Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot

Having then married with the Mansels of Oxwich and Penrice, the Talbots had become Glamorgan’s largest resident landowners, with estates totalling 34,000 acres (14,000 ha) in that county alone.

Talbot's father, however, had shown no interest in becoming an MP but after his death in 1813, the family reasserted its political influences when his mother's second husband, Sir Christopher Cole was elected as county member in 1817.

Will you not, at some convenient time, avail yourself of those well-known means which are always at hand to enable you to retire from your post, when the infant legislator of the House of Margam shall be ripe for action, and thus surrender back the situation which you hold as a trust for that family by, whose interests you have been principally supported throughout the present election.

Although nominally considered a Liberal, Talbot exercised considerable independence for most of his long political career, and his freedom to operate outside of party structures only became limited by the parliamentary reforms which occurred in the latter part of his time in the Commons, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Margam Castle is a Grade I listed building owned by Neath and Port Talbot County Borough council.

In time this was to revolutionise the politics of Glamorgan, but the immediate impact was to increase the Liberal Party's hold on the county and make the election of a Conservative, in most seats, almost inconceivable.

Talbot replied as follows: I am of opinion that there has always hitherto been a great dearth of such members in the House of Commons, and that if a few really able men were elected, the proceedings in Parliament would be all the more likely to give satisfaction to the bulk of the labouring classes.

We have plenty of employers of labour in the House, and many amongst them who profess to have the interest of their men at heart, and we have also a large number who from sentimental or philosophical motives advocate the promotion of the welfare of the people.

Hence it is that I believe the presence of real working men in the House would be of vast advantage to the community at large, and I should be very glad to hear that the electors in the new Rhondda division entertained the same feeling, and were likely to send one of their own body to represent them.

He complained to his fellow county member, Hussey Vivian, that he had a meeting with Maesteg Liberals and although they were friendly to his face, 'I am told that [they] became quarrelsome after I left, and suggested various substitutes'.

[15] Although at heart a Liberal Unionist, Talbot also supported a range of Gladstonian policies and this was undoubtedly a factor in preventing opposition at the 1886 General Election.

He was described as "a tall, elderly gentleman ... wearing a long woollen comforter" in Sir Henry Lucy's Diary of the Salisbury Parliament for 10 June 1888 which was published in book form in 1892.

[17] Talbot was the last Whig aristocratic landowner to represent Glamorgan in the House of Commons and, upon his death in 1890, he was succeeded by Samuel Thomas Evans, the nonconformist son of a Skewen tradesman, and a prominent radical.

"[19] Talbot married Lady Charlotte Butler, daughter of The 1st Earl of Glengall, at Cahir House, County Tipperary, on 28 December 1835.