John Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Gower, PC (10 August 1694 – 25 December 1754) was an English Tory politician and peer who twice served as Lord Privy Seal from 1742 to 1743 and 1744 to 1754.

Leveson-Gower proceeded to acquire a political power base consisting of four parliamentary boroughs under his de facto control: Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stafford, Lichfield, and Cheadle.

[1] His father was John Leveson-Gower, a politician who sat in the House of Commons until he was elevated to the English peerage in 1703 as the Baron Gower; he also served as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

[7] However, he was reappointed as Lord Privy Seal in 1744 as part of the Broad Bottom ministry, a coalition government led by Henry Pelham and his brother Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, which stayed in power for a decade.

[3][8] However, Leveson-Gower's regiment proved unwilling to face any possibility of fighting, refusing to move beyond the nearest tavern when his son-in-law Sir Richard Wrottesley, 7th Baronet raised a Yeomanry unit and joined them.

[11][12] By the early 1750s, Leveson-Gower had solidified his political loyalty to the Pelham brothers, joining a group of British parliamentarians (dominated by members of the Whig party) known as the "Pelhamites".

[3] During the 1747 British general election, Leveson-Gower's parliamentary support base, which included seven constituencies in Staffordshire and Westminster, came under heavy threat by rival political candidates.

[13] Though he had succeeded to the position of Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire in 1742, which gave him a large advantage in determining the outcome of parliamentary elections, all seven constituencies were contested by Tory politicians with extensive backing.

[3] Despite suffering from gout, Leveson-Gower chose to defend his support base, focusing on the constituencies of Stafford and Lichfield; this was despite the fact that, as George Anson noted in a letter to the 4th Duke of Bedford, "everything has been done that could be thought of against Lord Gower's interest".

[9] When the results of the elections were announced, Leveson-Gower discovered that, despite his extensive campaigning efforts, he had lost five out of the seven constituencies of his support base; the two he had retained, Stafford and Lichfield, were due in Henry Pelham's opinion "almost entirely to the Whigs".

However, the sizeable costs of electoral campaigning combined with family expenses took a heavy toll on his estate, and by Leveson-Gower's death in 1754, he owed outstanding debts to the tune of £37,861 along with roughly £36,000 in legacies (equivalent to £6,900,000 in 2023).