George Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe

George Bubb Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe, (1691 – 28 July 1762) was a British Whig politician who represented Winchelsea and Bridgwater in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1715 to 1761.

Family and early life Christened George Bubb, he was the eldest son of Jeremiah Bubb of Foy, Herefordshire and his wife Mary Dodington, daughter of John Dodington of Dodington, Somerset. His father died in 1696 and he was taken under the care of his uncle George Dodington. He was educated at Winchester College in 1703 and matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford on 10 July 1707 aged 16. He was admitted at Lincoln's Inn in 1711 and undertook a Grand Tour from 1711 to 1713. Political career Bubb was returned as Member of Parliament for Winchelsea at the 1715 British general election. He was sent as envoy to Spain from 1715 to 1717. He changed his surname to Dodington by a private act of Parliament, (4 Geo. 1. c. 1 ). In 1720 he was appointed Clerk of the Pells for Ireland for life. His uncle died in 1720 and left him his estate. He was Lord Lieutenant of Somerset from 1721 to 1744. At the 1722 British general election he was returned as MP for Bridgwater.

He was taken up by Robert Walpole, who made him a Lord of the Treasury in 1724. He addressed an adulatory verse letter to Walpole in 1726, in which he praised loyalty as the supreme political virtue. He married Katherine Behan in secret, some time around 1725. He was returned again for Bridgwater at the 1727 British general election. When Dodington entered the Broad Bottom administration in 1744, Ralph received a Treasury pension of £200 per year; in 1753, under the Pelhams, he was granted £300 to cease pamphleteering. Ralph’s later opposition journalism included the 1753 weekly The Protester: before its launch, Dodington assured Ralph he would be “thoroughly protected … by those who would own him in both Houses,” and he later helped arrange the Treasury settlement via Lord Hartington after an introduction by David Garrick, on condition that Ralph cease political writing.

At the 1754 British general election, Dodington was returned for Melcombe Regis. He was Treasurer of the Navy again from December 1755 to November 1756. He was created Baron Melcombe on 6 April 1761. His house at Hammersmith, known as 'La Trappe' (an ironic reference to a Trappist monastery) was the focus of a lively political and cultural salon of supporters of Frederick, Prince of Wales whose palace at Kew was located just across the river. It was designed by the neo-Palladian architect Roger Morris who had been connected with the circle of Lord Burlington and the sculpture gallery was designed by the Italian architect and firework display designer Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni. Activities as a spy Dodington is said to have been involved in a spy-ring, collecting valuable information about Jacobite activities. In 1761, following the accession of Frederick's son to the throne as George III, he was created Baron Melcombe.

Historian N.A.M. Rodger describes Dodington as an "indefatigable schemer" on behalf of his friends and interests of the time. Dodington is depicted in William Hogarth's 1761 engraving Five Orders of Periwigs. Diarist His diary was published posthumously in 1784 by Henry Penruddocke Wyndham.