Regency Personalities Series-Samuel Whitbread (Politician)

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Samuel Whitbread (Politician)

January 18, 1764 – 6 July 1815

Samuel Whitbread

Samuel Whitbread (Politician) was born in Cardington, Bedfordshire, the son of the brewer Samuel Whitbread. He was educated at Eton College, Christ Church, Oxford and St John’s College, Cambridge, after which he embarked on a European ‘Grand Tour’, visiting Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Prussia, France and Italy. He returned to England in May 1786 and joined his father’s successful brewing business.

Whitbread was elected Member of Parliament for Bedford in 1790, a post he held for twenty-three years. Whitbread was a reformer — a champion of religious and civil rights, for the abolition of slavery, and a proponent of a national education system. He was a close friend and colleague of Charles James Fox. After Fox’s death, Whitbread took over the leadership of the Whigs, and in 1805 led the campaign to have Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, removed from office.

Whitbread admired Napoleon and his reforms in France and Europe. He hoped that many of Napoleon’s reforms would be implemented in Britain. Throughout the Peninsular War he played down French defeats convinced that sooner or later Napoleon would triumph, and he did all he could to bring about a withdrawal of Britain from the continent. When Napoleon abdicated in 1814 he was devastated.

Whitbread began to suffer from depression, and on the morning of 6 July 1815, he committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor.

Whitbread married Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the first Earl Grey on 26 December 1787. Their sons William Henry Whitbread and Samuel Charles Whitbread were also Members of Parliament.

Samuel Whitbread Academy in Central Bedfordshire is named after him.