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Sampson Eardley, 1st Baron Eardley


Sampson Eardley, 1st Baron Eardley FRS (10 October 1744 – 25 December 1824), known as Sir Sampson Gideon from 1759 until 1789, was the son of another Sampson Gideon (1699–1762), a Jewish banker in the City of London who advised the British government in the 1740s and 1750s, and his wife Jane (died 1778), daughter of Charles Ermell of London.

The younger Sampson Gideon (as he then was) was educated at Tonbridge School and Eton College. He was created a baronet, on 21 May 1759, under his father's influence though aged only 13 years. His father had lobbied for the same honour for himself from the prime minister, the Duke of Newcastle, but was denied it on account of his own religion, as he remained a practising Jew. The younger Sampson Gideon and his two sisters, on the contrary, whose mother was Christian, were baptised and brought up in the Church of England.

He served as ToryMember of Parliament for Cambridgeshire from 1770 to 1780, Midhurst from 1780 to 1784, Coventry from 1784 to 1796, and Wallingford from 1796 to 1802.

In 1768, he married Maria Wilmot, the daughter of Sir John Eardley Wilmot, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. On 17 July 1789 he legally changed his surname to that of Eardley. and in the same year he was created an Irish peer, with the title of Baron Eardley, of Spalding in the County of Lincoln. An Irish peerage carried no seat in the House of Lords and thus did not disqualify him from membership of the British House of Commons. In November 1789 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and he was also Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA).


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