Bagot, William, 1st Baron Bagot (1728 -1798)

William Bagot was the eldest son of Sir Walter Wagstaffe Bagot 5th Baronet and Barbara Legge, eldest daughter of the William, 1st Earl of Dartford. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he matriculated 28 February 1747, attaining an M.A. 12 April 1749, and a D.C.L. 2 July 1754. He was elected Member of Parliament for Stafford from 1754 to 1780, succeeding to the Baronetcy in 1768. He was created Baron Bagot 17 October 1780. He married, 20 August 1760, Elizabeth Louisa St John, only daughter of John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke. Clements, who had a rubbing of the stamp from a book `Penes Robinson 1935' thought that the stamp was that of William, 2nd Baron Bagot (1773 1856). The presence of the badge of a baronet makes it very likely that the stamp was cut for the first baron, the coronet perhaps being added in 1780, though it is may also have been used by his son. The inscription `Sir William's Book' can only refer to the 1st Baron, as the 2nd Baron was not knighted. The books from Blithfield Hall were sold at Sotheby's on 26 November 1945.