MONCKTON, John, 1st Visct. Galway [I] (1695-1751), of Serlby, Notts.

The Moncktons were an old Yorkshire family, whose ancestral estates were in the East and West Ridings, but the 1st Lord Galway, an original member of the Dilettanti Society, established himself at Serlby in Nottinghamshire, where he built a new family seat, in which he housed his fine collection of old masters.D. H. Monckton, Gen. Hist. Fam. Monckton, 106. After contesting Clitheroe unsuccessfully in 1722, he was returned for it unopposed by agreement with Sir Nathaniel Curzon in 1727, probably in return for selling him some burgages in that borough.See CLITHEROE. Turned out of Clitheroe in 1734, he brought himself in for Pontefract, where in 1729 he had purchased 77 burgages for £6,000, giving him control of one seat. Connected by marriage with Henry Pelham, who like him had married one of the daughters of the 2nd Duke of Rutland, he voted regularly with the Government till he gave up his seat to his eldest son in 1747. When in 1748 the post of surveyor general of crown lands fell vacant by the death of Thomas Walker, Pelham wrote to Newcastle, recommending Galway to the King for the post, on the ground that his

unalterable behaviour in Parliament for near thirty years [actually not quite twenty], the great expense he has been at in bringing himself in, and, at last, his purchasing a borough are merits we dont meet with every day.7 Oct. 1748, Add. 32717, f. 36.

Newcastle reported that the King

seemed mightily to approve it, only said, he was not in Parliament and that so many places were now excluded [by the Place Act, 1742] that we should give those that were not to Parliament men. I told the King that I concluded Lord Galway’s design was to come into Parliament, that he had a borough of his own.2/13 Nov. 1748, Add. 32717, f. 253.

His son made way for him at Pontefract, which he represented till his death, 15 July 1751.