TALBOT, Richard Wogan (1766-1849), of Malahide Castle, co. Dublin.

Talbot, the scion of an ancient Roman Catholic family, turned Protestant and was elected for county Dublin in 1790, but unseated soon afterwards. He was a distant relation of the Marquess of Buckingham, who brought him to Pitt’s notice in 1793 and tried to assist him in his brief military career. Talbot subsequently introduced cotton manufacture into Ireland, but despite a subsidy of £5,000 from the Irish government, the scheme failed. He then went into banking, but his famous ‘Silver Bank’, Talbot & Co. of Malahide, was wound up in 1806.HMC Fortescue, ii. 418, 425, 427, 428, 441, 446, 450, 453; Cork Hist. and Arch. Soc. Jnl. ii. 186.

Meanwhile he had made another bid to represent his county, in which he could count on Catholic support. Recommended to the viceroy by Lord Somerville in 1801 as a man of large property, a good officer and ‘an active and firm man’, he offered himself in November 1801. His kinsman Lord Westmeath assured government that he would be a steady supporter, except on the Catholic question.Add. 33108, f. 437; 35730, f. 284. Government were neutral towards him and Talbot was defeated at the election of 1802. In 1806 he stood down, but on terms that facilitated his defeat of Falkiner in the election of 1807. He was an avowed supporter of Catholic relief, the subject of his only recorded speech in this Parliament, 1 June 1810, and an opponent of the Portland ministry. He voted steadily with opposition in his first Parliament, particularly on Irish issues, but also on all major questions. He was even in some of the more uncompromising minorities, such as those against Castlereagh, 25 Apr., 11 May 1809; in favour of Burdett, 5 Apr. 1810; in favour of parliamentary reform, 21 May 1810, and against flogging in the army, 18 June 1811: though, possibly on the ground which he later expressed of ‘declining a question which affected any connection of [the Marquess of Buckingham] personally’,Buckingham, Court of Geo. IV, i. 329. he seems to have avoided the divisions on sinecures, except on 4 May 1812 when he was in the majority in favour of reform.

Returned unopposed in 1812, Talbot was less regular in his attendance in that Parliament, notably in 1814 and seemingly in the early months of 1816, 1817, 1818, and, after an easy re-election, in 1819. At least once he spoke briefly, seconding a motion for parliamentary reform from Dublin and Cork, 20 May 1817. Otherwise he remained staunch in opposition, for which he was ultimately rewarded with a peerage. He died 29 Oct. 1849.