Family and Education

bap. 28 Aug. 1684, o. s. of Sir John Morgan, 2nd Bt.*  educ. M. Temple 1699; travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1701–2.  m. 7 June 1709, Anne, da. and h. of John Roydhouse, vintner, of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Mdx., 1s.  suc. fa. as 3rd Bt. 10 Jan. 1693.1

Offices Held

Biography

Morgan’s first recorded political activity was in the family tradition of harrying the Harleys and Foleys, in Radnorshire, where it was reported prior to the 1708 election that he was supporting Richard Fowler’s† challenge to Thomas Harley* in the county, and in Hereford, where he put up that year against Thomas Foley II*, probably as the instrument of some scheme of his uncle James*. In 1710 he did not ‘appear’ at Hereford but received the votes of freemen discontented with the two candidates, Foley and Hon. James Brydges*. These were insufficient to secure him a seat. Subsequently the ministerial revolution of 1710 seems to have encouraged him to come to terms with his family’s old rivals. Early the following year he attended meetings in London with the Harleys and Foleys and their Tory allies from Herefordshire, in which a forthcoming by-election in that county was probably discussed, and when the vacancy eventually arose in 1712, for knight of the shire, he put up with support from the Harley, Foley and Brydges clans: indeed, with promises from ‘everybody of consideration’ in Herefordshire except John Dutton Colt* and Sir Herbert Croft, 1st Bt.* Simultaneously he was doing all he could to defuse his uncle James’s opposition to Thomas Foley II’s re-election at Hereford, attempting to dissuade his uncle’s friends there from demanding a poll. Foley wrote that Morgan was ‘very hearty in opposing any trouble being given me’ and that Morgan was the first person to poll on his side.2

An inactive Member, Morgan voted for the French commerce bill on 18 June 1713. He was classed as a Tory in the Worsley list and in two lists of Members re-elected to the 1715 Parliament, in which he voted against the septennial bill. He died on 14 Dec. 1716.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

• 1. IGI, Herefs.; Williams, Herefs. MPs, 59; C 6/354/24; M.T. Adm. i. 246; HMC Buccleuch, i. 752, 758, 760; Top. and Gen. iii. 375.
• 2. Harley mss at Brampton Bryan, John Griffiths to [?Robert Harley], 10 Mar. 1707[–8]; Huntington Lib. Stowe mss 57(4), pp. 176, 178; 58(6), p. 212; 58(11), pp. 120, 135, 137–8; 58(12), p. 131; Hereford and Worcester RO (Hereford), Brydges mss, William* to Francis Brydges, 8 Mar. 1710[–11]; Add. 70226, Thomas Foley II to Ld. Oxford (Robert Harley), 18 July 1712.
• 3. Williams, 59.