Monmouthshire

County

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Number of voters:

over 1,500

Elections

DateCandidate
28 June 1790JOHN MORGAN
 JAMES ROOKE
16 Aug. 1792 ROBERT SALUSBURY vice Morgan, deceased
2 June 1796JAMES ROOKE
 CHARLES MORGAN (formerly GOULD)
16 July 1802JAMES ROOKE
 CHARLES MORGAN
8 Nov. 1805 LORD ARTHUR JOHN HENRY SOMERSET vice Rooke, deceased
7 Nov. 1806LORD ARTHUR JOHN HENRY SOMERSET
 CHARLES MORGAN
12 May 1807LORD ARTHUR JOHN HENRY SOMERSET
 (SIR) CHARLES MORGAN, Bt.
12 Oct. 1812LORD ARTHUR JOHN HENRY SOMERSET
 (SIR) CHARLES MORGAN, Bt.
20 May 1816 LORD GRANVILLE CHARLES HENRY SOMERSET vice Somerset, deceased
23 June 1818LORD GRANVILLE CHARLES HENRY SOMERSET
 (SIR) CHARLES MORGAN, Bt.
5 Apr. 1819 SOMERSET re-elected after appointment to office

Main Article

Since the 5th Duke of Beaufort had purchased the Usk estate in 1771, he and the Morgan family of Tredegar possessed about equal estates in the county (said to be worth about £12,000 p.a. in 1795).1 Accordingly on the death in 1784 of John Hanbury of Pontypool, who had shared the representation of the county with the Morgans, the duke secured the return of his nominee: and again in 1785. His friend Rooke retained the seat unopposed until his death in 1805. When the 6th Duke then put up his brother Lord Arthur Somerset, an attempt was made to persuade Capel Hanbury Leigh to stand as an independent, but he refused, and the Morgans of Tredegar would not hear of abetting the move.2 Lord Arthur and the duke’s younger son Lord Granville, in 1816, were unopposed.

The Tredegar interest was represented by John Morgan; on his death in 1792 by his nephew-in-law Robert Salusbury; and from 1796 by his nephew and heir Charles Morgan, who held the seat until 1831. While John Morgan had resented the growing influence of the Duke of Beaufort and gone into opposition when Beaufort was awarded the lieutenancy of Brecon in addition to that of Monmouth in 1787, his nephew collaborated with Beaufort to preserve the peace, which entailed supporting Beaufort in the boroughs seat and, in turn, receiving Beaufort’s support in Breconshire.3 Nevertheless, a county meeting of 1797 carried an anti-ministerial resolution inspired by James Greene*, and apart from the bid to sponsor an independent candidate in 1805, resentment at the Beaufort-Morgan pact became conspicuous from 1817 onwards. John Hodder Moggeridge of Llanrumney, a Whig reformer, led the opposition, starting with a meeting to present a petition for parliamentary reform.4 He made slow progress, and although he informed Earl Grey in 1819 that ‘there is spirit and money enough in the county to aid the struggle which is apparently confined to the borough’,5 his efforts got nowhere until 1831.

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

  • 1. W. T. Morgan, JNLW, x. (1957), 167; E. E. Havill, ‘Parl. Rep. Mon. 1536-1832’ (Univ. of Wales M. A. thesis, 1949); R. D. Rees, ‘Parl. Rep. S. Wales 1790-1830’ (Reading Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1962), i. 249; Farington Diary (Yale ed.), ii. 289.
  • 2. Cambrian, 12, 26 Oct., 23 Nov. 1805.
  • 3. Camden mss C.261.
  • 4. Cambrian, 1 8, 22 Mar. 1817.
  • 5. Grey mss, Moggeridge to Grey, 15 Jan. 1819.