LLOYD MOSTYN, Edward Mostyn (1795-1884), of Mostyn Hall, Flint and 14 Park Place, Mdx.

Mostyn Lloyd, as he was first known, was born at his maternal grandfather’s Flintshire seat of Mostyn, and was referred to by close friends and relations as ‘Taff’, on account of his bilingualism and pride in his Welsh ancestry and the bardic tradition of the house of Pengwern. After leaving Oxford without taking a degree, he became a magistrate and indulged his love of hunting and horse racing. His horses won the Oaks and St. Leger in 1825 and at Doncaster races in 1830. Y Gwyliedydd, ii (1824), 58; Chester Chron. 23 Aug. 1825; UCNW, Nannau mss 757, 758. When he married in 1827, his paternal grandmother’s Montgomeryshire estates near Llanidloes, parcels of land in Bodfari, Cwm, Rhuddlan, St. Asaph, Tremeirchion and Whitford, Flintshire, and £10,000 were settled on him; and his bride had a portion of £3,750. Flint RO, Mostyn mss D/M/3415, 3716, 3717; Gent. Mag. (1827), i. 641. The birth of their first son, ‘the heir apparent to Pengwern’, 23 Dec. 1829, was widely celebrated, but there was little substance in rumours then current that he would stand for Denbigh Boroughs at the next election on the Whig or Chirk Castle interest of Robert Myddelton Biddulph*. UCNW, Mostyn of Mostyn mss 258; Chester Courant, 9 Feb., 13 Apr.; Salopian Jnl. 10, 17 Feb. 1830. He lost no time in mobilizing support and declaring his candidature for Flintshire in 1831, when the dissolution precipitated by the defeat of the Grey ministry’s reform bill followed closely on the death of his uncle Sir Thomas Mostyn, whose vast estates in Caernarvonshire, Cheshire, Flintshire, Merioneth and Montgomeryshire his father inherited in trust for him with an assured annual income of £3,000. Mostyn mss D/M/3869; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 5470-2. Drawing on the emotive appeal of the name of Mostyn, which Sir Thomas had directed him to take, he adopted it throughout his canvass, although the change had not been gazetted. He professed to be a reformer, ‘a friend of religious toleration’ and advocate of retrenchment and ‘the final extinction of slavery ... born, brought up and resident in the county’, and promised to promote all local interests. Flint RO D/KK/459-62; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 572, 7904; Chester Chron. 22, 29 Apr.; Chester Courant, 26 Apr., 3 May; London Gazette, 13 May 1831. Assisting him, on 27 Apr. his kinsman, the Tory Edward Lloyd of Rhagatt, observed that ‘the reform question has been of wonderful advantage to you, also the circumstance of young [Sir Stephen] Glynne* [of Hawarden] being sheriff. I really augur most favourable things’. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7906. He canvassed assiduously notwithstanding the retirement of his declared opponent, Sir John Hanmer† of Bettisfield, 28 Apr., mustered his supporters in a show of strength before his father’s election for Flint Boroughs, 4 May, and, with the major interests in the county supportive or neutral, he was returned at Flint on the 10th with a great display of largesse. Ibid 7905-8081, 8151, 8152; Chester Courant, 3, 10, 17 May; Morning Chron. 3 May; Y Gwyliedydd, viii (1831), 221-3. He and his father gave Sir Charles Paget* their interest in Caernarvon Boroughs, and he was later sworn in as mayor of its out-borough of Pwllheli, a hereditary office which had passed to Mostyn through the Vaughans of Corsygedol. UCNW, Plas Newydd mss i. 599; UCNW, Porth-yr-aur mss 12583; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7848, 7851; Caernarvon Herald, 26 May, 9 June 1832. His father endorsed St. Asaph’s petition for enfranchisement as a contributory of Flint, and Lloyd Mostyn agreed to support Denbigh’s campaign to add Abergele and Llanrwst to its contributories, 20 May 1831. However, he ensured that petitions entrusted to him from Llanrwst for enfranchisement and from Merioneth for additional representation were presented by Members less committed than he to supporting the ‘whole bill’. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7871, 7872; Salopian Jnl. 22 June; The Times, 25 June 1831.

Generally with his father, he divided for the reintroduced reform bill at its second reading, 6 July 1831, and steadily for its details. His wayward vote for Lord Chandos’s amendment to enfranchise £50 tenants-at-will, 18 Aug., was attuned to local interests. He divided for the bill’s third reading, 19 Sept., and passage, 21 Sept., for the second reading of the Scottish reform bill, 23 Sept., and for Lord Ebrington’s confidence motion, 10 Oct. In September 1831 he had co-operated with Glynne to ensure that Flintshire petitioned urging the Lords to pass the reform bill. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 8438-40; Chester Chron. 30 Sept.; Chester Courant, 4, 11, 18 Oct. 1831. His father’s elevation to the Lords as Baron Mostyn at the coronation that month created a vacancy for Flint Boroughs, where, on their agents’ advice, they acquiesced in the return of Henry Glynne as locum for his brother during his term as sheriff; Lloyd Mostyn moved the writ for the by-election to bring in Sir Stephen Glynne, 16 Feb. 1832. Chester Courant, 13, 20 Sept. 1831, 21, 28 Feb. 1832; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 8128-45, 8155-8; NLW, Glynne of Hawarden mss 5392, 5404; Chester Chron. 2 Mar. 1832. He divided for the revised reform bill at its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831, steadily for its details, its third reading, 22 Mar., and the address calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry it unimpaired, 10 May 1832. He repeatedly urged his father to support it in the Lords. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 265, Lloyd Mostyn to fa., 28 Jan. [13], 17 [28] Mar. 1832. He abstained when most Welsh Members voted for the amendment awarding separate representation to Merthyr Tydfil, 5 Mar. 1832.

The enfranchisement of Llanidloes and Newtown as contributories of Montgomery increased his family’s interest there and Lloyd Mostyn ensured that he was well briefed to forestall attempts by Charles Watkin Williams Wynn* to increase the electorate in the rival Tory boroughs of Llanfyllin and Welshpool. NLW, Coedymaen mss 984; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 265, Lloyd Mostyn to fa. 9 Mar. 1832. In the autumn of 1832 he forwarded Williams Wynn’s request for his vote in his bid for the Speakership to his father with the endorsement, ‘I don’t like the Right Honourable C.W.W.W. What shall I say to the application? Please to turn the matter over in your mind’. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 8422. Acting with the Ultra Lloyd Kenyon of Gredington and Frederick Richard Price of Bryn-y-Pys, whose estates and interests it affected, he opposed the unpopular proposal to transfer Maelor Sais (which included the borough of Overton) from Flintshire to Shropshire and discussed the matter with the leader of the House Lord Althorp, who had the decision reversed. Ibid. same to same Feb., 28 Mar.; 8159-62. He voted in the radical minority to reduce public salaries to 1797 levels, 30 June 1831, but divided with government on the Dublin election controversy, 23 Aug. 1831, and the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12, 16, 20 July 1832. He received an ‘unexpected summons to a meeting in the foreign office’ to rally support for the government’s resolutions on Irish tithes, 9 Mar. Ibid. 265, Lloyd Mostyn to fa., 9 Mar. 1832. He abstained on the government’s temporizing amendment to Buxton’s motion for a select committee on colonial slavery, 24 May 1832. He presented Flintshire’s petition against the use of molasses in brewing and distilling, 13 Aug., Chester Courant, 12 July, 23 Aug. 1831. and one from towns on the North Wales coast for tougher regulation of passenger steam ships following the Rothsay Castle disaster, 20 Sept. 1831, when he was added to the investigative committee. Taking over from his father, he met the local agents and served on parliamentary committees on the 1832 Ffestiniog railway and Caernarvon roads bills and reported back favourably to them. CJ, lxxxvi. 858; lxxxvii. 331-2; Mostyn of Mostyn mss 265, Lloyd Mostyn to fa. 16 Dec. 1831, 16 Feb., 9 Mar. 1832. After presenting a hostile petition from Holywell, he was added to the committee on the factory regulation bill, 24 July 1832.

His agents urged him to spend on voter registration, warning, 9 Aug., that Kenyon (anticipating failure in Denbighshire) was ‘slyly’ targeting Flintshire. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 8163-8, 8435, 8842. Adopting a high local profile, Lloyd Mostyn became foreman of the grand jury that month, presided over dynastic celebrations in September to mark the coming of age of his Catholic kinsman Pyers Mostyn of Talacre, and came in for Flintshire unopposed as a Liberal at the December 1832 general election. Chester Chron. 10 Aug., 29 Sept., 6 Oct. 1832; N. Wales Chron. 1 Jan. 1833. Seeking his urgent assistance with Denbighshire’s Llanrwst voters, 12 Dec., Myddelton Biddulph asked him to

tip them a few words of Welsh on the hustings (if there are any). It would do wonders in this neighbourhood. As your own election will be over by the 21st, our polling day, this will not interfere with your own business or subject you to any remarks should any of the Flintshire Tories be so disposed. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 7876-80.

He also canvassed for Sir Charles Paget* in Caernarvon Boroughs and provided documents to substantiate claims in subsequent pro-Paget petitions that the pre-1832 franchise there had been ‘scot and lot’, Plas Newydd mss iii. 3609, 3618, 3735, 3737; K. Evans, ‘Caernarfon Borough’, Trans. Caern. Hist. Soc. viii (1947), 64; T.M. Bassett, ‘Y Bedyddwyr yng Ngwleidyddiaeth Sir Gaernarfon’, ibid. xlii (1981), 129-34; Gwynedd Archives (Caernarfon RO), Poole mss 5510, 5534, 5535, 5545, 5548; CJ, lxxxvii. 146, 398, 428, 479. and supported the Liberal John Edwards† when his return for Montgomery Boroughs was petitioned against. B. Ellis, ‘Parl. Rep. Mont. 1728-1868’, Mont. Colls. lxiii (1973), 84-88. Problems arising from Sir Thomas Mostyn’s mortgage debts, bequests and reclaiming his property caused friction between Lloyd Mostyn and his father, who was reluctant to authorize the land sales necessary to balance the accounts. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 265, 266, passim. Amid deepening financial crises, Lloyd Mostyn retained his Flintshire seat until defeated by Sir Stephen Glynne in 1837, was unseated on petition after regaining it in 1841, and by 1843 faced bankruptcy proceedings. He sat briefly for Lichfield as his young cousin Viscount Anson’s locum before regaining Flintshire for the Liberals in 1847. Staffs. Mercury, 10, 17 Jan., 7 Feb. 1846. His debts were estimated at £838,604 and his estates valued at £493,011, 12 Jan. 1853, and some of his property was distrained in January 1857; but he recouped by facilitating the development of the seaside resort of Llandudno on his Gloddaeth estate and promoting the Cambrian Coast (Shrewsbury-Pwllheli) railway. In 1883 he held 8,390 acres in Caernarvonshire, Denbighshire and Flintshire. Mostyn of Mostyn mss 270, 271, 292. He died at Mostyn in March 1884, having succeeded his father there in 1854, and was buried at Llanrhos. Chester Courant, 19, 26 Mar.; Chester Chron. 22 Mar. 1884. His eldest son Thomas Edward Mostyn Lloyd Mostyn (1829-61), Liberal Member for Flintshire, 1854-61, had predeceased him and he left ‘everything to my dear wife [d. 1892] absolutely’ and land to his brother Thomas and younger son Roger. He was succeeded in the baronetcy and as 3rd Baron Mostyn by his grandson (Thomas’s son) Llewelyn Nevill Vaughan Lloyd Mostyn (1856-1929).