Family and Education

b. aft. 1695, o.s. of Sir James Montagu, M.P., chief baron of the Exchequer (bro. of Charles Montagu M.P., 1st Earl of Halifax), by his 1st w. Tufton, da. of Sir William Wray, 1st Bt., of Ashby, Lincs.1 educ. L. Inn 1712. m. (settlement 10 Apr. 1725) Ann, da. and h. of Sir Theodore Colladon of Chelsea,2 sub-governess to the Princesses, 2s. 1da. suc. fa. 1723.

Offices Held

Auditor gen. of duchy of Cornwall 1735-51; auditor of the household to Prince of Wales 1738-51, and to Princess 1751-d.

Biography

Returned as a government supporter in 1722, Montagu did not stand again till 1734, when he was brought in by Richard Eliot for St. Germans. Attaching himself to Frederick, Prince of Wales, who appointed him first to a duchy of Cornwall office, and later also to a household post, he is mentioned by Hervey in 1737 as one of those who were against the Prince’s going into opposition.3 He did not vote in the divisions on the Spanish convention in 1739 and the place bill in 1740; and was among those who withdrew on the motion for the removal of Walpole in February 1741. Returned for Camelford by Thomas Pitt, Frederick’s election manager, he voted with the Prince’s party, of which he was classed as a member in 1746. In 1747 he was put up by Thomas Pitt for Okehampton, where he was opposed by George Lyttelton. His election had been regarded as ‘fixed and sure’, but Pitt soon began to speak ‘very uncertainly’ about his prospects, while he himself complained of ‘agitation of mind’, which hindered him ‘from sleeping a wink’, and looked on Okehampton ‘as entirely lost’. Though professing himself ‘ready on all occasions to obey his Royal Highness’s commands’, he never appeared at Okehampton, on the ground that he ‘was so much out of order that he was not able to undertake the journey’, pleading ‘his infirmities so strongly that it could no longer be insisted on’.4

He died 29 May 1759.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. PCC 240 Richmond.
• 2. Agnew, Protestant Exiles, i. 143-4.
• 3. Hervey, Mems. 851.
• 4. HMC Fortescue, i. 108, 117, 122-6.