Edward Monckton

Edward Monckton (3 November 1744 – 1 July 1832)[1] was a British colonial administrator and nabob, a Whig politician, a member of parliament for 32 years, and an important Staffordshire landowner.

The distinguished soldier and colonial administrator Robert Monckton and William, the second Viscount, were older half-brothers, by Lady Elizabeth Manners, who died in 1730.

The Viscount's Irish peerage was purely a convenient way of ennobling a government supporter while still allowing him to sit in the House of Commons.

The family borough was Pontefract, secured by the first Viscount's purchase of 77 burgages, and represented in Parliament by Moncktons for more than 70 years.

[3] The children of the second marriage lived with Jane Westenra, who had a house in London where she often entertained Samuel Johnson,[4] and where Edward's younger sister, Mary learned the skills of the literary hostess.

Much of his wealth derived from an annual pension of 12,000 pagodas (about £4500) paid to him by the Nawab Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah of Arcot for services rendered.

It was at this point that Monckton effectively staked his career on an alliance with Pigot, marrying Sophia, the governor's illegitimate daughter, on 14 March 1776.

The children of the Viscount's first wife retained the Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire connections, while Edward's brother John had bought Fineshade Abbey in Northamptonshire.

[3] Monckton took a leading part in county life from the outset, becoming a Justice of the Peace and an officer in the Staffordshire Yeomanry, which he joined as Lieutenant-Colonel when it was raised on 20 September 1794, and which he commanded as Colonel from March 1800 until his retirement aged 86 in December 1829.

Despite these economic advantages, Robert Barbor's descendants seem to have got into financial difficulties and were several times in danger of losing the house before Monckton bought it.

Brewood parish was at that time an intensely conservative area, dominated by the Giffard family of Chillington Hall, a short distance south-west of Somerford.

The Giffards were wealthy and had large holdings in land, but as Roman Catholics were excluded from public office by the Penal Laws, so their direct power never matched their influence.

Most of their tenantry were Catholic too, while the other landowners and farmers were mainly Tory High Churchmen, worshipping at the parish Church of St. Mary and St. Chad, where they dominated the vestry.

It emerged that, even if he paid for a new route, the cost of maintaining a new carriage bridge might in future fall on the parish, which the other members of the vestry refused to countenance.

Around 1774, the Chetwynds had lost control, although family members would represent the borough again in the future, and the electorate, mostly tradesmen, were free to sell their vote to the highest bidder.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, standing jointly with Monckton as a Whig, got 248 votes and was declared Stafford's second MP, after apparently paying 5 guineas to each elector.

The overarching issue in the early years was the American Revolutionary War, which Britain was in the process of losing, and in which Monckton's brother Henry had been killed at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778.

Both Monckton and Sheridan sided with the Foxite faction and voted against the Shelburne ministry on the peace negotiations, bringing it down in favour of a short-lived and unpopular Fox-North Coalition.

George III personally ensured that the bill was thrown out by the House of Lords, then dismissed the government and appointed William Pitt the Younger prime minister.

Monckton and Sheridan were returned unopposed in the ensuing general election,[12] probably because their wealth made a contest pointless.

However, large numbers of Whigs lost their seats, becoming known as "Fox's Martyrs", and Pitt was able to form a secure Tory administration.

The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 was already causing internal schism and regrouping among the Whigs, but for some time Monckton continued to vote for radical and liberal measures and against the government.

In April 1791 he supported repeal of the Test Act in Scotland,[1] a measure intended to begin the process of restoring civil rights to Roman Catholics and Nonconformists.

In June 1829, as Magistrate for Staffordshire he prevented a prize-fight (boxing match) happening between Phil Sampson and Simon Byrne at Bishops Wood by arresting the carpenter in charge of building the stage.

The following day, as he would not be persuaded to allow the fight to take place, it was moved as short distance west to a field owned by Richard Jones of Offoxey Farm (aka Huncott or Hunkit) in Tong parish[14] He was the longest serving member of the Staffordshire bench when he died.