Brecon remained a pocket borough of the Morgan family of Tredegar, who controlled the self-elected corporation of 15, which in turn had the sole right to create freemen. The number of freemen was kept low.1 This arrangement was challenged for the first time since 1740 in 1818, by which time the population had grown to nearly 4,000. Walter Wilkins^†, son of the Radnorshire Member, stood on behalf of the inhabitant householders. The bailiff rejected his candidature because he had not been nominated by a freeman and the seven corporators present all voted for Morgan. Both candidates were chaired and feasted their friends and there was no disturbance.2 After the election, Wilkins’s supporters began legal proceedings to establish the inhabitant householders’ right to vote, with a view to ‘opening the borough, and emancipating it as they say they have done the county’.3