Monarch Victoria Name Robert 1st Preceded by The Lord St Leonards Role British Politician | Monarch Victoria Party Liberal Party Preceded by The Lord Westbury | |
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Prime Minister The Earl of Aberdeen
The Viscount Palmerston Prime Minister The Viscount Palmerston
The Earl Russell Died July 26, 1868, London, United Kingdom Education Trinity College, Cambridge Succeeded by Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford | ||
Robert Monsey Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth PC (18 December 1790 – 26 July 1868) was a British lawyer and Liberal politician. He twice served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.
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Background and education
Born at Cranworth, Norfolk, he was the elder son of the Reverend Edmund Rolfe and Jemima Alexander, James Alexander, 1st Earl of Caledon's niece and a granddaughter of physician Messenger Monsey. Rolfe was related to Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, he was educated at Bury St Edmunds, Winchester, Trinity College, Cambridge, Downing College, Cambridge (of which he was elected fellow) and was called to the bar, Lincoln's Inn, in 1816.
Legal and political career
Cranworth represented Penryn and Falmouth in Parliament from 1832 until he was appointed a Baron of the Exchequer in 1839. In 1850 he was appointed a Vice-Chancellor and raised to the peerage as Baron Cranworth, of Cranworth in the County of Norfolk. In 1852 Lord Cranworth became Lord Chancellor in Lord Aberdeen's coalition ministry. He continued to hold the chancellorship also in the administration of Lord Palmerston until the latter's resignation in 1858. Cranworth was not reappointed when Palmerston returned to office in 1859, but on the retirement of Lord Westbury in 1865 he accepted the office for a second time, and held it till the fall of the Russell administration in 1866.
Personal life
In 1850, Cranworth married Laura Carr (1807–1868), daughter of Thomas William Carr (born 1770). The couple had no children.
Lord Cranworth died at his seat, Holwood House, on 26 July 1868, aged 77, after a short illness related to the heat. He was childless and the title became extinct on his death.