Magens Dorrien Magens
Magens Dorrien Magens (ca. 1768 – 30 May 1849) of Hammerwood Lodge, Sussex, was an English banker, Member of Parliament and author. In early life he was known as Magens Dorrien. He adopted the surname of Magens by special licence on 16 December 1788, after his marriage.[1]
In 1788 Dorrien (as he still was) married Henrietta Cecilia Rice (1758–1829), a daughter of George Rice and Cecil de Cardonnel, 2nd Baroness Dynevor.[1][2] Their children were Cecilia, George William, Maria, and Anne Frances.[3][4]
His bank was called Magens, Dorrien, and Magens. By 1798 it was Dorrien, Magens, Mello, Martin, and Harrison, and later changed its name to Dorrien, Magens, Mello, and Company. In 1798 the firm sent some silver bullion to the Royal Mint to be coined into shillings, resulting in the rare "Dorrien and Magens shilling" of 1798.[5]
A Tory, Magens stood for parliament in Carmarthen in May 1796 and was elected but was unseated in November following an election petition.[1] He was a member of parliament for Ludgershall in Wiltshire from 1804 to 1812. Re-elected in 1812, in December of that year he became Steward of the Manor of East Hendred, a notional "office of profit under the Crown" which was used as a device for resigning from the House of Commons.
Magens died in 1849.
Publications
- Magens Dorrien Magens, Esq., An Inquiry into the Real Difference between Actual Money and Paper Money; Also an Examination into the Constitution of Banks (London, 1804)
- Thoughts Upon a New Coinage of Silver, More Especially as It Relates to an Alteration in the Division of the Pound Troy; by a Banker (new edition by Gale Ecco, 2010)
Notes
- 1 2 3 William Retlaw Williams, The Parliamentary History of the Principality of Wales, from the earliest times to the present day, 1541-1895, p. 55
- ↑ Joshua Wilson, A biographical index to the present House of Commons (1806), p. 361
- ↑ John Debrett, Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1820), p. 503
- ↑ John Burke, A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain, vol. 2 (1835), p. 422
- ↑ The Numismatic Chronicle, vol. 18 (Royal Numismatic Society, 1978), p. 209
External links
- Magens Dorrien Magens at theyworkforyou.com