Capt. Hon. William Montagu, RN, MP

Family and Education b. c.1720, yr. s. of Edward Richard Montagu, Visct. Hinchingbrooke, and grandson of Edward, 3rd Earl of Sandwich. educ. ?Westminster Apr. 1728 aged 7. m. 13 Nov. 1749, Charlotte, da. of Francis Naylor, formerly Blundell, of Offord Darcy, Hunts., s.p.

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Lt. R.N. 1740, capt. 1745.

Biography William Montagu, a naval officer of some distinction, received his first command in the West Indies in May 1744 but was soon unjustly put under arrest for seven months by Commodore Charles Knowles, from whom he obtained damages in a civil suit in 1752. On his release he was made a post captain, 23 May, carrying home the news of the capture of Louisbourg, 27 June 1745, for which he received a grant of £500 in August.1 Three months later he was brought in by his brother, Lord Sandwich, at a by-election for Huntingdonshire, being classed as a ‘New Ally’ in 1746. On 3 May 1747 he took a prominent part in Anson’s victory off Finisterre. Before the general election of July 1747, Sandwich ‘upon some quarrel he has with his brother Capt. Montagu ... determined to drop him, though the gentlemen had agreed to choose him for the county’.2 Consequently he could not stand again, though Sandwich later ‘intended to propose [him] at Huntingdon in case of early vacancy’ and asked his cousin Edward Wortley to bear him in mind for the forthcoming by-election at Bossiney in December 1747. Wortley, however, after offering Montagu the vacancy, thought ‘it would not be proper for me to do as I had designed’,3 but he did provide him with a stop-gap seat there four years later. Meanwhile by December 1751, Montagu had once more been nominated by Sandwich as candidate for the county at the next general election, but he eventually stood down in favour of Coulson Fellowes4 and did not stand again. He died 10 Feb. 1757.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754 Author: R. S. Lea Notes 1. Cal. Treas. Bks. and Pprs. 1742-5, p. 820. 2. HMC 10th Rep. I, 296; Sandwich to Newcastle, 3 May 1747, Add. 32808, ff. 116-17. 3. Sandwich to Pelham, 4 Nov. 1747, Newcastle (Clumber) mss; Wortley to Sandwich, 6 Nov. 1747, Wortley mss, R. Inst. Cornwall. 4. Sandwich to Ld. Trentham and the Duke of Bedford, 15 Dec. 1751, circular letter from Fellowes, 18 Apr. 1753, Bedford mss.

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