Sir Henry St John Mildmay

'A capricious, vain, ill-tempered man, with some minor talents and insufferable pretensions,' wrote one of his contemporaries of St John Mildmay.

The son of a Hampshire landowner and baronet, he was born in 1764, and succeeded his father to his title and estate in 1784. He had a good marriage to an heiress who was left land in Essex and Somerset by a great uncle. St John Mildmay became MP for Westbury in 1796, and remained in the Commons until his death from liver disease in 1808. During that time, he was putting forward bills, moving from one faction to another, wheeling and dealing but with a singular lack of success in advancing his political career and gaining a peerage. His fortune proved useful and he spent £2,500 in the election of 1806 to secure one seat without success, but he had taken the precaution of having another in reserve.

The Gentleman Magazine put his income at £25,000 a year in 1808, which implies wealth of around £750,000. That would represent 0.26% of the then £280m net national income.Today's equivalent would be over £2.8bn.