Family and Education

b. Jan. 1733, o.s. of Henry, 1st Baron Montfort, by Frances, da. of Thomas Wyndham of Trent, Som.  educ. Eton 1742-8.  m. 1 Mar. 1772, Mary Anne, da. of Andrew Blake of St. Kitts, sis. of Sir Patrick Blake, 1st Bt., 1s.  suc. fa. as 2nd Baron Montfort 1 Jan. 1755 and as high steward of Cambridge, which office he retained till his death.

Offices Held

Biography

His father, who had sat for Cambridgeshire 1727-41, and had since about 1736 managed Cambridge elections in the Government interest, had in 1749 returned for the borough his son-in-law Charles Sloane Cadogan, who in 1754 made room for Bromley, just come of age. Montfort,

having entangled his circumstances very much, having an expensive and paltry fellow for his son, and some bodily complaints ... shot himself on New Year’s Day [1755] in the morning, with all the premeditation and deliberation imaginable.1

Young Montfort reminded Newcastle on 11 May 1756 of a promise to give him a pension before the end of the session:2

I hope his Majesty and your Grace will not think £1000 p.a. too much considering the condition I am left in, encumbered with debts to the amount of above £30,000, and my estate out of repair and in a very ruinous condition.

He was given a secret service pension of £800 (the equivalent of £1,000 because untaxed), starting from Christmas 1756, and he retained it at least till 1782, and presumably till the end of his life. He was for a long time the official manager of the Government interest at Cambridge (and also helped in county elections); but Dupplin till 1762, Soame Jenyns, and the 2nd Lord Hardwicke had a considerable share in its management; and after Charles Sloane Cadogan had ceased to represent the borough, Montfort’s influence declined still further. Absurdly extravagant, he was chronically in money difficulties, and in spite of his rich marriage in 1772 ‘having involved himself in embarrassments’ he advertised in 1776 his estates for sale, and step by step sold his furniture, his pictures, the Hall itself for the materials, and finally his estates.3

He died 24 Oct. 1799.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

• 1. E. Pyle to S. Kerrich, 11 Jan. 1755, A. Hartshorne, Mems. of a Royal Chaplain, 225. See also H. Walpole to Rich. Bentley, 9 Jan. 1755.
• 2. Add. 32864, f. 524.
• 3. Walpole, Corresp. (Yale ed.), ii. 57, 113; CP.