Robert C. Winthrop
Winthropc. 1855–65
United States Senator fromMassachusetts
In office July 30, 1850 – February 1, 1851
Appointed by	George N. Briggs
Preceded by	Daniel Webster
Succeeded by	Robert Rantoul Jr.
18thSpeaker of the United States House of Representatives
In office December 6, 1847 – March 4, 1849
Preceded by	John Davis
Succeeded by	Howell Cobb
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's1st district
In office November 9, 1840 – May 25, 1842
Preceded by	Abbott Lawrence
Succeeded by	Nathan Appleton
In office November 29, 1842 – July 30, 1850
Preceded by	Nathan Appleton
Succeeded by	Samuel Eliot
Personal details
Born	(1809-05-12)May 12, 1809 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	November 16, 1894(1894-11-16) (aged 85) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political party	Whig
Spouses	Elizabeth Cabot Blanchard ​ ​ (m. 1832; died 1842)​ Laura Derby Welles ​ ​ (m. 1849; died 1861)​ Adele Granger Thayer ​ ​ (m. 1865; died 1892)​
Relatives	Thomas Winthrop(Father),John Kerry(Great Grandson),James Bowdoin(Great Grandfather)
Education	Harvard University(BA)
Signature

Robert Charles Winthrop (May 12, 1809 – November 16, 1894) was an American lawyer, philanthropist, andWhig Party politician who representedMassachusetts in the United States House and Senate from 1840 to 1851. He served as the 18thspeaker of the United States House of Representatives and was a political ally and colleague ofDaniel Webster. After a rapid rise in Massachusetts and national politics and one term as speaker, Winthrop succeeded Webster in the Senate. His re-election campaign resulted ina long, sharply contested defeat byCharles Sumner. He ran forGovernor of Massachusetts in1851 but lost due to the state's majority requirement, marking the end of his political career and signaling the decline of the Massachusetts Whig Party.

Winthrop was born into a prominent Boston political family, descended from colonial governorsThomas Dudley andJohn Winthrop and commonwealth governorJames Bowdoin, his great-grandfather. After an education atBoston Latin School andHarvard College, he studied law with Webster and was admitted to the bar in 1831. In 1835, at the age of twenty-four, he was elected to theMassachusetts House of Representatives and served five one-year terms. From 1838 to 1840, he served as speaker of the Massachusetts House.

In 1840, Winthrop won a special election to succeedAbbott Lawrence in theUnited States House of Representatives, representing Boston. He was re-elected to a full term but resigned early in 1842 to mourn the death of his young wife. After only six months out of office, his successor Nathan Appleton resigned, and he was elected to succeed him. Winthrop served out the remainder of the term and was elected three more times. In 1847, he was elected Speaker of the House at the start the30th Congress. However, he lost re-election in 1849 toHowell Cobb of Georgia aftera protracted sixty-six ballot contest.

In July 1850, Daniel Webster resigned from the United States Senate to become Secretary of State amid outrage over his support for theCompromise of 1850. Governor George Briggs appointed Winthrop to succeed him, but the 1850 Massachusetts elections resulted in a three-way split of the legislature between Whigs and the Democratic and Free Soil parties, which joined in an anti-Whig coalition. After a divisive fifty-one ballot election, Free Soilers and anti-slavery Democrats united to electCharles Sumner, an abolitionist lawyer, to the seat. Winthrop made a final run for public office in November of that year when he stood for governor but was again defeated by the Free Soil-Democratic coalition. Though he received a plurality of all votes cast, the majority rule in place at the time sent the election to theMassachusetts General Court, where the coalition legislators again denied Winthrop by re-electing GovernorGeorge S. Boutwell. For the remainder of his life, Winthrop remained publicly involved as a Christian conservative and unionist but never again ran for public office.

Robert Charles Winthrop was born inBoston, Massachusetts, toThomas Lindall Winthrop (1760–1841), thelieutenant governor of Massachusetts, and Elizabeth Bowdoin Temple (1769–1825), who were married on July 25, 1786.^[1] He was the youngest of 13 children.^[1]

His maternal grandparents wereSir John Temple, 8th Baronet (1731–1798), the first British envoy to the United States,^[2] and Elizabeth Bowdoin, the daughter ofJames Bowdoin (1726–1790), thegovernor of Massachusetts. His paternal great-great-grandfathers wereJoseph Dudley (1647–1720) andWait Still Winthrop (1641/2–1717).^[1]

Winthrop attended the prestigiousBoston Latin School, and graduated fromHarvard University in 1828,^[3] which he attended with Dr.Henry Ingersoll Bowditch,George Stillman Hillard,Judge John Gilchrist, Edward Sprague Rand, and others of note.^[4]

After studying law withDaniel Webster he was admitted to thebar in 1831 and practiced in Boston. At 24, he served in theMassachusetts House of Representatives from 1835 to 1840,^[5] and served asSpeaker of the House of that body from 1838 to 1840. He was elected a member of theAmerican Antiquarian Society in 1838.^[6]

Winthrop was elected US Representative from Massachusetts as aWhig to the26thUnited States Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation ofAbbott Lawrence; he was reelected to the27th Congress and served from November 9, 1840, to May 25, 1842, when he resigned due to the death of his wife.^[4]

He was subsequently elected to the 27th Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of his successor,Nathan Appleton; he was reelected to the28th and to thethreesucceedingCongresses and served from November 29, 1842, until July 30, 1850. He served as thespeaker of the House during the30th Congress (1847–1849), but could not secure a second term, losing the1849 speakership election toHowell Cobb in a protracted 63-ballot contest. He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1849.^[7]

AfterDaniel Webster resigned from theUnited States Senate to becomeSecretary of State in 1850, Winthrop resigned from the House and, at 41, was appointed by fellow Whig governorGeorge Briggs to fill the remainder of Webster's Senate term.^[5] Winthrop's views proved no more palatable toabolitionists than did Webster's, and he failed to win reelection by the state legislature to either of Massachusetts' Senate seats in 1851. He resigned without completing his term immediately following his election loss. Later that year, Winthrop actually won a popular plurality in the race forMassachusetts governor but as the state Constitution required a majority, the election was thrown into the legislature. The same coalition ofDemocrats andFree Soilers defeated him again. His final venture into elected political office was as apresidential elector on the Whig ticket in1852. Afterwards, Winthrop became an independent, unsuccessfully supportingMillard Fillmore,John Bell, andGeorge McClellan.^[8]

With his political career over at the young age of 43, Winthrop spent the remainder of his life in literary, historical, and philanthropic pursuits.^[9] He was a major early patron of theBoston Public Library and president of theMassachusetts Historical Society from 1855 to 1885, during which time he wrote a biography of his ancestorJohn Winthrop.^[10] In 1880, he was elected a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society.^[11] He served as the president of the Massachusetts Bible Society for several years where he advocated that Christianmorality was the necessary condition of a free society.^[12] His most notable Christian philosophy for governing men, was as follows:

Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.^[13]

His most notable contributions came as permanent chairman and president of thePeabody Education Fund Trustees, which he served from 1867 to his death. As well as steering the contributions of the Peabody Trust, Winthrop gave his own money to variousSouthernschools, the most long lasting of which was the $1,500 ofseed money provided to a teacher's college that renamed itselfWinthrop University in gratitude. He became a notedorator, delivering two speeches in 1870: the eulogy forGeorge Peabody and on the celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims.^[14] He also spoke at theceremony that opened theWashington Monument in 1848.^[15] Winthrop was elected a member of theAmerican Antiquarian Society in October 1894.^[6]

In 1892, in a celebration of his birth, it was noted that he had the distinction of having known everyPresident of the United States except Washington and Jefferson.^[16]

On March 12, 1832, he married Elizabeth Cabot Blanchard (1809–1842), the daughter of Francis Blanchard (1784–1813) and Mary Ann Cabot (1784–1809), and the adopted daughter of Samuel P. Gardner.^[4] Elizabeth's elder half-brother was bankerJohn Clarke Lee, founder ofLee, Higginson & Co. Before her death, Robert and Elizabeth had three children:^[1]

• Robert Charles Winthrop Jr. (1834–1905), who married Frances Pickering Adams (1836–1860). After her death, he married Elizabeth Mason (1844–1924), daughter of Robert Means Mason (1810–1879) and Sarah Ellen Francis (1819–1865) and granddaughter ofJeremiah Mason, on June 1, 1869.
• Elizabeth "Eliza" Cabot Winthrop (1838–1921)^[17]
• John Winthrop (b. 1841)

After Elizabeth's death, he married his second wife, Laura (née Derby) Welles, widow of Arnold Francis Welles. Laura was the daughter of attorney John Derby and granddaughter ofElias Hasket Derby, on November 6, 1849.^[1] They remained married until her death in 1861.

On November 15, 1865, he married for the third and final time, to Adele (née Granger) Thayer (1820–1892), the widow of John E. Thayer. She was the daughter ofFrancis Granger, thepostmaster general under PresidentWilliam Henry Harrison andCornelia Rutsen Van Rensselaer.^[4][18]

Winthrop died in Boston in 1894, and is interred inMount Auburn Cemetery,Cambridge, Massachusetts.^[4] In his will, he left bequests to theMassachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Provident Association, theBoston Children's Hospital, the Library of theBoston Latin School, and the library of the Sunday school ofTrinity Church, Boston.^[19]

His granddaughter, Robert Jr.'s daughter Margaret Tyndal Winthrop (1880–1970),^[20] married James Grant Forbes on November 28, 1906. James and Margaret were the parents ofRosemary Isabel Forbes, who marriedRichard John Kerry and were the parents ofJohn Forbes Kerry, theU.S. secretary of state,U.S. senator and2004 presidential candidate. James and Margaret also are the parents of Fiona Diedre Forbes (1924–2010), who married Alain Gauthier Lalonde (1913–1974),^[21] the parents ofBrice Lalonde, French Minister of the Environment and 1981 French presidential candidate.

• 59th Massachusetts General Court (1838)
• 60th Massachusetts General Court (1839)
• 61st Massachusetts General Court (1840)

• Fowler, William (1980).The Baron of Beacon Hill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.ISBN 0-395-27619-5.OCLC 163369557.
• Walett, Francis (September 1950). "James Bowdoin, Patriot Propagandist".The New England Quarterly.23 (3):320–338.doi:10.2307/361420.JSTOR 361420.
• Winthrop, Robert (1852).The Life and Service of James Bowdoin. Boston: Little, Brown.ISBN 978-0-608-39427-5.OCLC 296634.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• —— (1897).A Memoir of Robert C. Winthrop. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

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• United States Congress."Robert C. Winthrop (id: W000646)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Winthrop's role as Chairman of the PEFArchived 2012-02-12 at theWayback Machine
• Robert Winthrop,Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions, Little, Brown and Company, 1852. 776 pages
• The Ancestors of Senator John Forbes Kerry (b. 1943)
• "Winthrop, John" .Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1889.

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