George Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe

George Bubb Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe PC (1691 – 28 July 1762) was an English politician and nobleman.
Christened simply George Bubb, he changed his surname to Dodington by Act of Parliament around the time his uncle George Dodington died in 1720 and left him his estate. Enormously rich, he became a friend of Frederick, Prince of Wales, who took advantage of their acquaintance to obtain loans that helped clear his debts, and, on being thrown out of St James's Palace by his father, King George II, moved into a London house belonging to Dodington. He had many contacts with artists and was a collector, purchasing antiquities via Cardinal Albani in Rome. His house at Hammersmith, known as 'La Trappe' (an ironic reference to a Trappist monastery) was the focus of a lively political and cultural salon of supporters of Frederick, Prince of Wales whose palace at Kew was located just across the river. It was designed by the neo-Palladian architect Roger Morris who had been connected with the circle of Lord Burlingtonand the sculpture gallery was designed by the Italian architect and firework display designer Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni. Dodington is said to have been involved in a spy-ring, collecting valuable information about Jacobite activities. In 1761, following the accession of Frederick's son to the throne as George III, he was created Baron Melcombe.
Historian N.A.M. Rodger describes Dodington as an "indefatigable schemer" on behalf of his friends and interests of the time. Dodington is depicted in William Hogarth's 1761 engraving Five Orders of Periwigs; his diary was published posthumously in 1784 by Henry Penruddocke Wyndham.