Sir Charles Mordaunt, 6th Baronet

Sir Charles Mordaunt, 6th Baronet (1697?-11 March 1778), of Walton d'Eiville in Warwickshire, was an English landowner and Tory Member of Parliament (MP).

He was the eldest son of Sir John Mordaunt, 5th Baronet, and succeeded to the baronetcy on 6 September 1721. The Mordaunts were one of the leading families of Warwickshire, and six successive Mordaunt baronets represented the county or a division of it in Parliament between 1698 and 1868.

Mordaunt was educated at New College, Oxford and Lincoln's Inn. He entered Parliament in 1734 as member for Warwickshire, and held the seat for the next forty years, never having to fight a contested election. In the 1750s he was regarded as one of the Tory leaders in the House, and in the early days of George III's reign, when the balance of power was in doubt, both court and opposition made vigorous efforts to win his support; he was eventually won over to the royal cause by his son, John, being appointed a Groom of the Bedchamber. He retired from Parliament in 1774, expecting his son to succeed him as MP, but the Birmingham manufacturers put up a rival candidate and he was defeated.

Mordaunt married twice. By his first wife, Dorothy (died 1726), daughter of John Conyers of Walthamstow, he had two daughters. On 7 July 1730 he married Sophia, daughter of Sir John Wodehouse of Kimberley, Norfolk; they had two sons.

References

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* Lewis Namier & John Brooke, "The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790" (London: HMSO, 1964)