Samuel Hood, 2nd Baron Bridport
Samuel Hood, 2nd Baron Bridport (7 September 1788 – 6 January 1868), of Redlynch House in Wiltshire, of Cricket House at Cricket St Thomas in Somerset, and of 12 Wimpole Street in Westminster, was a British politician and peer. Family background. He was born in 1788, the second son of Henry Hood, 2nd Viscount Hood (1753–1836), Chamberlain of the Household to Queen Caroline, by his wife Jane Wheeler (c.1754-1847), daughter and heiress of Francis Wheeler of Whitley Hall near Coventry in Warwickshire, by his wife Jane Smith, a daughter of the banker Abel Smith I  (1686–1756) of Nottingham, a son of Thomas Smith (1631–1699), the founder of Smith's Bank in Nottingham and father of Sir George Smith, 1st Baronet (1713–1769) "of East Stoke in the County of Nottingham" and of Abel Smith II (1717–1788), MP. Members of the Wheeler and Hood families were buried in St Michael's Church in Coventry, elevated to Coventry Cathedral in 1918 and destroyed by German bombing during World War II. Education and political career. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, obtaining an M.A. degree in 1809. He served as a Tory Member of Parliament for Heytesbury in  Wiltshire from 1812 to 1818. Succeeded as Baron Bridport. In 1814 he succeeded his childless great-uncle Admiral Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport, 1st Baron Bridport (1726–1814) as Baron Bridport, under the special remainder of that title in the Peerage of Ireland. Marriage and issue. On 3 July 1810 in the parish of Marylebone, London, he married Charlotte Mary Nelson (1787–1873), "suo jure" 3rd Duchess of Bronté in Sicily (an Italian title), only surviving child and heiress of the Rev. William Nelson, 1st Earl Nelson, 2nd Duke of Bronté (1757–1835), Rector of Brandon Parva and later of Hilborough, both in  Norfolk, from 1814 seated at Trafalgar Park, Downton in Wiltshire and at nearby Redlynch House in Wiltshire, elder brother and heir of the great Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, the victor of the Battle of Trafalgar. Through his wife he also inherited the "Castello di Nelson", a grand manor house built by Horatio Nelson at great expense, and its large estate between Bronte and Maniace in Sicily on the north-west foothills of Mount Etna, held by his descendants until 1982. He found the local inhabitants "turbulent, restless people" troublesome to the management of the  estate, and like his brother the Admiral he never set foot in it. By his wife he had nine children.