Samuel Whitbread (politician, 1720)

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Samuel Whitbread (born August 30, 1720 in Cardington , † June 11, 1796 ) was an English politician and businessman.

Life

Samuel Whitbread was the fifth son of Henry Whitbread, a small landowner based in Bedfordshire , and his second wife, Elizabeth (née Read). In July 1757 he married Harriet Hayton († April 1764). The marriage resulted in a son and two daughters. In August 1769 he married Lady Mary Cornwallis, daughter of Charles Cornwallis, 1st Earl of Cornwallis . From this marriage a daughter was born.

Whitbread was an apprentice in a London brewery. In 1742 he bought together with his partners Thomas and Godfrey Shewell and a start-up capital of 2,000 to 3,000 pounds a small brewery in London's Old Street. In the years that followed, the management of the brewery was in Whitbread's hands. In 1750 the brewery was relocated to Chiswell Street. By this point he had established the company as the leading porter brewery in London. In 1761 Whitbread's estate was £ 116,000 and he was wholly owned by the brewery. Over the next few years, he made the company the largest and most technically advanced brewery in the country. In 1790 the brewery's capital was £ 271,240.

Starting in 1761, Whitbread acquired real estate in Cardington, where his father owned real estate, and the surrounding area, making him one of the largest landowners in the county. In addition to Bedfordshire, he acquired lands in Hertfordshire and six other counties between 1760 and 1785 . The total number of his holdings was 4,500 acres . From 1767 to 1768 he held the office of High Sheriff of Hertfordshire . In 1768 he ran in the constituency of Bedford, which also included Cardington, for a seat in the House of Commons . He belonged to this until 1774. Although he was unable to defend his mandate in this constituency in 1774, he managed to move back into the lower house in 1775 with the help of a petition, to which he belonged until 1790 this time. In 1791 he ran unsuccessfully in the constituency of Steyning. With the help of a petition he was able to move into the House of Commons for this constituency in May 1792. In 1796 he decided not to run again. In the last ten years of his life, when the profits from his brewery were at its highest, he quadrupled his Bedfordshire estate. Among other things, he acquired the later family seat of the Whitbreads in Southill in 1795. At the time of his death, his property was over 12,000 acres.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Denis Smith [Ed.]: London and the Thames Valley (2001)
  2. ↑ Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, Ian R. Tyrrell [Eds.]: Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia (Volume 1, 2003)
personal data
SURNAME Whitbread, Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1720
PLACE OF BIRTH Cardington , Bedfordshire
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1796