Family and Education

b. 7 Sept. 1687, 1st s. of Sir Humphrey Mackworth, M.P., by Mary, da. and h. of Sir Herbert Evans of Gnoll.  educ. Westminster; Magdalen, Oxf. 1704; I. Temple 1708.  m. 29 Apr. 1736, Juliana, da. of William, 5th Baron Digby, 1s. 6da.  suc. fa. 25 Aug. 1727.

Offices Held

Biography

With the Gnoll estate Herbert Mackworth inherited coal mines and many industrial enterprises, including the Gnoll Copper Works at Neath, which he himself further developed.1 He owed his election for Cardiff to his control of two boroughs in the constituency. In Dupplin’s list drawn up after the election of 1754 he was included among the Tories against, and Bute’s list of December 1761 also classes him as a Tory. Apparently absent from the debates over the peace preliminaries in 1762, he was reported by Lord Sandwich in November 1763 to be ‘present and a friend’ to the Grenville Administration,2 and he does not appear in any of the minority lists during this Parliament. In Rockingham’s list of July 1765 he is listed as an opponent. There is no evidence of his having spoken in the House.  He died 20 Aug. 1765.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Peter D.G. Thomas

Notes

• 1. D. Rhys Phillips, Hist. Vale of Neath, 227, 238, 268-80, 310.
• 2. Add. 38201, f. 232.