Background
Henry Bilson Leggewas born on 29 May 1708, to William, first Duke of Dartmouth, and his wife, Lady Anne Finch, daughter of Heneage, the first Earl of Aylesford.
politician statesman Chancellor of the Exchequer
Henry Bilson Leggewas born on 29 May 1708, to William, first Duke of Dartmouth, and his wife, Lady Anne Finch, daughter of Heneage, the first Earl of Aylesford.
Legge was educated at Christ Church, Oxford.
In October 1739 he was appointed secretary of Ireland. In 1740 he became M.P. for East Looe, Cornwall. He held the Orford seat in Suffolk from 1741 until 1759, when he switched to the Hampshire seat, which he held until his death in 1764.
A supporter of Robert Walpole and the Whig cause, Legge lost his position in Ireland on Walpole’s downfall in 1742. That July, he became surveyor-general of the woods and forests north and south of the Trent. He filled many other minor political posts in his early political career, becoming Lord of the Admiralty in April 1745 and Lord of the Treasury in 1747. In January 1748 he was appointed envoy extraordinary to the king of Prussia, and in 1749 he became treasurer of the navy. He also performed many other roles in the Whig cause.
He first rose to political prominence when he became chancellor of the exchequer in the ministry of the first Duke of Newcastle in April 1754. He kept this post under the Duke of Devonshire, whose short-lived ministry was formed in November 1756 as a compromise, resolving a conflict between William Pitt, the Elder, and the Duke of Newcastle over the conduct of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). He was dismissed as chancellor in March 1761, but continued to represent his constituency in the House of Commons.
Remaining a government outsider from that point on, he staunchly opposed the terms for the settlement of the Seven Years’ War. He died on 23 August 1764.
Legge was not an impressive political figure but served in many public offices.
Today he is generally remembered as a financier of some ability and a politician of no real consequence.
He married the Hon. Mary Stawall in 1750, the heiress of Edward, fourth and last Baron Stawall, and adopted the additional surname of Bilson in 1754, as a result of the will of his fathers first cousin, Leonard Bilson, which conferred property on him.