Monmouthshire

Since the 5th Duke of Beaufort had purchased the Usk estate in 1771, he and the Morgan family of Tredegar possessed about equal estates in the county (said to be worth about £12,000 p.a. in 1795).W. T. Morgan, JNLW, x. (1957), 167; E. E. Havill, ‘Parl. Rep. Mon. 1536-1832’ (Univ. of Wales M. A. thesis, 1949); R. D. Rees, ‘Parl. Rep. S. Wales 1790-1830’ (Reading Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1962), i. 249; Farington Diary (Yale ed.), ii. 289. Accordingly on the death in 1784 of John Hanbury of Pontypool, who had shared the representation of the county with the Morgans, the duke secured the return of his nominee: and again in 1785. His friend Rooke retained the seat unopposed until his death in 1805. When the 6th Duke then put up his brother Lord Arthur Somerset, an attempt was made to persuade Capel Hanbury Leigh to stand as an independent, but he refused, and the Morgans of Tredegar would not hear of abetting the move.Cambrian, 12, 26 Oct., 23 Nov. 1805. Lord Arthur and the duke’s younger son Lord Granville, in 1816, were unopposed.

The Tredegar interest was represented by John Morgan; on his death in 1792 by his nephew-in-law Robert Salusbury; and from 1796 by his nephew and heir Charles Morgan, who held the seat until 1831. While John Morgan had resented the growing influence of the Duke of Beaufort and gone into opposition when Beaufort was awarded the lieutenancy of Brecon in addition to that of Monmouth in 1787, his nephew collaborated with Beaufort to preserve the peace, which entailed supporting Beaufort in the boroughs seat and, in turn, receiving Beaufort’s support in Breconshire.Camden mss C.261. Nevertheless, a county meeting of 1797 carried an anti-ministerial resolution inspired by James Greene, and apart from the bid to sponsor an independent candidate in 1805, resentment at the Beaufort-Morgan pact became conspicuous from 1817 onwards. John Hodder Moggeridge of Llanrumney, a Whig reformer, led the opposition, starting with a meeting to present a petition for parliamentary reform.Cambrian, 1 8, 22 Mar. 1817. He made slow progress, and although he informed Earl Grey in 1819 that ‘there is spirit and money enough in the county to aid the struggle which is apparently confined to the borough’,Grey mss, Moggeridge to Grey, 15 Jan. 1819. his efforts got nowhere until 1831.