Robert Shafto was born around 1732 the son of John Shafto and his wife Mary Jackson, daughter of Thomas Jackson of Nunnington, Yorkshire at his family seat of Whitworth near Spennymoor in County Durham. He was educated at Westminster School from 1740 to 1749, when he entered Balliol College, Oxford. He succeeded to the family estates on the death of his father John in 1742. Both his father and uncle Robert Shafto had been ToryMembers of Parliament. He continued this tradition, becoming one of the two members for County Durham in 1760, using his nickname "Bonny Bobby Shafto" and the now famous song for electioneering purposes, defeating the WhigSir Thomas Clavering, with a campaign supported by Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, who was the prime minister, Henry Vane, first earl of Darlington, and the bishop of Durham. However, once in parliament he dropped this allegiance, supporting the administrations of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute and Pitt the elder. He held the County Durham seat for two parliaments until he declined to stand in the election of 1768. On 18 April 1774 Shafto married Anne Duncombe, daughter and heir of Thomas Duncombe of Duncombe Park, Yorkshire, by his marriage to Diana Howard, a daughter of Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle. Shafto and his wife had three children, John, Robert, and Thomas. His wife, Anne, had inherited property in the rotten borough of Downton in Wiltshire and he became one of its two members in 1780. He is known to have supported William Pitt the Younger during the regency crisis of 1788–9 and did not seek re-election in 1790. Robert Shafto died on 24 November 1797 and is buried in the Shafto familycrypt beneath the floor of Whitworth Church. He was succeeded in his estates by his elder son, John Shafto.
The song
The song is said to relate the story of how he broke the heart of Bridget Belasyse of Brancepeth Castle, County Durham, where his brother Thomas was rector, when he married Anne Duncombe of Duncombe Park in Yorkshire. Bridget Belasyse is said to have died two weeks after hearing the news, although other sources claim that she died a fortnight before the wedding of pulmonary tuberculosis. Even if the song was not composed about him, his supporters almost certainly added a verse for the 1761 elections with the lyrics: Thomas and George Allan, in their Tyneside Songs and Readings, argued that the "Bobby Shafto" of the song was in fact a relative, Robert Shafto of Benwell. It is likely that his grandson, Robert Duncombe Shafto, also used the song for electioneering in 1861, with several of the later verses being added around this time.
Popular Culture
Bobby Shafto has been immortalised by Imperial College School of Medicine Squash Club. It is tradition for all members of the club to claim to be a descendant of the famed politician.
