Freeling, Francis, Sir, 1st Baronet (1764 -1836)

Sir Francis Freeling, a Bristol man, was a postal reformer. Starting in the Post Office in Bristol, he was transferred to the General Post Office in London in 1787 as Surveyor, rose to be Secretary of the General Post Office, held the post for nearly thirty years, and was rewarded with a baronetcy in 1828 on the personal initiative of George IV. He married, firstly, 24 April 1787, Jane, daughter of Christian Karstadt, of London, and they had two sons and a daughter. She died in 1796, and he married secondly, 24 February 1800, Mary, daughter of F. Newberry, of Addiscombe, by whom he had a daughter, and thirdly, 20 August 1805, Emily Henrietta, daughter of the Rev. Sir P. Rivers Baronet by whom he had a further two sons and a daughter. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and one of the original members of the Roxburghe Club. His library was sold by at auction by Evans 25 November 1836, and that of his eldest son Sir George Henry Freeling 2nd Baronet (died 1841) by R.H.T. & C. Evans 7 June 1842.