The son of ‘a quiet country gentleman’,1H. H. Drake, Hundred of Blackheath, 14. Robert Jacomb was a partner in the firm of Gibson, Jacob & Jacomb, scriveners and bankers. He started as a clerk to Thomas Gibson,
who recommended him to Sir Robert Walpole as a man well skilled in funds and government’s accounts, and so Sir Robert finds him, depending on him more than on any other in matters of this nature.2HMC Egmont Diary, i. 118.
When Walpole returned to the pay office in 172O, Jacomb became his deputy there, handling his private and official investments during the South Sea crisis. He was the author of the ‘ingraftment scheme’, a proposal to transfer part of the inflated capital of the South Sea Company to the Bank of England and the East India Company, which was adopted by Walpole, passed into law, but never put into operation.3J. H. Plumb, Walpole, i. 306, 325-6, 338. Brought into Parliament by Walpole’s influence in 1722, he frequently served on the committees appointed each session to prepare the finance bills (see under Kelsall, Henry).4CJ, xx. 242 et passim. He died 14 Dec. 1732.