List of People Educated at Westminster School - 18th Century

18th Century

• Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of the Rolls
• Charles Wesley (1707–1788), Methodist preacher and writer of over 6,000 hymns
• William Beckford (1709–1770), politician, twice Lord Mayor of London
• John Cleland (1709–1789), author of the first erotic novel
• Sir John Eardley Wilmot (1709–1792), Chief Justice of the Common Pleas
• Robert Hay Drummond (1711–1776), Archbishop of York
• James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave (1715–1763), First Lord of the Treasury, Prime Minister for five days in 1757
• Francis Lewis (1713–1803), signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence
• General Thomas Gage (1721–1787), C in C North America, Governor of Massachusetts 1774
• John Burgoyne (1723–1792), Lieutenant-General who surrendered British Army at Saratoga
• Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe (1726–1799), Admiral of the Fleet
• Frederick Hamilton (1728–1811), deacon
• Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (1730–1782), Prime Minister
• William Cowper (1731–1800), poet and hymnodist
• Henry Constantine Jennings (1731–1819), collector
• Charles Churchill, George Colman the Elder, Bonnell Thornton and Robert Lloyd (1731–1764, 1732–1794, 1725–1768, and 1733–1764), satirists and poets; founders of the satirists' Nonsense Club
• Warren Hastings (1732–1818), Governor-General of Bengal impeached but acquitted by Parliament
• Nevil Maskelyne (1732–1811), Astronomer Royal
• Richard Cumberland (1732–1811), dramatist
• Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1735–1811), Prime Minister
• Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond (1735–1806), reforming politician
• John Horne Tooke (1736–1812), politician and philologist
• Edward Gibbon, FRS (1737–1794), historian
• William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738–1809), Prime Minister
• Arthur Middleton (1742–1787), signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence
• Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746–1825), ADC to Washington 1777, defeated by Jefferson in 1804 in contest for Presidency
• Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), philosopher, lawyer and eccentric
• Archibald James Edward Stewart, 1st Baron Douglas of Douglas (1748–1827), Winner of the Douglas Cause. MP and Lord Lieutenant of Forfarshire.
• Henry William Bunbury (1750–1811), caricaturist
• Thomas Pinckney (1750–1828), American ambassador to Britain
• James Bland Burgess (1752–1824), dramatist and playwright
• Richard Burke Jr. (1758–1794), Member of Parliament
• Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766–1841), ambassador to Constantinople, bringer of parthenon marbles to Britain
• Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey (1768–1854), cavalry and horse artillery officer at Waterloo, where he lost a leg
• James Bruce (1769–1798), Member of Parliament
• Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet (1770–1844), Radical parliamentarian and parliamentary reformer
• Robert Southey (1774–1843), Poet Laureate 1813
• Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818), dramatist
• Benjamin Hall (1778–1817), Welsh industrialist, father of 1st Baron Llanover (below).
• Henry Fynes Clinton (1781–1852), scholar
• John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton (1786–1869), companion and ally of Byron
• Charles Robert Cockerell, (1788–1863) architect, archaeologist, and writer
• FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855), lost his right arm at Waterloo, C-in-C in the Crimea
• Sir James Graham (1792–1861), politician
• John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878), Prime Minister
• Henry Westenra, 3rd Baron Rossmore (1792–1860), politician and piper
• William Mure (1799–1860), scholar and politician