PORTMAN, Henry William (c.1709-61), of Bryanston, Dorset and Orchard Portman, Som.

On the death of Henry Portman (formerly Seymour), the Portman estates, said to be worth over £8,000 a year,1AEM and D. Angl. 82, ff. 4-23. devolved upon his nephew William Berkeley of Pylle, who assumed the name and arms of Portman by Act of Parliament. His son, who was returned as a Tory for Taunton on a compromise in 1734 and for Somerset in 1741, voted consistently against the Government, retiring in 1747 on grounds of ill health.2Portman to Hardwicke, 20 Nov. 1749, Add. 35603, f. 188. Before the 1745 rebellion his name was sent to the French as one of the most considerable of the Pretender’s supporters in England, from the size of his estates and the large number of his tenants employed in the woollen manufacture.3Stuart mss 248/111. The second Lord Egmont in his electoral survey, c.1749-50, described him as ‘a very odd man, has the best Tory interest’. He died 19 Jan. 1761, aged 52.