Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham

Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham, KB, PC (I) (13 November 1693 – 14 December 1750) of Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire was a British Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 until 1728 when he was raised to the Peerage as Baron Malton.

Watson-Wentworth was born at Tidmington, Worcestershire the only son and heir of Thomas Watson (later Watson-Wentworth, the third son of Edward Watson, 2nd Baron Rockingham) and his wife, Alice Proby, a daughter of Sir Thomas Proby, 1st Baronet.

[2] At this time, now Lord Malton, he deliberately burned most of the manuscripts left by the 17th-century antiquary Richard Gascoigne; this act has been attributed to legal advice from his attorney.

[3] He was admitted to the Privy Council of Ireland in 1733 and was Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire from 1733 to 1750.

[2] He and his wife Lady Mary Finch (1701–1761) had six children: Lord Rockingham died on 14 December 1750, according to Walpole 'drowned in claret',[2] and was buried in York Minster.

The Watson-Wentworth and Finch families ( Charles Philips , c. 1732)
Arms of Watson, of Rockingham Castle : Argent, on a chevron engrailed azure between three martlets sable as many crescents or
Lady Mary Finch, Marchioness of Rockingham by Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723)