Sir George Downing, 3rd Baronet

Sir George Downing, 3rd Baronet KB MP (baptised 24 October 1685 – 10 June 1749) was a British landowner and initially Tory, but later Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1710 and 1749.

Lady Catharine died in 1688, and, as her husband was apparently considered an unsuitable parent, the young George was brought up in the family of his maternal aunt, Lady Mary Cecil Forester, the wife of Sir William Forester of Dothill Park, in Wellington, Shropshire.

In 1700, aged 15, "by procurement and persuasion of those in whose keeping he was", he married his 13-year-old cousin, Sir William's daughter, Mary, who ultimately died childless in 1734.

The couple agreed a financial settlement only in 1715, whereupon Mary petitioned the House of Lords to have the marriage dissolved because of non-consummation.

[1] He was an uninspiring politician, but remained loyal to the ministries of Robert Walpole and subsequently Henry Pelham.

[5] Upon his own death, aged 63, in 1749, his title passed to his cousin, Sir Jacob Downing, 4th Baronet, with his will providing that if his line should die out, his fortune and Gamlingay estate should be used to found a college at Cambridge University.