Sir George Downing, 3rd Baronet was a British landowner and initially Tory, but later Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1710 and 1749. Through a donation in his will, he was the founder of Downing College, Cambridge.

Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 950 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the oldest of the new colleges and the newest of the old. Downing College was formed "for the encouragement of the study of Law and Medicine and of the cognate subjects of Moral and Natural Science", and has developed a reputation amongst Cambridge colleges for Law and Medicine.