William Neville Hart
British banker, politician and diplomat

William Neville Hart (27 December 1741 in St James's Palace, London – 23 October 1804, Inveraray Castle, Scotland) was a British banker, politician and diplomat. He was born to Denise Gougeon, the wife of Lewis Augustus Blondeau. His mother was the Under Housekeeper or Mistress of the King's Household, a position she was to hold for more than fifty years. Denise was the sister of Esther Gougeon, the wife of Daniel Cornelius de Beaufort. Hart's father held various positions at Court including that of Gentleman Usher to King George II.
Marriages
Following the death of his father, and the remarriage of his mother to Sir William Hart Kt., a banker and Sheriff of London, William Neville Blondeau took the surname of Hart by private act of Parliament, Blondeau's Name Act 1765 (5 Geo. 3. c. 17 Pr.) of 22 March 1765. Hart had married firstly on 7 January 1765 Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Cæsar Hawkins, 1st Baronet (1711–1786), serjeant-surgeon to the King, and grandfather of Caesar Hawkins, in turn serjeant-surgeon to Queen Victoria. Elizabeth, unfortunately, died on 30 October 1766 s.p.
The public source identifies “William Neville Hart” as british banker, politician and diplomat. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around William, Neville and Hart.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8016088. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1741, 1804, 1765 and 1711.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Neville Hart” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.