MOUNT, William (1787-1869), of Wasing Place, Thatcham, Berks.

Mount’s ancestors were in business as stationers in the vicinity of Tower Hill, London from the late seventeenth century. His grandfather John Mount established himself as a Berkshire squire by purchasing the Wasing estate in 1760. He served as sheriff of the county in 1770 and died in 1786, after bequeathing £13,500 to his wife, an annuity of £1,000 plus £8,000 to his son John, and a total of £30,000 to his sons Edmund, Harry and Richard, and daughters Harriet, Jane, Louisa and Mary Christian. His residuary legatee and sole executor was his eldest son William Mount, who inherited landed property in Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey, and a house, shop and warehouse at Tower Hill. He seems to have continued the family business, which was styled Mount and Davidson during the 1790s, until about the turn of the century. He extended and consolidated his holdings of land in the Thatcham area of Berkshire and became captain commandant of a corps of volunteer cavalry raised in 1803. In his will, dated 8 June 1809, he left his wife £2,000 and an annuity of £1,500, and his daughters Emily, Laura and Maria legacies totalling £21,000. The residue of his personalty, which was sworn under £70,000, and all his real estate, including property at Tower Hill, passed to his only surviving son William. Stationers’ Co. Apprentices, 1641-1700 ed. D. McKenzie (Oxf. Bibl. Soc. n.s. xvii), 57, 117 and 1701-1800 (n.s. xix), 243, 244, 258; C.R. Rivington, Recs. Stationers’ Co. 51; R. Myers, Stationers’ Co. Archive, 215; VCH Berks. iii. 313, 314, 319; iv. 59, 115; S. Barfield, Thatcham, i. 64, 67-68, 360; PROB 11/1144/394; 1146/484; 1570/386; IR26/649/443. A year after coming into this inheritance in 1815 Mount went on an extensive European tour. In 1818 he was returned for Yarmouth by his close friend Sir Leonard Thomas Worsley Holmes*, with whom he had been at Eton. He vacated nine months later to accommodate government. Worsley Holmes made him a guardian of his under-age daughters, an executor of his will, and a trustee of his Isle of Wight property. Immediately after Worsley Holmes’s death in January 1825 Mount, on behalf of the trustees and in compliance with his friend’s wishes, placed the vacant seat for Newport at the disposal of the Liverpool ministry. In conjunction with Lord Yarborough, a fellow trustee, he had to fend off the importunity of one Charles Rushworth, who pestered them to fulfill his kinsman Worsley Holmes’s alleged promise to secure his promotion from the tax to the excise office. Berks. RO, Mount mss D/EMt F13, 14, passim.

At the 1830 Berkshire election Mount proposed the re-election of Robert Palmer, an ‘independent’ Member who had served ‘with honour’ on the finance committee. The Times, 9 Aug. 1830. In April 1831 he signed the Berkshire declaration against the Grey ministry’s reform bill, which called for a more moderate measure. Ibid. 9 Apr. 1831. At that month’s dissolution it was reported that Yarborough, the dominant trustee, had sold the Worsley Holmes seats for Newport and Yarmouth to ministers. Three Diaries, 90; Greville Mems. ii. 140. Three of the four Members elected were supporters of the reform bill (as was Yarborough’s nominee for Newtown), but Mount returned himself for Newport as an opponent of the measure. He voted against the second reading of the revised bill, 6 July, and presented and endorsed a petition calling for an additional Member to be given to the Isle of Wight, 13 July 1831. He voted for use of the 1831 census as a basis for disfranchisement, 19 July, against the inclusion of Chippenham in schedule B, 27 July, and against the passage of the bill, 21 Sept. He was in the minority for inquiry into the grievances of West Indian sugar producers, 12 Sept. He voted against the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, the enfranchisement of Tower Hamlets, 28 Feb., and the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. On 20 Mar. he presented a petition from Isle of Wight hoteliers for relief from their liability to compensate guests for loss of property. He voted against the second reading of the Irish reform bill, 25 May, and against ministers on the Russian-Dutch loan, 12 July 1832. Earlier that year he was badgered, as one of the Worsley Holmes trustees, to obtain ‘long promised provision’ for the son of a constituent, who complained that an associate of Yarborough had received preferential treatment. Mount, reporting the failure of his approaches to government, remarked that ‘unfortunately ministers forget to fulfil arrangements which they are ready enough to make when it suits them’. Mount mss F15, Faquett to Mount, 7 Feb., 22 Mar., replies, 11 Feb., 23 Mar. 1832. He retired from Parliament at the 1832 dissolution.

Mount died in April 1869. By his will, dated 21 Jan. 1858, he settled £1,000 a year on his wife and left £24,000 to his two surviving younger children. He was succeeded by his elder son William George Mount (1824-1906), Conservative Member for South Berkshire, 1885-1900.