POWELL, Thomas (c.1701-52), of Nanteos, Card.

Powell, whose father was one of the leaders of the Welsh Jacobites (see Pryse, Lewis), acquired Nanteos through his mother. Returned in 1725 as a Tory for Cardigan Boroughs, where he controlled Tregaron, he stood unsuccessfully for the county in 1727. He stood again for the Boroughs at a by-election in May 1729, when on a double return the seat was awarded to his opponent. The House of Commons also disfranchised the freemen of Tregaron, thus destroying his interest there. In 1732 the 1st Lord Egmont reports that at Drury Lane, during the performance of a dull play, Powell appeased a ‘great tumult’ in the audience and persuaded the manager to give them their money back.HMC Egmont Diary, i. 216. In 1741 he contested the county, for which he was seated on petition after the fall of Walpole, voting regularly against the Government till he retired in 1747. He died ‘of an apoplectic fit in the street’, 17 Nov. 1752.Gent. Mag. 1752, p. 536.