Robert Stanton (merchant)

Robert Stanton (4 January 1793 – 3 May 1833) was a British businessman, a looking-glass maker and banker who served for two years as a Tory Member of Parliament for the former English parliamentary constituency of Penryn in Cornwall.

[1] Sir Christopher Hawkins later gave evidence that in about 1822 a man named Simpson had introduced Stanton to him as someone who had inherited a lot of money and wanted to be a Member of Parliament.

[2] In the ensuing by-election campaign, the press in Cornwall described Stanton as a banker from London, and according to his own later evidence he had embarked on that career a few months before.

Two months after he was elected to parliament, his banking business had collapsed, and trustees were appointed who paid his creditors ten shillings in the pound.

[4] On 6 February 1827, Stanton was arrested on an action for a debt of £900 owed to a bank in Falmouth, money lent to him at the outset of his election campaign.

[5] On the final day of the election, the marshal of the prison sent in troops, in the hope of preventing a chairing, and some men, including Stanton, found themselves in "close confinement".

[6] The painter Benjamin Robert Haydon was himself in the prison for debt at the time and later painted two canvases to mark the occasion, Chairing the Member and The Mock Election.

[7] Nothing is recorded of Stanton's life after 1828, when he was called to the House of Lords to give evidence on a bill to disfranchise Penryn, when his replies, particularly on his relationship with Hawkins, were found to be evasive.

[1] By his will, which mentions no business interests, Stanton left his son Robert a house in Fenchurch Street, and his life insurance policies worth £3,000 to his daughters.

He left £500 to his wife and two smaller bequests of £50 each to Maria Jane Ashmole, her cousin, and Robert Stanton Wise, his nephew.