- Robert Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth
Robert Monsey Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth PC (
18 December 1790 –26 July 1868 ), was a British lawyer and Liberal politician. He twice served asLord Chancellor of the United Kingdom Born at Cranworth, Norfolk, he was the elder son of the Reverend Edward Rolfe. He was educated at
Bury St Edmunds , Winchester, andTrinity College, Cambridge , and wascalled to the bar ,Lincoln's Inn , in 1816. He represented Penryn and Falmouth in Parliament from 1832 until he was appointed aBaron 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. Cranworth died in
London on26 July 1868 . He was childless and the title became extinct on his death.9 days before his death, he gave judgment in the case of
Rylands v Fletcher , one of the most famous cases in English legal history.References
*1911
*Rayment
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