William Weddell

William Weddell (13 May 1736 – 30 April 1792) of Newby Hall in the parish of Skelton-on-Ure, near Ripon in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was a British landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1766 and 1792.

His great-uncle was Thomas Weddell of Earswick, Paymaster to the Navy, who made a large fortune during the South Sea Bubble.

In 1762 whilst on the Grand Tour, William Weddell became heir to his father, his elder brother having died.

[1] William was thus in a position to start what became a renowned collection of classical antiquities, including the Barberini Venus, which sold in 2002 for £8 million.

[1] He had no surviving children and left Newby Hall to his distant cousin Thomas Robinson, 2nd Earl de Grey (1781-1859), then 3rd Baron Grantham, who in 1803 in accordance with the bequest changed his name to Weddell, but in accordance with a further bequest from his maternal aunt changed it again in 1833 to Grey.