Welsh County

<p>By the middle of the eighteenth century the Wynns of Glynllivon held the dominant interest in Caernarvonshire. At the general election of 1754 Sir John Wynn persisted in his determination to oppose the sitting Member, William Bodvell, despite pressure from the Duke of Newcastle; and to avoid a contest Lord Powis agreed to return Bodvell for Montgomery. When in 1761 Thomas Kyffin of Maenan canvassed Caernarvonshire, Sir John Wynn moved to the borough and left the county to his eldest son, Thomas.

<p>The chief interests in Anglesey were those of the Baylys of Plas Newydd, the Bulkeleys of Baron Hill, and the Meyricks of Bodorgan; but there were also a good many smaller interests, and elections usually produced complex negotiations and manœuvres.

<p>The medieval lordship of Glamorgan was formed after the Norman invasion of the Welsh kingdom of Morgannwg in the last years of the eleventh century. The lordship extended from the River Rhymni in the east to the upper reaches of the Tawe in the west, and was bounded to the north and south by the lordship of Brecon and the Bristol Channel respectively.<fn> <em>Glam. Co. Hist</em>. ed. T.B. Pugh, iii.

<p>Glamorgan, where, partly on account of rapid industrialization, the population increased from 71,525 in 1801 to 126,200 in 1831, was a county of large estates extending from the barren uplands and unfranchised iron town of Merthyr Tydfil in the north, to the corn-growing Vale, with its high concentration of freeholders, and the coastal boroughs of Cardiff, Neath and Swansea in the south.<fn> <em>Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales</em> (1844), ii.