Sir Charles Bunbury was born the eldest son of Reverend Sir William Bunbury, 5th Baronet, Vicar of
Mildenhall, Suffolk, and his wife Eleanor, daughter of Vere Graham, on 1 May 1740. The caricaturist
Henry Bunbury was his younger brother. He was educated at
St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Bunbury was returned to Parliament as one of two representatives for
Suffolk in 1761, a seat he held until 1784 and again from 1790 to 1812. He was also
High Sheriff of Suffolk in 1788. Whilst serving as a
Whig politician, Bunbury became a strong opponent of the
slave trade. He was also a supporter and ally of
Charles James Fox (his nephew by marriage) when the latter entered politics in 1768; Fox was the son of
Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, and Lady
Caroline Lennox, the eldest daughter of
Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond. Bunbury married firstly
Lady Sarah Lennox, one of the famous
Lennox sisters, on 2 June 1762. She was a younger daughter of the 2nd Duke of Richmond, who was a grandson of
Charles II through his illegitimate son,
Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond. Their notorious marriage, which produced no children—although Sarah gave birth to a daughter fathered by her lover,
Lord William Gordon, on 19 December 1768—was dissolved by Act of Parliament on 14 May 1776, on the grounds of Sarah's adultery. He married secondly Margaret Cocksedge on 21 November 1805, again without children. Bunbury died on 31 March 1821, aged 80, and was succeeded to the baronetcy by his nephew,
Henry. Margaret, Lady Bunbury, died in February 1822. Bunbury was an important figure in the fields of
horse racing and
Thoroughbred breeding, whose influence has been described as "crucial". He was a steward of the
Jockey Club, and his horses included the
Epsom Derby winners
Diomed,
Eleanor, and
Smolensko. His
racing silks were pink and white stripes. Bunbury bred the
racehorse and leading sire
Highflyer (1774–18 October 1793), one of the most important sons of
Herod (April 1758–12 May 1780), the progenitor of the
Byerley Turk sire line in the Thoroughbred
horse breed. ==Horses==