George Lee (English politician)

Sir George Lee, (c. 1700 – 18 December 1758) was a politician in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Life
He was fifth son of Sir Thomas Lee, 2nd Baronet, who had married Alice, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Hopkins, of London. Sir William Lee, the judge, was his elder brother. He entered Clare College, Cambridge, but migrated to Christ Church, Oxford. There he matriculated on 4 April 1720 and took the degrees of B.C.L. in 1724 and D.C.L. in 1729. On 23 October 1729 he was admitted advocate at Doctors' Commons and soon obtained a practice.

Lee was Member of Parliament (MP) for Brackley 1733–1742, for Devizes 1742–1747, for Liskeard 1747–1754, and for Launceston 1754–1758.

From 1742 to 1744, Lee was a Lord of the Admiralty, and knighted and sworn as a Privy Councillor in 1752. From 1751 to 1757 he was treasurer to Augusta, Princess of Wales.

In 1757, Lee resigned his position as treasurer to the princess dowager in consequence of the rise into favour of Lord Bute, but his defection attracted little notice, as the princess's adherents had for some time slackened in their opposition to the ministry. When the Duke of Newcastle proposed to form an administration, with the exclusion of Pitt from office, Lee reluctantly agreed to be Chancellor of the Exchequer but the duke, almost at once and without the least notice to those who had agreed to join him, abandoned his scheme.

On 18 December, Lee died suddenly at his house in St. James's Square, London, and was buried on 28 December in the family vault underneath the east end of Hartwell Church, Buckinghamshire.

Family
He married, on 5 June 1742, Judith, the second daughter of Humphry Morice of Werrington, near Launceston, Cornwall, by his wife, a daughter of Thomas Sandys of London. She died on 19 July 1743, aged 33, and was buried on 1 August in the vault of the Lee family in Hartwell Church.

Sir George died without issue, and left all his fortune to his nephew, Sir William Lee, 4th baronet.