Denbighshire

The coastal county of Denbighshire comprised the hundreds of Bromfield, Chirk, Isaled, Idsulas, Ruthin and Yale, and the chief towns and sources of most petitions were the boroughs of Denbigh and Ruthin and the market towns of Abergele, Chirk, Llangollen, Llanrwst (known for its flannel and slates), the lead mining centre of Ruabon, and Wrexham, an important centre of iron and coal production and the largest town in North Wales. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 559-60. Except when a minority intervened, the county had been represented for over a century by the head of the Williams Wynn family of Wynnstay, whose erstwhile rivals, the Myddeltons of Chirk Castle, shared in the lord lieutenancy, but had to be content with dominating the Borough representation. P.D.G. Thomas, Politics in 18th Cent. Wales, 23-24. The sitting Member, the fifth Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, adhered to the oligarchic third party of his uncle Lord Grenville. He had first been returned for the county in 1796, having succeeded to the lord lieutenancy on the death of the Foxite Whig Richard Myddelton† the previous year. Myddelton’s son had died without issue in 1796, and his daughters’ acrimonious struggle for control of the estate focused political interest on the Boroughs seat, contested regularly and at vast expense over the next 30 years. County elections meanwhile became carefully managed celebrations organized by the Wynnstay agents in the county town of Denbigh or in Wrexham. East Denbighshire’s growing coalfield and ironworks had brought wealth to long-established families and newcomers, and together they served as magistrates, displayed largesse and graced hunts, races, eisteddfodau and other social functions. Popular unrest, though endemic, was generally well contained, and large-scale county meetings and petitioning were unusual. Ibid. 6, 24. The lieutenancy had quickly mobilized the yeomanry and raised £1,300 to establish a volunteer cavalry regiment after Peterloo. Parliamentary enclosures had peaked, but there was growing popular support for legalizing those from the waste to assist cottagers in distress, and the Wrexham Association for Detecting and Prosecuting Felons, to which Sir Watkin and his brother Charles’s father-in-law, Sir Foster Cunliffe of Acton Park, subscribed, helped to maintain the peace. Chester Chron. 8, 15, 22, 29 Oct., 12, 19 Nov., 3, 24 Dec.; Cambrian, 6 Nov. 1819, 22 Jan., 6 May 1820.

The customary proclamations and addresses marked the death of George III in January 1820, and £1,171 11s. 10d. was spent on hospitality when Sir Watkin was returned at Denbigh at the general election in March. Shrewsbury Chron. 3, 24 Mar.; Chester Chron. 3 Mar.; N. Wales Gazette, 23 Mar. 1820; NLW, Wynnstay mss L/1323. Legislation for the Pool, Oswestry and Wrexham road, promoted by Wynnstay and their allies the Clive family of Powis Castle, was passed early in the 1820 Parliament; as was legislation consolidating and settling the estates of John Madocks of Glan-y-wern. CJ, lxxv. 171, 331, 342. The birth and baptism in November 1820 of an heir to Wynnstay was extensively celebrated, the Cambrian reporting that Sir Watkin ‘had generously given up claims for rent arrears from the poorer class of tenantry.’ Chester Chron. 3 Nov.; Cambrian, 4, 18 Nov. 1820. Opinion on Queen Caroline’s prosecution was divided. Wrexham was illuminated when the case against her was dropped, but Sir Watkin was also criticized for failing to organize an address to the king from the county’s ‘loyal and independent gentry’. Shrewsbury Chron. 24 Nov.; N. Wales Gazette, 7 Dec. 1820. Local legislation was regularly entrusted to the Members for Denbigh and Flint Boroughs, John Wynne Griffith of Garn and Sir Edward Pryce Lloyd of Pengwern, and Sir Watkin was routinely named to the committees. Corrective legislation for the Denbigh and St. Asaph road and Llanrwst enclosure was petitioned for and obtained in 1821. The new Holyhead road traversed the county and communications between Mold, Ruthin and Wrexham were improved following the passage of the 1823 Pont Blyddyn road bill. The Denbigh-Pentre Foelas road bill received royal assent, 10 June 1825. CJ, lxxvi. 39, 56, 237, 426; lxxviii. 334; lxxx. 94-95, 336, 411, 518. Sir Watkin, a member of the 1820-22 select committees on agriculture, opposed the malt duties and agricultural horse tax; but petitioning for tax reductions and government action against distress in 1822, when the Grenvillites went over to administration, was deliberately confined to the Boroughs. Wrexham contributed to the 1824 petitioning campaigns against the beer duties, 13 May, and in condemnation of the indictment of the Methodist missionary John Smith in Demerara, 10 June 1824, and petitioned in 1825 against Catholic relief, which the Williams Wynns and Griffith supported. Ibid. lxxvii. 230; lxxix. 473; lxxx. 343; The Times, 14 May 1824; LJ, lvii. 644. The secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, Thomas Clarkson, who visited the county in August 1824, soon accepted the attorney Edward Jones’s assessment that

in Denbighshire, Merionethshire and all the country round, the people were half a century behind those of South Wales, and a century behind those of England. They were ignorant and indifferent about what did not belong to themselves, and so subservient as to cringe to and obey all that their superiors chose to command them. Hence the men of fortune, who were government men and Tories, held supreme sway. In this district also a Dissenter was despised. Nothing would do but what came from the church. I must be exceedingly cautious how I suffer Dissenters to originate anything ... There was not a prejudice against Dissenters because they differed from the church but because they were the lowest of the people, their preachers too were very low men like themselves.

There was some support for the Society in Ruabon and Wrexham, but only Llangollen petitioned before the Wesleyan Methodists took up the campaign in 1830. NLW ms 14984 A, pt. ii. 28-29; The Times, 7 Mar. 1826.

Wynnstay was among the estates showing signs of distress and neglect, which, together with Sir Watkin’s long absences on the continent, encouraged the Whig copper mine owner and banker, William Hughes* of Kinmel Park, and Richard Myddelton Biddulph*, the heir to Chirk Castle, to try to raise the Myddelton interest in the county; but Mrs. Biddulph ‘very properly’ would not spend. NLW ms 2794 D, R. Smith to H. Williams Wynn, 15 Nov. 1824. When Sir Watkin returned in the autumn of 1824, the customary entertainments for the gentry at Wynnstay and his town house in St. James’s Square resumed. Enclosures were attended to, and attention again focused on the bitter contest between the Whig Middleton Biddulph and Tory West interests in Denbigh Boroughs. A double return there at the 1826 general election seriously impoverished both parties. Ibid. Lady Williams Wynn to H. Williams Wynn, 9, 27 Oct., 19 Dec. 1824; 2795 D, same to same, 3 Nov. 1825; NLW, Coedymaen mss 965; The Times, 23 May 1825, 19, 20 Apr. 1826; N. Wales Gazette, 12 Jan., 23 Feb., 2, 9 Mar., 13, 20, 27 Apr., 29 June, 6 July; Cambrian, 29 Apr., 6 May, 1 July 1826. Nothing came of a rumour that the cotton owner Joseph Ablett of Ffynogion, near Ruthin, whose son and namesake of Llanbedr Hall was the Myddelton Biddulph candidate for the Boroughs, was to stand for the county at the same election and had offered to build a cotton factory in Ruthin. Wynnstay’s bill for Sir Watkin’s return at Wrexham was only £134 1s. 2d. Chester Chron. 9, 16, 23 June 1826; Wynnstay mss L/868.

Matters relating to the Llanrwst and Lledrod enclosures and new roads remained unresolved, but with the exception of the Wrexham-Chester Road Act, which received royal assent, 23 May 1828, Denbighshire initiated less local legislation in the 1826 Parliament. UCNW, Maenan mss 456-8, passim; Shrewsbury Chron. 28 Nov. 1828; LJ, lx. 478. Petitioning by religious congregations increased. Llanrwst and Wrexham Dissenters petitioned for repeal of the Test Acts, 7, 21 July 1827, and congregations countywide in 1828, when the Williams Wynns voted for it. CJ, lxxxiii. 87, 90, 100, 101, 181; LJ, lx. 55, 74, 78, 80. The gentry and clergy of Dyffryn Clwyd (14, 26 Feb., 2 Mar.) and inhabitants of Wrexham (5, 6 Mar.) petitioned against Catholic relief in 1827; CJ, lxxxii. 281; LJ, lix. 72, 106, 126-7. and in 1829 the county’s Methodists and numerous individual parishes met and adopted anti-Catholic petitions, which were supported by the Boroughs Member Frederick Richard West and the Ultra Lord Kenyon of Gredington and his son Lloyd Kenyon*. Some were presented by the Williams Wynns, but they refused to support them. CJ, lxxxii. 281; lxxxiv. 14, 41, 72, 84, 89, 103, 105, 120-1, 140, 151; LJ, lxi. 14, 15, 54, 67, 68, 102, 122, 128, 129, 145, 146, 202, 269, 309; Cambrian, 3 Jan.; Chester Courant, 13 Jan., 3, 24 Feb.; Chester Chron. 13 Feb. 1829. Denbighshire agriculturists and entrepreneurs encouraged Wrexham and Llanrwst to petition with Denbigh against the 1827 Malt Act; Llanrwst and Llangoed wool producers petitioned for protection, 21, 23 May, 4 July; and Llanrwst also petitioned with Dolwyddelan for the retention of duties on imported lead, 9 June 1828. CJ, lxxxiii. 96, 129, 370, 378, 416, 512; LJ, lx. 110, 599; Cambrian, 22 Mar. 1828. Riots, precipitated by local resistance to commercial leasing arrangements made by the proprietor, the bishop of Bangor, broke out in the Llandulas lime quarries near Abergele in April 1829, and troops from Chester were summoned. Shrewsbury Chron. 6 Mar., 1 May; Chester Courant, 28 Apr. 1829. The yeomanry were to have been disbanded when government funding was withdrawn the previous year, but Wynnstay intervened and the corps, which had petitioned against the cuts, was retained. D.J.V. Jones, Before Rebecca, 183; Denb. RO DD/WY/6705.

Distress in agriculture and the iron trade was acute when the Whig John Madocks, assisted by Griffith, Simon Yorke of Erddig, Colonel Salusbury of Llewenny and the Rev. Edward Thelwall, met at a dinner at Denbigh’s Crown Inn ‘to celebrate the birth of an heir to Pengwern’, where they mobilized support for a county distress meeting at Ruthin, 2 Mar. 1830. Coedymaen mss 213; Chester Courant, 23 Feb., 2 Mar. 1830. The Williams Wynns were absent, and

attendance was not very numerous, owing, it was said, to the erroneous notion, generally prevalent, that none but freeholders were eligible to vote, or take any part in the business of the day, the high sheriff having so decided on the occasion of the last county meeting on the proposed alteration in the Welsh judicature. Most of the principal gentry and clergy (Whigs and Tories) were however present. N. Wales Chron. 11 Mar. 1830.

Madocks, seconded by Yorke, carried a petition, which was signed at Denbigh, Llanrwst, Ruthin and Wrexham and presented by Williams Wynn and Lord Bagot, 25 Mar. It expressed disappointment at the omission of distress from the king’s speech and sought government intervention to save ‘the miner, the cultivator and the proprietor of the soil’ from ruin. A resolution thanking ‘Lord Camden and Mr. Moore for their patriotic conduct in returning for the use of the state a large portion of the emoluments which they receive out of taxes’ was also carried. Chester Courant, 9 Mar.; N. Wales Chron. 11, 18 Mar.; Cambrian, 12 Mar. 1830; CJ, lxxxv. 228. Denbighshire’s response to the 1828 justice commissioners’ questionnaires had been supplied by Charles Wynn Griffith Wynne* of Foelas and John Denton of Coediog, a barrister on the Chester circuit, with estates in Chester, Denbighshire, Flintshire, and Shropshire. Griffith Wynne briefly indicated his support for the introduction of judges from the English central courts. Denton, like the Williams Wynns, who had served on the 1817, 1821 and 1822 select committees, declared strongly for a uniform system, abolition of the Welsh judicature and courts of great sessions, and separate circuits for North and South Wales, with Denbighshire and Flintshire consolidated within the former. He also sought the abolition of Denbigh and Ruthin’s lordship courts, required all jurors to be English speaking, and gave an account of the steps he had taken to anglicize his estates. PP (1829), ix. 400, 401, 460-3. In 1829 the commission recommended abolition of the Welsh court system and overriding county boundaries to create new assize districts. Their report suggested adding Denbighshire’s eastern hundreds of Bromfield, Chirk, Ruthin and Yale to Flintshire, with assizes held alternately at Ruthin and Mold, and hearing cases from the western hundreds of Isaled and Isdulas with those from Anglesey and Caernarvonshire in Bangor. Ibid. 48; Cambrian, 18 Apr.; Shrewsbury Chron. 24 Apr. 1829; Cambrian Quarterly Mag. i (1829), 260. Resistance to the proposals was widespread, and after hearing Sir Watkin Williams Wynn’s pro-abolition address endorsing everything except the partitioning of counties, the magistrates at the July 1829 quarter sessions, chaired by Griffith of Garn, delayed adopting them by convening a county meeting in Ruthin, 15 Sept. The signatories, Griffith, Joseph Ablett, Wilson Jones, Richard Newcome, John Peers, George Strong, Thelwall and his son, Edward Williams and Richard Miles Wynne, had interests in Denbigh and the assize town of Ruthin. Chester Courant, 7 Sept. 1829. All except Wynne attended the meeting at Ruthin, 15 Sept. 1829, chaired by the sheriff William Lloyd of Bryn Estyn. Sir Edward Pryce Lloyd was present, and the clergy were particularly well represented. Sir Watkin kept to his July speech, approving the proposals in principle despite reservations on details, which he insisted would be overcome. He claimed that alternate assizes were ‘of trifling inconvenience to professional gentlemen; but suitors would have the benefit of unprejudiced jurors, unacquainted with the circumstances of the case until brought before them’. Seconded by John Heaton of Plas Heaton, he proposed, as in July, the adoption of a pro-forma petition agreed by Members and peers with Welsh interests at his London home, 16 May. It approved assimilation but stated that ‘any plan founded upon the dismemberment of the county of Denbigh, or for attaching it to any English county, would be highly objectionable’. Ibid. 22 Sept.; Shrewsbury Chron. 25 Sept. 1829; NLW, Glansevern mss 905. After some confusion, Charles Williams Wynn confirmed that it was a petition to Parliament and not an address to the king; and Griffith, who had been briefed by the Denbigh attorneys John Copner Williams and John Edwards, put forward the arguments for remedial action commonly voiced by West Wales ‘Reds’ or Tories, and said that ‘this species of joint-stock administration of justice was a degradation to any county’. Supported by Strong and supported by his barrister son George, he proposed a counter-resolution:

That as it is the intention of the legislature to modify if not to abolish the jurisdiction of the existing courts of the Principality, it is our duty carefully to ascertain to what extent our posterity will be benefited or injured by our concessions. That it appears to this meeting, if any abuses have crept into the practice of our courts, or defects become apparent, that by legislative aid they may be corrected, or supplied without the destruction of the fabric on which our constitutional privileges were founded. That it would be highly beneficial to the interests of the Principality that justice should be administered by the judges of the realm, provided the ancient jurisdiction of our courts could be preserved.

The Williams Wynns offered to withdraw their petition and accept a face-saving adjournment proposed by Parry of Warfield and Lloyd of Rhagatt, but even after a majority of four was secured to restrict voting to the freeholders present, both the adjournment and Sir Watkin’s petition were rejected in favour of Griffith’s. NLW, Garn mss (1956), J. Edwards to J.W. Griffith, 11 Sept., Copner Williams to same, 13 Sept.; Shrewsbury Chron. 25 Sept. 1829. When the administration of justice bill, through which the commission’s proposals were enacted, was introduced in the Commons, 9 Mar. 1830, John Jones cited the Denbighshire petition as proof of the great hostility to it. Charles Williams Wynn countered that Griffith’s resolution had been carried by only 12 votes. Griffith was again the instigator and main speaker at Ruthin, 15 Apr., when the county and grand jury petitioned against the measure. Chester Courant, 23 Feb., 6, 13, 20 Apr.; N. Wales Chron. 11, 18, 25 Mar.; Salopian Jnl. 21 Apr., 14 May 1830; CJ, lxxxv. 336; LJ, lxi. 39. The bill, amended to preserve most county assizes, was enacted on 23 July 1830, immediately before the dissolution following George IV’s death. Chester Courant, 8, 15, 22 June, 6 July; Shrewsbury Chron. 16 July 1830; Cambrian Quarterly Mag. ii (1830), 112, 509-11.

The 1830 general election was held in Wrexham and preceded by a déjeuner at Wynnstay, whence the gentry rode in procession to see Williams Wynn proposed by Yorke and seconded by Richard Butler Clough of Bathafarn. His notices were as usual non-political, but the press urged the electors of Wales to judge their Members by their votes on Catholic emancipation and the Welsh judicature. On the hustings Sir Watkin hailed the recent upturn in the local economy and justified his votes for repeal of the Test Acts, Catholic relief, and the administration of justice bill, but admitted, amid cheering, that it had been ‘prepared in too great a haste, and ... completed in a slovenly manner’. The Chester Chronicle reported that freeholders were wined and dined at 20 public houses and ten inns, and beer supplied to the populace. Wynnstay spent £160 4s. 10d. on hospitality, of which £104 10s. was expended on 380 teas and suppers, and a pound on ale. A ‘grand ball and supper’ followed at the Eagles Inn. Chester Chron. 16 July, 13, 27 Aug.; Salopian Jnl. 21 July, 18 Aug; Chester Courant, 3, 24 Aug. 1830; Wynnstay mss L/868.

Denbighshire Nonconformists petitioned heavily for the abolition of colonial slavery in 1830-31. CJ, lxxxvi. 38, 53, 60, 157, 167, 194, 225, 444; LJ, lxiii. 96, 485-7, 492. Amid growing unrest in the North Wales coalfield, where combinations prospered, the Commons received petitions presented by Williams Wynn against the payment of wages in kind from Ruabon, 25 Nov., and Wrexham, 2 Dec., and by Joseph Hume, also from Ruabon, for its continuance, 14 Dec. 1830. Ibid. 134, 145, 173; A.H. Dodd, Industrial Revolution in N. Wales (1990), 366, 367, 404-6. The yeomanry were summoned during the rioting that month, which culminated in confrontation at Acrefair and the battle of Gutter Hill, and coal owners looked increasingly to Wynnstay, where Sir Watkin was also intimidated and appealed to his father-in-law the earl of Powis as lord lieutenant of Shropshire for mediation and support. Jones, 118-19; Herefs. RO, diaries of John Biddulph of Ledbury G2/IV/5/59, 1 Jan.; Salopian Jnl. 5, 12 Jan.; Shrewsbury Chron. 7, 14, 21 Jan.; Chester Courant, 15 Mar. 1831; Coedymaen mss 763. When Lord Grey’s ministry, to which Charles Williams Wynn was appointed, succeeded Wellington’s in November 1830, Montgomeryshire reformers capitalized on the Williams Wynns’ reservations on parliamentary reform, which became apparent during their canvass for Charles’s re-election, carried a petition for reform and retrenchment and urged Denbighshire to follow suit. Chester Courant, 23 Nov.; Shrewsbury Chron. 10, 17 Dec. 1830; Garn mss (1956), W. Owen to J.W. Griffith, 1 Jan. 1831. Possibly because of worsening unrest, this advice was not followed. Denbigh met and adopted a pro-reform petition, 11 Mar. 1831. Wrexham, which under the ministry’s reform bill was to become its contributory, followed suit, 15 Mar., and Ruthin did so, 19 Mar.; but the Tory sheriff, Wilson Jones, put off convening the county until 24 Mar., when it was clear that despite Charles Williams Wynn’s resignation in March because of differences with ministers over the bill, he and Sir Watkin, who presented Wrexham’s petition, 18 Mar., had voted for its second reading, 22 Mar. Griffith, Madocks, Joseph Ablett, George Griffith, Edward Lloyd, Denton, Richard Newcome, Thomas Hughes, Thomas Evans and others with Denbigh, Ruthin and Wrexham interests headed the requisition and also dominated the meeting at Ruthin, 31 Mar. NLW ms 2797 D, C. to H. Williams Wynn, 3 Mar.; Chester Courant, 22, 29 Mar.; N. Wales Chron. 17, 24 Mar.; Shrewsbury Chron. 25 Mar.; Chester Chron. 18, 25 Mar. 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 402, 435. In Jones’s absence, it was chaired by John Heaton, an ally of Wynnstay. Madocks and Griffith carried a petition in favour of the government’s bill, and the duke of Sussex, a friend of Hughes of Kinmel Park and freeman designate of Denbigh, was asked to present it to the Lords. Those present agreed that

... the address to His Majesty and the petition to the House of Commons [should] be entrusted to Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, bt., who is fully entitled to the thanks and confidence of this county, having supported a measure which this meeting believes to be vitally important to their own individual interests, and to those of the country at large; and that he be requested zealously to continue the support he has already given to the reform bill.

Myddelton Biddulph, Member for the Boroughs since 1830, was also thanked for supporting the bill. Chester Courant, 5 Apr.; Chester Chron. 8 Apr. 1831. Sussex presented the petition, 21 Apr.; and according to William Lloyd of Cefn, Sir Watkin ‘incurred the general displeasure of every independent gentleman in the county’ by failing to present it to the Commons before the dissolution precipitated by the bill’s defeat on Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, for which he and his brother voted, 19 Apr. LJ, lxiii. 499; The Times, 22 Apr.; Chester Chron. 22 Apr. 1831; Wynnstay mss L/932; Yr Efangylydd, i. (1831), 191-4. Newspaper correspondents and editors questioned Williams Wynn’s ability and aptitude to represent the county. They criticized his intellect and condemned him as a party man who had done ‘all in his power to destroy our ancient and valuable judicature ... in direct opposition to the voice of the people he represented and to the very great injury of the Principality at large’, and as a landlord who ‘a few years back tried to disfranchise the small freeholders by making them contributory to him, and thus destroying their right to vote’. They urged the freeholders to reject him as ‘a traitor to reform ... or make him subscribe to the test’, and suggested Ablett, Griffith, William Hughes, Madocks and Myddelton Biddulph as suitable alternatives. Chester Chron. 26 Apr.; Shrewsbury Chron. 29 Apr.; Spectator, 30 Apr. 1831. Wynnstay expected contests in Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire, and Sir Watkin canvassed in person, despite severe hearing problems. His notice to the freeholders stressed his long service, adding: ‘It is useless for me now to make professions and all I have to state is that should you be kind enough to re-elect me, I shall endeavour to prove my gratitude to you by continuing an honest and diligent discharge of the trust you have reposed in me’. His effigy was paraded and burnt in the market square in Ruthin, and it was reported that he narrowly missed being tarred and feathered. NLW ms 2797 D, F. to H. Williams Wynn, 19 Mar., W. Williams Wynn to same, 11 Apr.; Chester Chron. 29 Apr., 6 May; Chester Courant, 3 May; Morning Chron. 3 May; Salopian Jnl. 4 May; Spectator, 7 May 1831. With Myddelton Biddulph unopposed in the Boroughs, the reformers summoned their supporters to Wrexham for the nomination of an unnamed candidate. It was put about that Madocks, to whom Griffith forwarded a requisition, 2 May, would stand. NLW ms 2797 D, F. to H. Williams Wynn, 19 Mar., W. Williams Wynn to same, 11 Apr.; Chester Chron. 29 Apr., 6 May; Chester Courant, 3 May; Morning Chron. 3 May; Salopian Jnl. 4 May; Spectator, 7 May 1831. He replied, 4 May:

Of the probability of success in an opposition to Sir Watkin, I can here in London form no opinion. Motives of prudence and the duty which I owe to my family render it of course impossible for me to enter in any way into the expense of a contested election and I may likewise be permitted to add that I should regret extremely if any useless opposition were to be offered or any steps taken towards a struggle which did not appear to give the promise of a successful result.Garn mss (1956), Madocks to J.W. Griffith, 4 May 1831.

Madocks held out little prospect of funding from London, but expected ‘no difficulty in instructing a barrister to volunteer’. This was confirmed by Griffith’s son William, who had applied for assistance, 4 May:

The committee of the Loyal and Patriotic Fund seem to think it very unfortunate that Mr. Madocks is not there in person, and I think are a good deal influenced by that circumstance in withholding their aid, but if you make a good show on the poll for the first two or three days so as to induce a reasonable hope of ultimate success, I think the committee might yet be persuaded to render you some assistance. Ibid. W. to G. Griffith, 5 May 1831.

Many went to support ‘Madocks, the king and reform’, and much was made of his being a brother-in-law of the wealthy banker Abraham Robarts*; but according to Fanny Williams Wynn, Griffith and Williams Hughes were the only gentlemen who supported him. NLW ms 2797 D, F. to H. Williams Wynn, 9 May 1831. Griffith, who had offered to stand himself should Madocks decline, nominated him in absentia, it having been agreed that he would ‘allow no vexatious proceedings, at the same time doing justice to the freeholders’. Lloyd of Cefn, who had been slighted by Williams Wynn, seconded. Garn mss (1956), Madocks to J.W. Griffith, 7 May 1831; Wynnstay mss L/932. On the hustings Sir Watkin, who was proposed by Wynn of Coed Coch and seconded by Pryce of Bryn-y-Pys, capitalized on his deafness and local anti-Irish sentiment and won sympathy by claiming that he favoured reform but had failed to hear warnings that a vote for Gascoyne’s motion could kill the bill. He claimed that his vote had been specifically against increasing Irish and Scottish representation. His assertion that there had been insufficient time to present the county petition was disputed. A compromise being sought, Madocks’s Denbigh committee, headed by Thomas Evans, Griffith and J. Vaughan Horne, secured a promise that Sir Watkin would heed his constituents’ views on reform if they abandoned their opposition, and Madocks’s nomination was withdrawn. The Times was one of many newspapers to report that Sir Watkin had made ‘a distinct pledge’ to his constituents:

The general opinion now is that in case the county is not satisfied with his conduct when the bill is again before the House, he will resign; and if he does not, the feeling in favour of reform has now become so strong in this country that he will not have the slightest chance of success. Western Times, 7 May; The Times, 10 May; Chester Courant, 10 May; Chester Chron. 13 May; Shrewsbury Chron. 13 May; Hereford Jnl. 14 May; St Deiniol’s Lib. Glynne-Gladstone mss 198, T. to J. Gladstone, 8 May 1831; Y Gwyliedydd, viii (1831), 190-1.

Madocks thought Griffith had acted correctly, but noted, ‘I do not collect from your letter whether on the hustings you demanded any pledge from Sir Watkin’. Garn mss (1956), Madocks to J.W. Griffith [9 May 1831]. Wynnstay spent £96 2s. 6d. on attorneys’ fees and transport and £355 2s. 2d. on hospitality. The attorneys of Denbigh later claimed that their prompt action alone, at Heaton’s behest, had saved Sir Watkin. Wynnstay mss L/869-72; 934, 935. Dining his friends at Ruthin, 14 May, he again attributed his vote on 19 Apr. to his deafness. Shrewsbury Chron. 19 May; N. Wales Chron. 24 May 1831. Myddelton Biddulph’s ‘friends’, who dined in Denbigh, 28 May 1831, drank to Griffith, Lord Grosvenor, William Hughes, Sir Edward Pryce Lloyd, Madocks, Edward Mostyn Lloyd Mostyn*, Foster Cunliffe Offley*, and George Wilbraham*, but would only raise their glasses to Williams Wynn as lord lieutenant, not as Member for Denbighshire. Chester Courant, 31 May 1831.

Williams Wynn’s ‘pledge’ was referred to in debate when he presented the county reform petition, 22 June 1831; but, though challenged, he repeatedly denied that he was ‘called upon to give, nor did I give any pledge on the subject of reform’, which he admitted the majority of his constituents supported. Partly on the initiative of Griffith and reformers anxious to prevent Wrexham dominating Denbigh Boroughs, a petition got up at Llanrwst for reform and enfranchisement was received that day; Abergele resisted pressure to petition similarly. Griffith, who had urged it, wrote that ‘perhaps they do not like to lose their vote in the county, which those who have no freeholds elsewhere would do’. UCNW, Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7871, 7872; CJ, lxxxvi. 534, 572. The Williams Wynns voted for the second reading of the reintroduced bill, 6 July, but absented themselves or cast hostile votes thereafter. Coedymaen mss 772. Charles Williams Wynn argued repeatedly in committee, and so did Lloyd Kenyon, 18 Aug. 1831, that Denbighshire merited additional representation on population grounds (83,629 in the county, 69,545 in the constituency). Somewhat to Charles Williams Wynn’s surprise and regret, for he thought it would produce more contested elections, in September 1831 ministers decided to award Denbighshire a second seat. Wynnstay mss L/1039; Coedymaen mss 217. The county was not convened again on reform, Llanrwst failed to secure enfranchisement and the Williams Wynns lobbied successfully to confine Wrexham’s borough franchise to Wrexham Abbot, Wrexham Regis and part of Esclusam. The boundary commissioners recommended transferring Creuddyn and the townships of Eirias and Maenan to Caernarvonshire and designated Denbigh, Llangollen, Llanrwst, Ruthin and Wrexham as polling towns. PP (1831-2), iii. 300.

Registration took place in the autumn of 1832 at Llangedwyn, Llangollen, Cerrigydrudion, Llanrwst, Abergele, Denbigh and Ruthin; but preparation of voting lists was delayed pending judgement on Follett’s rulings that cottagers could not be enfranchised without at least 20 years’ proven occupation, and that trustees and ministers of Dissenters’ chapels ‘cannot vote unless the chapel is of sufficient value to give each the £10 or 40s. per annum’. Salopian Jnl. 17 Oct., 5, 26 Dec. 1832; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7873-5. The decision, ‘against all the encroachment or cottage votes that are not above 60 years standing’, left the county with a registered electorate of 3,401, and was thought to favour the Conservatives. PP (1834), ix. 591; Coedymaen mss 231; Add. 40403, f. 119; NLW ms 2797 D, W. to H. Williams Wynn, 21 Nov. 1832. Nevertheless, the Liberal, Myddelton Biddulph, who had declared his candidature, 15 Sept. 1831, and was supported by Grosvenor, William Hughes, Mostyn, Sir Stephen Glynne*, Lord Gwydir*, Griffith and Madocks, took the second seat in December 1832, narrowly defeating the Conservative Kenyon, whose principal supporters were Clough, Sir Foster Cunliffe, Wilson Jones, Lloyd of Rhagatt, Thurlston Mainwaring, Salusbury, Thelwall, Sir Robert Vaughan, Member for Merioneth, and Sir John Williams of Bodelwyddan. Slavery and church reform were the major issues, and the return of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn was never in doubt. Chester Chron. 23 Sept. 1831, 27 July, 17 Aug., 28 Dec. 1832; Caernarvon Herald, 24 Sept. 1831; Chester Courant, 11 Sept. 1832; N. Wales Chron. 1 Jan. 1833; NLW ms 2727 D, W. to H. Williams Wynn, 10 July, 21 Nov. 1832; Wynnstay mss L/934-75; 889, 1040; NLW, Chirk Castle mss C/87; Coedymaen mss 234; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7877-80. The Conservative William Bagot took the second seat from Myddelton Biddulph in 1835, retaining it until defeated by Myddelton Biddulph (and the Progressive Reform Society) in 1852, and one-and-one representation persisted after Myddelton Biddulph was defeated by a second Liberal in 1868. To preserve the Wynnstay hegemony, Henry Cholmondeley sat briefly as locum, 1840-1, pending the coming of age of his cousin Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, 6th bt. (1820-85).Bye-gones (1880), 41; M. Cragoe, Culture, Politics, and National Identity in Wales, 1832-1886, pp. 23, 50, 51, 88, 89, 224, 225, 261.