Robert Bernard

Sir Robert Bernard, 5th Baronet (1740–1789) was an English politician, Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire and Westminster.

Life He was the eldest and only surviving son of Sir John Bernard, 4th Baronet and his wife Mary St. John, daughter of Sir Francis St John, 1st Baronet of Longthorpe; of their nine children, only Robert and his elder sister Mary lived to adulthood. He was educated at Westminster School, and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1758. In parliament he was a Rockingham Whig.

The electoral pact unravelled shortly in the two-seat constituency of Huntingdonshire. Bernard fell out with his patron George Montagu, 4th Duke of Manchester, and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich announced he would now back two candidates. Nevertheless, Bernard put himself forward as a candidate in the 1768 general election. He obtained 666 votes, finishing third behind John Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke and Peter Ludlow, Earl Ludlow, and was 138 votes behind his nearest opponent. He was then elected unopposed with the backing of William Dowdeswell, Rockinghamite leader in the Commons. In the meantime, however, Bernard took advantage of resentment in the Bedford borough at high-handed behaviour of the 4th Duke of Bedford. In 1769, over 500 honorary burgesses were created in a day, and 611 in that year, in Bernard’s interest to increase his influence over the borough’s parliamentary elections. The role of honorary freemen in Bedford elections was later contested, with petitions challenging the voting rights of non-resident freemen. He remained Recorder of Bedford until his death in 1789.

In the 1774 election, and for the rest of his life, Bernard had a significant interest in Bedford borough, and its two seats in parliament; John Horne acted as his electoral agent. That year they brought in Sir William Wake, 8th Baronet and Robert Sparrow, married to Bernard's sister Mary, ahead of Samuel Whitbread and John Howard. Close scrutiny of the votes later resulted in Sparrow being replaced in March 1775 by Whitbread.

The Huntingdonshire moderate reformist group of Bernard, Lord Carysfort and John Jebb had national connections to Christopher Wyvill's Yorkshire Association, opposed to the American Revolutionary War, from 1780, though with reservations on policy; and later to Major John Cartwright. The Yorkshire Association sought economical reform and reductions in Crown patronage and spending, before broadening into a wider campaign for parliamentary reform including shorter parliaments and increased county representation, drawing its support primarily from gentry and clergy. Wake was re-elected for Bedford in 1780, but stood down for the 1784 general election. John Horne, by then going by John Horne Tooke, ensured that the planter William MacDowall Colhoun stood for the Bernard interest, a contentious choice, at a difficult London meeting held in the Globe Tavern, Fleet Street. His active political career was curtailed in the 1780s by increasingly severe attacks of gout. According to National Gallery provenance research, Bernard also owned The Mass of Saint Giles, and pictures from his collection were sold at Christie’s in London on 9 May 1789.