George Heathcote

George Heathcote (7 December 1700 – 7 June 1768) was an eighteenth-century English politician and philanthropist who was a Member of Parliament and Lord Mayor of London.

He was born in Jamaica, the son of Josiah Heathcote, a West India Merchant of London, and his wife, Catherine, widow of Thomas Barrett of Jamaica. He was a nephew of Sir Gilbert Heathcote, 1st Baronet, Governor of the Bank of England and the brother of Caleb Heathcote, who served as Mayor of New York City. He was educated at Clare College, Cambridge and the Middle Temple (which he entered in 1720).

From 1730 to 1733 he was a director of the South Sea Company and the Master of the Salters' Company in 1737. In 1729 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

From 1727 to 1734 he was the MP for Hindon, Wiltshire and from 1734 to 1741 the MP for Southwark.

He served as an Alderman for the Walbrook ward of the City of London from 1739 to 1749, was elected a Sheriff of the City of London for 1740, and elected Lord Mayor of London in 1742. He also served in Parliament from 1741 to 1747 as the representative for the City of London.

He was an opponent of Robert Walpole’s government ministry and a follower of William Wyndham’s opposition Tory party. He was also a Jacobite, a supporter of the exiled House of Stuart and was actively involved in a plot in 1752 to restore of the Stuart dynasty.

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