceased 
22 Mar. 1722WILLIAM MORGAN 
 JOHN HANBURY 
28 Sept. 1727SIR WILLIAM MORGAN1186
 JOHN HANBURY1160
 Robert Hughes737
17 May 1731LORD CHARLES NOEL SOMERSET vice Morgan, deceased 
2 May 1734JOHN HANBURY 
 THOMAS MORGAN 
6 Mar. 1735CHARLES HANBURY WILLIAMS vice Hanbury, deceased 
3 Jan. 1740HANBURY WILLIAMS re-elected after appointment to office 
21 May 1741THOMAS MORGAN 
 CHARLES HANBURY WILLIAMS 
9 July 1747WILLIAM MORGAN 
 CAPEL HANBURY 

Main Article

At the beginning of the eighteenth century control of the county was in the Whig Morgans of Tredegar and in the Tory dukes of Beaufort, by virtue of their Raglan estate. During Anne’s reign John Morgan of Tredegar twice attempted to carry both seats but although he himself always headed the poll, he failed to secure the second one.1 In the favourable circumstances of 1715, however, Morgan and a kinsman, Thomas Lewis, were returned without opposition. On Morgan’s death in 1720, with his eldest son William still under age, the vacancy was filled by John Hanbury of Pontypool, chosen nominally ‘on the independent interest’.2 Hanbury, an iron-manufacturer with extensive estates in the county, retained his seat at the election of 1722, when William Morgan replaced Lewis as the other Member.

This arrangement made no allowance for the influence of the Duke of Beaufort, who in 1727 supported the candidature of Robert Hughes of Trostrey, selected because he was a popular figure in Monmouthshire.3 Morgan and Hanbury evidently formed a joint interest against Hughes, whose defeat by over 400 votes marked the beginning of the decline of the Beaufort power in the county. Although the Duke’s brother, Lord Charles Noel Somerset, took the seat vacated by Morgan’s death in 1731, there was clearly an understanding that he would retire in favour of a Tredegar nominee at the next general election, when he transferred to Monmouth, Thomas Morgan, William’s younger brother, taking the seat. Thereafter the Tredegar-Pontypool alliance was unchallenged for nearly 40 years. On Hanbury’s death in 1734, he was succeeded by his second surviving son, Charles Hanbury Williams. The sitting Members were re-elected without opposition in 1741, each paying half the total expense of £250.4 Both stood down in 1747, when Williams was replaced by his elder brother, Capel Hanbury, and young William Morgan, now of age, replaced his uncle Thomas, who moved to Breconshire.

Author: Peter D.G. Thomas

Notes

  • 1. NLW, Tredegar mss 255.
  • 2. W. Coxe, Hist. Tour Mon. 206-7.
  • 3. D. Williams, Hist. Mon. app. 161-2.
  • 4. NLW, Tredegar mss 66/1-4, 105/157-8, 255, 257.