Henry Harford

Henry Harford (5 April 1758 – 8 December 1834), 5th Proprietor of Maryland, was the last proprietary owner of the British colony of Maryland. He was born in 1758 the eldest — but illegitimate — son of Frederick Calvert 6th Baron Baltimore and his mistress Mrs. Hester Whelan. Harford inherited his father's estates in 1771, at the age of thirteen, but by 1776 events in America had overtaken his proprietary authority and he would soon lose all his wealth and power in the New World, though remaining wealthy thanks to his estates in England. Background Harford's father was Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore, 4th (6 February 1731 – 4 September 1771) and last in the line of Barons Baltimore. The Calvert family had been granted a royal charter to the Maryland colony in the 17th century. Since then, successive Lords Baltimore had increased the family holdings and their wealth: the Calverts owned shares in the Bank of England as well as a large family seat at Woodcote Park, in Surrey. Although Frederick Calvert exercised almost feudal power in the Province of Maryland, he never once set foot in the colony and, unlike his father, he took little interest in politics, treating his estates, including Maryland, largely as sources of revenue to support his extravagant and often scandalous lifestyle. In 1768 he was accused of abduction and rape by Sarah Woodcock, a noted beauty who kept a milliner's shop at Tower Hill. The jury acquitted Calvert but he left England soon afterwards, and never recovered from the public scandal which surrounded the trial. He had many mistresses, including Hester Whelan, Henry Harford's mother. Early life Henry Harford was born in Bond Street, London, on 5 April 1758, the fruit of an extra-marital union between Lord Baltimore and his mistress Mrs. Hester Whelan. He was educated at Eton College and later Exeter College, Oxford. When the last Lord Baltimore died in Naples in 1771 at the age of 39, the thirteen-year-old Henry became heir to all of Frederick's estates, including those in Britain, as the eldest son of the deceased peer. However, Harford was not entitled to ascend to the peerage or inherit his father's title as, like his sister Frances, he was born out of wedlock and was therefore illegitimate.