DIED 1734.
By Dahl.
HE was the eldest son of Richard Newport, second Earl of Bradford, by Mary Wilbraham. He represented Shropshire in several Parliaments during his father’s life, and was at different times Lord-Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the Counties of Stafford, Shropshire, and Montgomery. Lord Bradford died unmarried at his house in St. James’s Place, and was buried in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel at Westminster.
He was succeeded in his titles, and such estates as he could not alienate, by his brother Thomas, who had become imbecile through a fall from his horse in early life in Cowhay Wood, Weston Park. He was incompetent to manage his own affairs, and, dying at Weston, 1762, his titles became extinct, and his property descended to his nephews, the sons of Lady Anne Bridgeman; and the Countess of Mountrath. Henry, Lord Bradford was an immoral and vindictive man, and having quarrelled with his mother on account of her endeavour to disentangle him from some disgraceful connection, he vowed vengeance on her and her whole family. This threat he carried out in a shameful manner, and though the story is long and complicated, yet it bears so nearly on the fortunes of the present possessor of Weston, that we cannot refrain from entering into details. In 1715, Lord Bradford cut off and debarred all the then existing entails of the family estates over which he had any power, and in 1730 he made a will by which he left all his large estates in trust, for the use of John Newport, alias Harrison, alias Smyth, his illegitimate son by Anne, wife of Ralph Smyth, son of the Dean of Raphoe, that lady being then Lord Bradford’s mistress; the property to revert to the testator’s lawful heirs in the event of the aforementioned John’s death without children. But two days afterwards he repented of this partial act of compensation, and added a codicil by which he left the same property to the same trustees, in case of John’s death without heirs, to his mother, Mrs. Anne Smyth, for her own personal use, to be devised as she saw fit, provided that during John’s lifetime she should set aside a proper sum for his use and maintenance, after which she might make any use she chose of the residue. Four days afterwards another codicil assured the lady in question a further sum of £10,000.
Lord Bradford died in 1734, and Mrs. Anne Smyth in 1742, having two months before her death made a will leaving all the property bequeathed her by the said Earl to one Alexander Small, a surgeon (excepting as before what was set aside for the maintenance of John Newport), until John should have attained his majority, which was not to be until he was twenty-six years old. In the event of John Newport’s death without children, then the reversion and inheritance of the said estates she devised to William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, his heirs and assigns for ever. It would be tedious to relate all the legal proceedings which arose out of this eccentric will; suffice it to say that it could not be proved till 1751, nine years after the death of the testatrix. Lord Bath on his part devised the reversion of the property expectant on the death of John Newport, to his brother, General Harry Pulteney, who in turn devised it to the daughter of his cousin-german (Daniel Pulteney), Frances, wife of William Johnstone, and her said husband (who afterwards became a baronet, and took the name of Pulteney), and to their heirs in tail male, with remainder to Harry, Earl of Darlington, whose grandmother was Anne Pulteney, aunt to the Earl of Bath, and daughter of Sir William Pulteney of Misterton, County Leicester and his sons in tail male.
All these aforementioned legatees died in succession without male heirs, excepting the Earl of Darlington, who left an only son, afterwards Duke of Cleveland, on whom the whole of this enormous fortune devolved, and is part of the heritage of the present Duke (1888). Thus the ancient estates of the Newports, including those which descended to them from the Princes of South Wales, passed away from the rightful owners, excepting Weston-under-Lizard, Walsall, and some other estates elsewhere mentioned, which became the property of Sir Henry Bridgeman, grandson of Mary, Countess of Bradford. The savings from the estate during the lifetime of John Newport, which were said to exceed £200,000, were ultimately divided (after deducting the great law charges) between the Crown (to which it passed in default of heirs), and, through a ridiculous quibble of the law, the representatives of Ralph Smyth (John Newport’s mother’s husband).
No. 8. LADY ANNE BRIDGEMAN.
White satin dress. Leaning her arm on a table. Fair hair.