George Berkeley

Who was George Berkeley?

The Honourable George Berkeley was a member of Parliament for Dover in 1720 and in the following two parliaments, and for Hedon, Yorkshire, in 1734.

He was the fourth and youngest son of Charles Berkeley, 2nd Earl of Berkeley, and Elizabeth Noel. He attended Westminster School from its foundation in 1708 and Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1711, graduating MA there in 1713.

On 28 May 1723 he received an appointment as master keeper and governor of St Katharine's Hospital in London, and filled that post until his death. Pro-Walpole at first, Berkeley was alienated from him by his brother Lord Berkeley's dismissal from the post of First Lord of the Admiralty on the accession of George II, and switched loyalties to Pulteney.

He married Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, on 26 June 1735, as her second husband and nine months after she ceased to be George II's mistress and - though they had no surviving children - the marriage was far happier than her first. He had probably met her through his sister Lady Elizabeth Germain, a friend of Henrietta, but the reasons for Henrrietta's choice of second husband were far from clear to court commentators.