Samuel Boddington (19 June 1766 – 19 April 1843) was an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

politician. He was a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for

Tralee Tralee ( ; ga, Trá Lí, ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the Lee River') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in County ...

from January 1807 to May of the same year. The Boddington family held large estates in the West Indies and Samuel had been left a fortune by his father who had been a director of the

South Sea Company The South Sea Company (officially The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the South Seas and other parts of America, and for the encouragement of the Fishery) was a British joint-stock company founded in Ja ...

as well as a West India merchant with offices at Mark Lane. In 1792 Samuel fell in love with a penniless orphan, Grace Ashburner, and in 1792 they were married. But Grace soon tired of her husband's quiet intellectual interests (Henry Fox rather unkindly referred to Samuel Boddington as "the arch-bore old Bod.") and eventually she eloped with his cousin Benjamin Boddington who had recently joined the family firm. Thereafter, Samuel approached his friend,

Richard Sharp (politician) Richard Sharp, FRS, FSA (1759 – 30 March 1835), also known as "Conversation" Sharp, was an English hat-maker, banker, merchant, poet, critic, Member of Parliament, and conversationalist. He was at various times known in London society as "Ha ...

, a fellow Dissenter, fellow member of the Fishmongers' Company, and both mutual friends of

Samuel Rogers Samuel Rogers (30 July 1763 – 18 December 1855) was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron. His ...

, asking if he would join him in business, and eventually a West India company of Boddington, Sharp and Philips (

Sir George Philips, 1st Baronet Sir George Philips, 1st Baronet (24 March 1766 – 3 October 1847) was an English textile industrialist and politician. He was closely associated with Manchesterism and has been described as the "unofficial member for Manchester", though not for ...

) was established at 17 Mark Lane. Both Boddington and Philips (later Sir George Philips) followed Sharp's example and became dissenting Whig members of Parliament.

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* 1766 births 1843 deaths Irish slave owners West Indies merchants Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Kerry constituencies (1801–1922) UK MPs 1806–1807 {{Ireland-UK-MP-stub