Harvey Christian Combe


Harvey Christian Combe was an English Whig politician. He was the eldest surviving son of Harvey Combe, attorney, of Andover, Hampshire.
He was elected an Alderman of London in 1790 and Lord Mayor of London in 1799. He was appointed Sheriff of London for 1791–92. At the 1796 general election he was elected as a Member of Parliament for the City of London.
Combe was present in the House of Commons when the then Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, was assassinated in the lobby on 11 May 1812. He chaired a makeshift court convened the same day composed of MPs who were, like himself, also magistrates in order to begin committal proceedings against the murderer, John Bellingham, take witness statements and order messengers to search Bellingham's lodgings. Bellingham was ultimately hanged.
He held the seat for 21 years, until he resigned from the House of Commons in 1817 by taking the Chiltern Hundreds.
He died the following year, aged about 66. He had married his cousin Alice Christian, the daughter of Boyce Tree, corn factor, of London, with whom he had four sons and six daughters. By 1806 he was an incredibly wealthy man, a fortune he made in the brewing industry. He was a partner in the Combe Delafield and Co. brewery. In 1806 he bought Cobham Park in Surrey where he lived until his death. He built Cobham Park into a substantial country estate which upon his death was left to his son Harvey Combe junior. The estate still belongs to the Combe family.