Samuel Martin (Secretary to the Treasury)

Samuel Martin (1 September 1714 – 20 November 1788) was a British politician and administrator.

Family

He was the son of Samuel Martin, the leading plantation owner on the West Indies island of Antigua, where he was born, and eldest half-brother of Sir Henry Martin, 1st Baronet (1733–1794), for many years naval commissioner at Portsmouth and Comptroller of the Navy as well as father of Thomas Byam Martin. Another half-brother was Josiah Martin (1737–1786) governor of North Carolina from 1771. His full-sister Henrietta (Rilla) Fitzgerald was the mother of poet William Thomas Fitzgerald and mother-in-law of equity lawyer John Fonblanque KC MP for Camelford 1802-1806. Martin's will seems to reveal the existence of the mother of his natural child or children.

Parliament

Martin sat as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Cornish borough of Camelford from 1747 until 1768. He was a protege of an important British politician, Henry Bilson Legge, who was three times Chancellor of the Exchequer. When Legge was first made Chancellor, Martin served as his secretary from April 1754 until November 1755.

Martin, although he lacked major political talents and was mistrusted by Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, had a capacity for hard work and dealing with administration. This led to his being appointed Secretary to the Treasury for the first time in November 1756, during Legge's second Chancellorship. This was a post which was more administrative than political in...
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