MONCKTON, William, 2nd Visct. Galway [I] (?1725-1772).

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1747 - Dec. 1748
1 Apr. 1749 - 1754
1754 - 18 Nov. 1772

Family and Education

b. ?1725, 1st surv. s. of John Monckton, 1st Visct. Galway [I], and bro. of Hon. Robert and half-bro. of Hon. Edward Monckton.  educ. Westminster, Sept. 1737, aged 12.  m. 12 Aug. 1747, Elizabeth, da. of Isaac (or Joseph) Da Costa Villa Real, 3s. 2da.  suc. fa. 15 July 1751, and to estates of his maternal aunt, Lady Frances Arundell of Allerton Mauleverer 1769, and took add. name of Arundell.

Offices Held

Receiver gen. of Crown rents, Yorks. and co. Dur. 1748; master of the staghounds 1765-70.

Biography

The Galway family controlled one seat at Pontefract. Lord Galway supported the Administration till November 1762 when Newcastle went into opposition. During the 1754 Parliament he successfully applied for promotion for his brother Robert, but failed to obtain for himself the office of postmaster general, about which he wrote to Newcastle, 17 Nov. 1758.1In Bute’s list of December 1761 Galway was classed as ‘Newcastle, Government’. He voted with Opposition on the motion to postpone consideration of the peace preliminaries, 1 Dec. 1762, but does not appear in the minority which voted against the preliminaries, 9 and 10 Dec., nor did he resign his office as Newcastle hoped he would.2 Nevertheless, he was classed by Jenkinson in the autumn of 1763 as ‘contra’; voted with Opposition on general warrants, 6, 15 and 18 Feb. 1764, and was listed by Newcastle, 10 May 1764, as a ‘sure friend’. Rockingham, July 1765, classed him as ‘pro’, and he appointed him master of the stag-hounds; but Galway was classed by Townshend, January 1767, as ‘Government’ and he voted with Administration on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767. He voted with Opposition on Wilkes’s petition, 27 Jan, 1769, and appears in North’s list of the Opposition on Wilkes’s libel, 2 Feb. 1769, but with a query against his name.3 No other votes by him are recorded during this Parliament, but he is classed in Robinson’s first survey on the royal marriage bill as ‘contra, present’, and in the second as ‘contra, sick, present’. Apparently he never spoke in the House.

Galway died 18 Nov. 1772.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

  • 1. Add. 32885, f. 381.
  • 2. Add. 32950, f. 237.
  • 3. Fortescue, ii. 77.