Lady Maria Eardley, wife of Sampson Gideon, Baron Eardley

Maria Marow Eardley Wilmot, daughter of Sir John Eardley Wilmot (1710-92) Chief Justice of Common Pleas, married Sir Sampson Gideon in 1766. He had been created a baronet in 1759 (1) at the age of thirteen and three years later had inherited a fortune from his father, Sampson Gideon, senior. Sampson senior was a wealthy London merchant and Jewish financier who raised huge loans to the government and eventually left a fortune of half a million pounds (2). In 1789 Sir Sampson Gideon assumed the surname of Eardley and the same year he was created Baron Eardley of Ireland.