Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford

Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford (25 April 1794 – 5 October 1878), was an English jurist and politician.

Early life

He was the third son of Charles Thesiger, and was born in London. His father, collector of customs at St Vincent, West Indies, was the son of a Saxon gentleman who had migrated to England and become secretary to Lord Rockingham, and was the brother of Sir Frederic Thesiger, naval A.D.C. to Admiral Nelson at Copenhagen.

Career

Thesiger was originally destined for a naval career, and he served as a midshipman in 1807 at the second bombardment of Copenhagen. His only surviving brother died about this time, however, and he became entitled to succeed to a valuable estate in the West Indies.

It was thus decided that he should leave the navy and study law with a view to practising in the West Indies and eventually managing his property in person. He proceeded to enter at Gray's Inn in 1813, and was called on 18 November 1818. He joined the home circuit, and soon got into good practice at the Surrey sessions, while he also made a fortunate purchase in buying the right to appear in the old palace court (see Lord Steward). Another change of fortune, however, awaited him, for a volcano destroyed the family estate, and he was thrown back upon his prospect of a legal practice in the West Indies.

In 1824, he distinguished himself by his defence of Joseph Hunt when on his trial at Hertford with John Thurtell for the murder of William Weare; and eight years later at Chelmsford assizes he won a hard-fought action in an ejectment case after three trials, to which he attributed so much of his subsequent success that when he was raised to the peerage he elected to be created Baron Chelmsford, of Chelmsford in the County of Essex.

In 1834, he was made King's Counsel, and in 1835 was briefed in the Dublin election inquiry which unseated Daniel O'Connell. In 1840, he was elected M.P. for Woodstock. In 1844, he became Solicitor General, but having ceased to enjoy the favor of the Duke of Marlborough, lost his seat for Woodstock and had to find another at Abingdon.

In 1845, he became Attorney-General, holding the post until the fall of the Peel government on 3 July 1846. Thus by three days Thesiger missed being chief justice of the common pleas, for on 6 July Sir Nicholas Tindal died, and the seat on the bench, which would have been Thesiger's as of right, fell to the Liberal attorney-general, Sir Thomas Wilde.

Thesiger remained in parliament, changing his seat, however, again in 1852, and becoming member for Stamford. During this period he enjoyed a very large practice at the bar, being instructed in many "causes célèbres" including the Swynfen will case and Cardinal Newman's criminal prosecution for his libel of Giacinto Achilli. On Lord Derby coming into office for the second time in 1858, Thesiger was raised straight from the bar to the lord chancellorship (as were Brougham and Vaux, Selborne and Halsbury). He served as Lord Chancellor again in Derby's 1866–67 government. In 1868. Lord Derby retired, and his successor, Benjamin Disraeli, wanted Lord Cairns as lord chancellor. Lord Chelmsford was very sore at his supersession. and the manner of it, but according to Malmesbury he retired under a compact made before he took office.

Later life

Ten years later, Lord Chelmsford died in London on 5 October 1878. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery in London. [http://www.brompton.org/Residents.htm]

Personal life

Thesiger married Anna Maria Tinling in 1822. He left four sons and three daughters, of whom the eldest, Frederick Augustus, 2nd Baron Chelmsford (1827–1905), earned distinction as a soldier, while the third, Alfred Henry Thesiger (1838–1880) was a Lord Justice of Appeal and a privy councillor, but died aged only 39.

References

*Rayment

----
*1911