John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale

John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale PC FRS (18 August 1748 – 16 January 1830), English lawyer and politician, younger son of John Mitford (d. 1761) and brother of the historian William Mitford, was born in London.

Having become a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1777, he wrote "A Treatise on the Pleadings in Suits in the Court of Chancery by English Bill", a work of great value, which has been reprinted several times in England and America. In 1788 Mitford became member of parliament for the borough of Bere Alston in Devon, and in 1791 he introduced the important bill for the relief of Roman Catholics, which was passed into law. In 1793 he succeeded Sir John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, as Solicitor-General for England, becoming Attorney-General six years later, when he was returned to parliament as member for East Looe, in Cornwall.

In February 1801 Sir John Mitford (as he was now) was chosen speaker of the House of Commons. Exactly a year later, he was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland and was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Redesdale. Being an outspoken opponent of Roman Catholic emancipation, Redesdale was unpopular in Ireland. In February 1806 he was dismissed on the formation of the ministry of Fox and Lord Grenville.

Although Redesdale declined to return to official life, he was an active member of the House of Lords both on its political and its judicial sides. In 1813 he secured the passing of acts for the relief of insolvent debtors, and later he was an opponent of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and of other popular measures of reform. Redesdale, who was a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of three commissions on the public records, died on the 16th of January 1830. In 1803 he married Frances (d. 1817), daughter of John, 2nd earl of Egmont. He took the additional name of Freeman in 1809 on succeeding to the estates of Thomas Edwards Freeman.

His only son, John Thomas Freeman-Mitford (1805-1886), succeeded to the title.

References

*O. J. Burke, "History of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland" (Dublin, 1879)
*J. R. O'Flanagan, "Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland" (1870)
*Sir J. Barrington, "Personal Sketches of His Own Times" (1869)
*Sir SE Brydges, "Autobiography" (1834)
*C. Abbot, "Lord Colchester, Diary and Correspondence" (London, 1861)
*1911