Montgomeryshire had the lowest incidence of middle ranking estates in Wales.
When George III died in January 1820, the most contentious issues were the Montgomeryshire bridges bill, petitioned for at a county meeting in August 1819, and acute distress in agriculture and the woollen trade, which speakers at a meeting at Welshpool, 4 Feb. 1820, attributed to the corn laws, the warehousing system, and the conflicting interests of commerce and agriculture.
As part of the Grenvillite rapprochement of December 1821, Williams Wynn became president of the India board in Lord Liverpool’s administration, leaving the county, according to a correspondent to the Shrewsbury Chronicle, ‘entirely in the hands of placemen’. At the subsequent by-election in Montgomery, Williams Wynn asserted that his political opinions were unchanged and argued that sufficient progress had been made on retrenchment and the currency to justify his supporting government. He rebutted arguments for parliamentary reform ‘by principle and application’ and said it was ‘idle’ to think that immediate tax reductions were possible. The Catholic question, on which Powis Castle and Wynnstay had long differed, remained undiscussed. (Securing permission, against the prevailing cabinet opinion, to promote concessions had been a precondition of Williams Wynn’s accepting office.) His proposers, Archdeacon Corbett and Richard Mytton of Garth, praised his talents and hailed careful selection of Members as the ‘most effectual’ means of reforming Parliament. They also expressed the hope that the administration of which he was now part would secure the abolition of slavery. Glasses were raised at the dinner to Lord Clive* and John Edwards† as heads of the eastern and western militia, and to Sir Watkin for not forfeiting his independence.
William Owen was an alderman of Llanidloes and chairman of the county bench by 1823, when divisions among the magistracy over the provision and siting of a new gaol became apparent. Clive’s friends defeated Owen’s by 19-17 and, pleading poverty, Montgomeryshire petitioned for exemption from the county gaols bill, 26 Mar. 1824. The coroner, Dr. Edward Johnes of Garthmyl, attributed continuing differences on the matter to ‘the little Viscount [Clive] not subscribing his money and influence to support races in the county’.
advisable to leave Pool in the way mentioned, in the hands of William Clive, and also Llanfyllin under the hands of the Rev. David Hughes, the rector and magistrate of the town, this being the only town in the county not taken. Mr. Panton Corbett is to be applied to to write to both when anything is wanted in these two places.
NLW ms 14984 A, ii. 19-22.
The county’s only anti-slavery petitions to the 1820 Parliament came from Llanidloes (6 Mar.), where Wythen Jones, William Owen and Sir Edward Pryce Lloyd* prevailed; and from Machynlleth (10 Apr. 1826), where the interest of John Edwards, who had recently inherited Garth and married Mrs. Herbert of Dolforgan, was in the ascendant.
Williams Wynn’s unopposed return at the 1826 general election was celebrated with the usual dinner and ball for the gentry and freeholders.
The Clives, Williams Wynns and William Owen had favoured abolition of the Welsh judicature and courts of great sessions since at least 1817, and Montgomeryshire’s testimony to the justice commission that recommended it in April 1829 was supplied by the Oswestry attorneys Marshall and Sabine, acting for the Clives, and by Owen. He, in consultation with his kinsman Sir Edward Owen*, and at the request of the commissioner Sir John Bosanquet, submitted a detailed response advocating abolition, the creation of larger assize districts and their assimilation into the English circuit system. He suggested adding Montgomeryshire’s western hundreds to Merioneth, and the eastern to Shropshire, which was essentially what the commissioners recommended. They proposed hearing cases from western Montgomeryshire, north Cardiganshire and Merioneth in Dolgellau, and from the eastern hundreds in Shrewsbury.
The county’s Wesleyan Methodists and other congregations led a vigorous petitioning campaign for the abolition of colonial slavery, 1830-1.
Williams Wynn’s re-election at Machynlleth, 15 Dec. 1830, was proposed by John Edwards and seconded by Corbett, and passed without incident. However, Owen and Hayes Lyon now instigated a search for a reform candidate to oppose him ‘next time’, and Owen wrote to encourage the Denbighshire reformers to follow Montgomeryshire’s example. William Pugh, ‘the proper person [to stand] ... would not permit it on account of his large and young family, all unhappily dependent upon him as their only parent’.
I see our Member has drawn in his horns. He has done wisely. He would otherwise have had an opposition at the next election. His transfiguration will probably save him.
Glansevern mss 2421.
It was evident from Williams Wynn’s widely reported Commons speech, 24 Mar., that he intended opposing the mass disfranchisements proposed in the first clause of the bill, and he was ‘distinctly told’ by the Montgomeryshire reformers that if he contributed to the bill’s defeat he was certain of opposition at the next election.
To prevent the possibility of any mistake I beg distinctly to report what I mentioned in my correspondence with Mr. Tracy and also previously stated to you at Montgomery on Thursday last. That should you unfortunately feel yourself called upon to vote against the schedules A and B, and should be in a majority which would occasion the defeat of the reform bill and a dissolution should follow, I neither can or will give you my humble vote; and as a contest will most certainly in that event take place in this county I shall give my vote to that candidate who will engage to support the bill generally and particularly the schedules A and B.
Coedymaen mss 239.
Confident he could not be ousted, Williams Wynn’s draft reply of 19 Apr. made no concessions.
Your opponents are fully prepared to try their strength, and even had you not spoken in the question on Tuesday (a circumstance I much regret), I think a contest was nearly inevitable ... I hardly know how I could enter the field as your champion, and apprehend that my appearance in Montgomeryshire, whilst it would be embarrassing to myself, would do anything but benefit to your cause.
Glansevern mss 1407; Coedymaen mss 241.
Knowing also of a requisition to Sir Edward Pryce Lloyd, Williams Wynn capitalized on the reformers’ recourse to strangers both in his canvassing address of 25 Apr. and during the ensuing election campaign. Hayes Lyon, the ‘son of a Cheshire barrister’, declared against him, 28 Apr., ‘after many unsuccessful attempts to procure some eminent public man’.
Hayes Lyon’s approval of the ‘whole bill’ and the Montgomeryshire petition was contrasted with Williams Wynn’s abhorrence of disfranchisement.
The Clive interest is still, however, I presume very potent, and we may not I think reasonably calculate on a repetition of the intense enthusiasm which prevailed throughout the country when boroughmongers were to be directly confronted and put down.
Glansevern mss 3704.
Wynnstay postponed the election dinners and ball until after militia training in October, and it was observed that the company in Llanfyllin, Machynlleth and Welshpool was restricted to Wynnstay retainers and out-county guests, and the Clives, Corbett, David Pugh and Davies of Nantcribba.
Williams Wynn divided for the second reading, but often after prior consultation with Clive, he subsequently opposed the reintroduced and revised reform bills.
Number of voters: 1005 in 1831
Estimated voters: 1,110