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5 unusual facts about Bobby Shafto


Bobby Shaftoe

Bobby Shafto, 18th-century English politician and subject of a famous song

Robert Shafto

Bobby Shafto (1732–1797), English MP for Durham 1760–1768, and for Downton 1780–1790

Shafto family

John's son Robert Shafto (1732-1797) was a politician known famously as 'Bobby Shafto'.

The Mitre, Newcastle upon Tyne

It became home to a branch of the Shafto family of Bavington Hall until the 1770s, when it was sold by Robert Shafto (the son of Bobby Shafto, immortalised in the song of the same name).

Whitworth Hall, County Durham

John was the father of Robert Shafto, better known as Bobby Shaftoe, who vastly increased the family fortune by his marriage in 1774 to Anne Duncombe of Duncombe Park.


Whitworth Hall Country Park

The park includes Whitworth Hall, a Grade II listed stately mansion (the ancestral home of Bobby Shafto an 18th century MP) hotel, deer park, lake and Shafto's Inn.


see also