Search results
Sir William Beckford (December 1709 – 21 June 1770) was a Jamaican-born planter and Whig politician who twice served as Lord Mayor of London in 1762 and 1769. One of the best known political figures in Georgian era London, his vast wealth derived from the sugar plantations and hundreds of slaves he owned in the British colony of ...
William Beckford (baptized December 19, 1709, Jamaica, British West Indies—died June 21, 1770, London, England) was a gentleman merchant, member of Parliament, and lord mayor of London (1762–63, 1769–70) who was particularly noted as a pioneer of the radical movement.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Feb 17, 2011 · William Beckford. Slave plantation owner, lord mayor, politician. William Beckford was born in Jamaica, the son of a leading sugar plantation owner who, at his death in 1735, was the...
Sir William Beckford (December 1709 – 21 June 1770) was a Jamaican-born planter and Whig politician who twice served as Lord Mayor of London in 1762 and 1769. One of the best known political figures in Georgian era London, his vast wealth derived from the sugar plantations and hundreds of slaves he owned in the British colony of Jamaica .
Beckford's words are perhaps the most often quoted of any he uttered in his life and encapsulate for historians the importance of the 1760s for establishing his lasting reputation as a radical spokesman, as one of the first and most strident movers for parliamentary reform.
Overview. William Beckford. (c. 1704—1770) planter and politician. Quick Reference. (bap. 1709, d. 1770). Politician, born in Jamaica into a family of wealthy plantation owners. Sent to England in 1723, he was educated at Westminster School and Oxford. He later ... From: Beckford, William in The Oxford Companion to Black British History »
May 21, 2013 · This biography of William Beckford provides a unique look at eighteenth-century British history from the perspective of the colonies. Even in his own time, Beckford was seen as a metaphor for the dramatic changes occurring during this era.
