Robert Mackreth

Sir Robert Mackreth (?1725–1819), of Ewhurst, Hampshire, was an English club owner, money lender, speculator and politician. He was a Member (MP) of the Parliament of Great Britain for Castle Rising from 1774 to 1784, and for Ashburton in the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1784 to 1802.

Life Mackreth began life as a billiard-marker at White's Club. He acquired a vintner's business in St. James's Street, and became an assistant of Robert Arthur, the original proprietor of White's, who on his death, 6 June 1761, left the property to Mackreth, then about to marry his only child, Mary Arthur (the wedding took place in October). Mackreth managed the club through an agent, a near relation of his.

From this point Mackreth concentrated on financial speculations, with sidelines as a loan shark and bookmaker: Gilly Williams, writing to George Selwyn in 1768, mentions him as dealing heavily in the bets for and against the success of John Wilkes in the election for the City of London that year. In October 1774 he was nominated for the pocket borough of Castle Rising by the Earl of Orford, who had found him useful in business, and was in his debt. He sat in the House of Commons for Ashburton from 1784 to 1802; and on 8 May 1795 he was knighted by George III. Withdrawing from parliamentary life in 1802, he retired to his estate at Ewhurst, near Basingstoke. He added to, besides his house property in London, an estate in Cumberland and a plantation in the West Indies. He died in London in February 1819, in his ninety-fourth year. His wife had died at Putney on 3 June 1784.