Robert Gregory (MP)

For other MPs of this name, see Robert Gregory (disambiguation).

Robert Gregory (1727 – 1 September 1810) was an Irish-born East India merchant and politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1768 to 1784.

Gregory was the only son of Henry Gregory of Galway and his wife Mary Shawe. He went to India where he served with Honourable East India Company and made a considerable fortune. In 1766 he returned from India and settled in Kent.[1] In 1768, he acquired the Coole Park estate of 8,000 acres near Gort in County Galway in Ireland and built a house there.[2][3]

Gregory was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone from 18 March 1768 - 8 October 1774.[4] He was then MP for Rochester, Kent from 7 October 1774 to 1 April 1784.[5] He was also a director of the East India Company between 1769 and 1782 and then chairman briefly before he retired through ill-health.

Gregory married Maria Auchmuty, daughter of an official of the East India Company, and they had three sons. Of these, William Gregory was civil-under secretary for Ireland from 1812 to 1830 and was the father of another Robert Gregory, who died in 1847 from a disease he contracted ministering to his sick tenants.[6] He in turn was the father of William Henry Gregory.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 Gregory family papers
  2. ↑ Lady Augusta Gregory
  3. ↑ Coole Park and Gardens
  4. ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "M" (part 1)
  5. ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "R" (part 2)
  6. ↑ Cooke, Colman M. (1980) [1979], "Lady Gregory's Journals, Volume One, Books One to Twenty Nine, 10 October 1916-24 February 1925 by Daniel J. Murphy (book review)", Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 37: 97–101
Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by
Rose Fuller
with William Northey		 MP for Maidstone
with Charles Marsham, 1st Earl of Romney
Horatio Mann
1768-1774 		Succeeded by
Horatio Mann
with Heneage Finch, 4th Earl of Aylesford
Preceded by
George Finch-Hatton		 MP for Rochester
with George Finch-Hatton
1774-1784 		Succeeded by
Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham
with Nathaniel Smith
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