Samuel Boddington

Who was Samuel Boddington?

Samuel Boddington was an Irish politician. He was Member of Parliament for Tralee from January to May 1807. 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 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 and eventually she eloped with his cousin Benjamin Boddington who had recently joined the family firm. Thereafter, Samuel approached his friend, Richard Sharp, a fellow Dissenter, fellow member of the Fishmongers' Company, and both mutual friends of Samuel Rogers, asking if he would join him in business, and eventually a West India company of Boddington, Sharp and Philips was established at 17 Mark Lane. Both Boddington and Philips followed Sharp's example and became dissenting Whig members of Parliament.