LLOYD, Sir Edward Pryce, 2nd bt. (1768-1854), of Pengwern, Flint and Bodfach, Mont.

By 1820 Lloyd’s return for Flint Boroughs was assured and he could command considerable influence in the county, which was represented by his brother-in-law and fellow Whig Sir Thomas Mostyn. Lloyd had small estates and commercial interests, chiefly in lead mines, in most North Wales counties and, like his constant hunting companion Mostyn, he spent much of his time in Oxfordshire, where he rented property at Stratton Audley. However, he invariably returned to Flintshire for county functions, at which his bilingualism and skill as a public speaker were major assets. He also took charge of most local legislation and undertook much county business in Parliament. T.A. Glenn, Fam. of Mostyn of Mostyn, 173-5; Y Gwyliedydd, ii (1924), 58; HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 497-9; iv. 437-8. His own and Mostyn’s agents had acted with those of another brother-in-law, Sir Robert Williames Vaughan*, on enclosures, and together they promoted supplementary bills for the parishes of Newmarket (1828) and Tremeirchion (1831). Flint RO, Mostyn mss D/M/3318-34; A.H. Dodd, ‘Enclosure Movement in North Wales’, Bull. Bd. Celtic Stud. iii (1926), 210-38.

Lloyd made no mention of his political views in his addresses at the 1820 general election, when he gave his customary support to the Plas Newydd (Paget) candidates in Caernarvonshire and Anglesey and the Chirk Castle interest of the Myddelton Biddulphs in Denbigh Boroughs. Chester Chron. 25 Feb., 3, 10, 17, 24 Mar. 1820. He divided against the Liverpool ministry on most major issues in the 1820 Parliament, including parliamentary reform, 25 Apr. 1822, 24 Apr. 1823, 27 Apr. 1826, and voted for Catholic relief, 28 Feb. 1821, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May 1825. A radical publication of that year noted that he ‘attended regularly and voted in general with the opposition’. Session of Parl. 1825, p. 473. As in 1817, he was named to the 1820 and 1821 select committees on the administration of justice in Wales. As vice-president, he addressed the Flintshire Agricultural Society at Mold, 27 Oct. 1820. Ibid. 27 Oct. 1820. He supported the 1820-1 parliamentary campaigns on Queen Caroline’s behalf and his Flintshire tenantry illuminated their windows when her prosecution was abandoned in November 1820. Shrewsbury Chron. 24 Nov. 1820. He was granted a month’s leave because of ‘illness in the family’, 16 May 1821. Distress was acute in Flintshire in January 1822, when a correspondent to the Chester Chronicle wrote an open letter to Lloyd urging improvements in poor law administration. Chester Chron. 18 Jan. 1822; Flint RO, Leeswood mss D/LE/1352. He did not vote on Lord Althorp’s resolutions criticizing the ministry’s inadequate relief proposals, 21 Feb., but divided steadily against government, 27 Feb.-17 Apr. 1822, when at the Flintshire meeting he carried a petition calling for further government action to combat distress and regretting the ‘total inadequacy of the measures proposed by ministers’. Salopian Jnl. 24 Apr. 1822. He voted for remission of Henry Hunt’s* gaol sentence, 24 Apr., and consistently with opposition until 25 June 1822. He delayed returning to the House in 1823 until the Pont Blyddyn roads bill was considered in March, CJ, lxxviii. 152, 267, 334. and his only reported votes in 1824 were against the aliens bill, 23 Mar., and for reallocating Irish first fruit revenues, 24 May. He took charge of the Denbigh-Pentre Foelas road bill during the illness of John Wynne Griffith in February 1825. Ibid. lxxx. 94, 95, 336, 401, 411, 518. He paired for repeal of the window tax, 17 May, and divided against the duke of Cumberland’s annuity bill, 2, 6, 13 June, and for inquiry into chancery delays, 7 June 1825. He was probably the ‘Sir E. Lynd’ listed in the minority for prior inquiry pending the award of grants to encourage Irish emigration to Canada, 13 June 1825. Before the 1826 general election, when he was again returned unopposed, he presented an anti-slavery petition from Holywell, 20 Apr., and voted for Hume’s state of the nation motion, 4 May, and Lord John Russell’s resolutions to curb electoral bribery, 26 May. N. Wales Gazette, 12 Jan., 29 June; Chester Courant, 6, 13, 20 June; Chester Chron. 9, 23 June 1826. After the election he promoted the interests of the River Dee commissioners with Mostyn. Chester Courant, 15 Aug. 1826.

Lloyd seems to have been lax in his attendance early in the 1826 Parliament, but Lord William Paget, Member for Caernarvon Boroughs, attributed the failure in committee in May 1827 of the Caernarvon improvements bill to his ‘officious and uncalled for interference with the duties of the Members for the county and Boroughs of Caernarvon’. UCNW, Porth-yr-aur mss 12497, 12498; CJ, lxxxii. 109-10, 252, 304, 426, 452; N. Wales Gazette, 31 May, 14 June 1827. He voted to disfranchise Penryn, 28 May, and presented a petition from Flint for repeal of the Test Acts, 8 June 1827, but apparently failed to vote on the issue in 1828. He divided for Catholic relief, 12 May. He was against the provision for Canning’s family, 13 May, and voted for the associated motion on the misapplication of public funds, 23 June. He voted for inquiry into the circulation of Scottish and Irish pound notes, 5 June, and presented Flintshire petitions against restricting small bank notes, 7 May, 27 June. He presented the Holywell silk throwers’ petition against reducing the protective tariffs on silks, 25 June, and ordered detailed returns on lead imports, 30 June. He voted for ordnance reductions, 4, 7 July 1828. Lloyd divided for Catholic emancipation, 6, 30 Mar., presented a favourable petition from Holywell, 9 Mar., and voted to permit Daniel O’Connell to sit without swearing the oath of supremacy, 18 May 1829. That October the Ultra Commons leader Sir Richard Vyvyan included him on his list of supporters of emancipation whose attitude to a putative coalition government was ‘unknown’. He chaired celebrations to mark the coming of age of John Douglas of Gyrn in August, and on 15 Sept. 1829 attended the Denbighshire county meeting that petitioned against the justice commission’s proposals for abolishing the Welsh judicature and court of great sessions. He is not known to have spoken publicly or voted on the 1830 administration of justice bill which effected the change, but Lord Cawdor’s agent R.B. Williams directed the Anglesey bench to forward any pro-abolition petitions to Lloyd for presentation. Chester Courant, 11 Aug., 22 Sept.; Shrewsbury Chron. 25 Sept. 1829; Lord Cawdor, Letter to Lord Lyndhurst; Cambrian Quarterly Mag. (1829), 16-20; UCNW, Plas Newydd mss i. 740-1. The birth of his grandson Thomas, ‘the heir apparent to Pengwern’, was celebrated throughout his estates, and notably in Denbigh, where plans were made to oust the sitting Tory Frederick Richard West at the first opportunity. Local newspapers reported the event alongside accounts of meetings to petition for action to combat distress in ‘agriculture, commerce, manufactures and mines’, and at the Flintshire meeting in Mold, 8 Feb. 1830, Lloyd promised the petitioners his own and Mostyn’s support and claimed that he already advocated these sentiments in Parliament. Chester Courant, 9, 23 Feb. 1830; Flint RO D/KK/467-8. He presented their petition with another from Holywell, 15 Mar. He was probably the ‘Sir C. Lloyd’ who voted in the minority against the East Retford disfranchisement bill that day, and he divided steadily with the revived Whig opposition until 11 June, including for parliamentary reform, 28 May 1830. He was foreman of the Flintshire grand jury when the fraud action against the Mold Mining Company was heard in April, Chester Courant, 13 Apr. 1830. and presented a Flintshire miners’ and smelters’ petition for higher protective tariffs on foreign lead, 26 May. On the hustings at the August 1830 general election, he promised to promote the reform of all abuses in the state, ‘notably in the representation of the people in Parliament’. Although toasted at dinners marking the return of Robert Myddelton Biddulph for Denbigh Boroughs, he now held aloof from Denbigh politics and stayed in Flintshire for the assizes. Chester Chron. 16, 31 Aug. 1830.

The Wellington ministry counted Lloyd among their ‘foes’, but he was absent from the division on the civil list which brought them down, 15 Nov. 1830. He presented the landowners’ petition of complaint by which the passage of the Ffestiniog railway bill was delayed, 18 Mar. 1831. He divided for the Grey ministry’s reform bill at its second reading, 22 Mar., and presented favourable petitions from Flintshire, Flint, Holywell and Mold, 29 Mar., another that day from St. Asaph seeking enfranchisement, and several for the abolition of colonial slavery. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7902, 7903. He paired against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment to the reform bill, 19 Apr. Mostyn, whose estates he inherited in trust, had died on the 17th, vacating the Flintshire seat, and to counter a challenge by Sir John Hanmer† of Bettisfield, Lloyd and his agents immediately promoted the candidature of his son Edward, who, as Mostyn’s eventual heir, now adopted his name and arms. The Times, 22 Apr. 1831; Flint RO, Mostyn mss D/M/3869, 3870; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7904-8085, Warws. RO, Pennant mss CR2017/TP483/1. At the general election of 1831 Lloyd stood again for the Boroughs, promising to attend to ‘local interests and to all the great questions of general policy’, especially the reform bill, neither constituency was polled and Lloyd’s election dinner served to rally support for Lloyd Mostyn in the county. Flint RO D/KK/461; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 572; Chester Courant, 3, 10 May; Morning Chron. 3 May 1831. Lloyd had declined a requisition from the reformers of Montgomeryshire, but he directed his own and the Mostyn tenants to support reformers in contests there and in Caernarvon Boroughs. Plas Newydd mss i. 599, 609; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7845-50; NLW, Coedymaen mss 239.

Lloyd and his son divided for the reintroduced reform bill at its second reading, 6 July 1831, and steadily throughout July and August for its details. Lloyd voted for the disfranchisement of Saltash, which ministers no longer pressed, 26 July, and, unlike most Welsh Members, he endorsed the decision to make Merthyr a contributory of Cardiff, 10 Aug. Applied to by reformers throughout North Wales, he supported local campaigns to enfranchise Abergele, St. Asaph and Llanrwst, and, when the addition of Holywell and Mold to Flint Boroughs was considered, 10 Aug., he intervened, apparently with Althorp’s support, and had the franchise confined to the township of Mold and extended to the parish of Holywell. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7871. He divided with administration on the Dublin election controversy, 23 Aug. The Mostyn baronetcy had been extinguished by Sir Thomas’s death and Lloyd was awarded the title Baron Mostyn when he became a coronation peer in September 1831. Chester Courant, 13 Sept.; Macclesfield Courier and Herald, 17 Sept. 1831. Addressing his constituents, he urged them to return another reformer at the ensuing by-election, but he decided against putting forward his younger son Thomas and tacitly supported the Glynnes of Hawarden. Chester Courant, 13, 20 Sept. 1831; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 8128-31, 8133, 8134, 8136, 8137, 8139-45; NLW, Glynne of Hawarden mss 5392, 5404. Friends assumed that he did so to reduce the risk of opposition to Edward in the county and to promote reform in Denbighshire, which had been conceded a second seat. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 8132, 8135, 8138.

Mostyn’s estates and difficult financial legacy preoccupied the new Lord Mostyn over the following months, but Lloyd Mostyn, who sought his assistance on ‘small notes’, the Caernarvon roads bill and arrangements for Maelor Sais and the Montgomery Boroughs constituency, briefed him regularly on proceedings in the Commons, while entreating him to attend the Lords. Ibid. 265, passim, 7471; Coedymaen mss 984. In March 1832 he wrote:

I would not urge you coming up for the second reading if it were not my conscientious opinion that you ought not in justice to the opinion you have always held on the subject of reform, in justice to your former constituents, and in justice to Lord Grey, absent yourself on so vital and important an occasion. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 265, Lloyd Mostyn to fa. Mar. 1832.

He voted to secure the reform bill’s passage, 7 Oct. 1831, 9 May 1832, and, as they were to do throughout his life, his sons championed the Liberal cause in North Wales at the 1832 general election, and assisted with subsequent petitions. Ibid. 7876-80; Plas Newydd mss iii. 3609, 3618, 3737, 3753; N. Wales Chron. 1 Jan. 1833; B. Ellis, ‘Parl. Rep. Mont. 1728-1868’, Mont. Colls. lxiii (1973), 84-88; T.M. Bassett, ‘Y Bedyddwyr yng Ngwleidyddiaeth Sir Gaernarfon’, Trans. Caern. Hist. Soc. xlii (1981), 129-34. Financial setbacks arising from overspeculation, high election costs, his reluctance to sell land and difficulties in executing Sir Thomas Mostyn’s will and dealing with his impoverished and overmortgaged estates almost bankrupted the family in 1844 and 1853, when Lord Mostyn was said to owe £192,300 and his estates were valued at £189,932. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 265-71; Flint RO, Mostyn mss D/M/3305. He died at Pengwern in April 1854 and was buried in the family vault at Llanrhos. His will, though later acknowledged by his heirs and agents, was not now proved, but on 16 Nov. 1854 administration of his personalty, sworn under £300, was granted as 2nd baronet to Edward Mostyn Lloyd Mostyn. Chester Chron. 8, 15 Apr. 1854; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 593; PROB 6/230.