Although historians of eighteenth-century Ireland are aware of the association between the Irish economic writer Thomas Prior (1681–1751), the founder of the Dublin Society, and the Rawdon family of Moira, County Down, the connexion has only been remarked upon by scholars working on the Rawdons, and in particular by those interested in the life of John Rawdon, first earl of Moira, the pious, philanthropic intellectual (and husband of the blue-stocking Elizabeth), to whom Prior acted as a mentor. Biographers of Prior have focused instead on his connexion with Bishop Berkeley. But Prior's primary working relationship, at least until the mid-1720s, was with the Rawdons. Not only did he receive his first employment from them, he was also a family friend, and for a time lived in the Rawdon household. He was particularly close to Lord Moira's father, Sir John Rawdon, 3rd Bt (1690–1723), whose relatively short life and limited involvement in public affairs have largely sequestered him from the attentions of posterity, but whose character and interests foreshadowed the achievements of his son.

The nature and extent of Prior's involvement with the affairs of the third baronet are documented in his letters to his employer, the bulk of which repose in the Irish section of the Hastings collection at the Huntington Library in California. Consideration of this relationship offers a different perspective on Prior's association with the Rawdon family, suggesting that in the long term intellectual exchange between agent and landlord may have been reciprocal, instead of the unilateral influence attributed to Prior by students of the life and career of Lord Moira.