Samuel Charles Whitbread

Whitbread was the son of Samuel Whitbread and Lady Elizabeth Grey. Grey was the daughter of General Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey and sister of Prime Minister Charles Grey. He was educated at Eton College and St John's College, Cambridge where he studied mathematics, moral philosophy and classics.

On 6 July 1815, Whitbread's father took his own life, whereupon his two sons, William Henry (then aged 20) and Samual Charles (19), inherited the family business and estates.

Whitbread lived at the family seat Southill Park and in London. After his elder brother William Henry Whitbread died without heirs in 1867, Samuel Charles inherited the family firm and estates. He married the Hon. Julia Trevor (died 1858), daughter of Henry Trevor, 21st Baron Dacre, on 24 June 1824. After she passed in 1858, he married Lady Mary Stephenson Keppel, daughter of the fourth Earl of Albemarle. He died on 27 May 1879.

His eldest son was Samuel Whitbread. Their daughter Juliana married Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester.

As a Whig MP, he represented the constituency of Middlesex (1820–1830) and was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1831. He made three major contributions to debates including to the Reform of Parliament debate, where he opposed the existence of rotten boroughs and the selling of seats in the House of Commons.