The 1st Viscount Portman

Edward Portman was born in Dorset in 1799. After the usual Eton and Christ Church Oxford education, he became MP for Dorset at the age of 24, and later for Marylebone, sitting as a Liberal.

The Portman family had large land holdings in the West Country- nearly 34,000 acres in all at 1882- but it was their London estate round Oxford Street and Marylebone (still largely in family hands) which made them exceedingly rich.

Portman, who was created a baron in 1837, and later raised to be the first Viscount Portman in 1873, left £244,092 in his own personal assets on his death fifteen years later. But the land was worth around £7.9m in 1882 prices, giving an overall fortune of £8.18m, representing 0.76% of the then £1.075bn net national income. Today's equivalent would be over £8.4bn.