Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow

Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow (painting by Thomas Lawrence , 1803)

Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow , PC , KC (* 9. December 1731 in Bracon Ash, Norfolk , † 12. September 1806 ) was a British politician , among others 1765-1778 Member of Parliament ( House of Commons ) and between 1778 and 1783 and again from 1783 to 1792 was Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (Lord High Chancellor) . In 1778 he was a Baron Thurlow , of Ashfield in the County of Suffolk, and in 1792 as Baron Thurlow, of Thurlow in the County of Suffolk in the hereditary nobility of the Peerage of Great Britain raised and thus a member of the upper house ( House of Lords ) .

Life

Thurlow was the eldest son of Reverend Thomas Thurlow and his wife Elizabeth Smith and an older brother of Thomas Thurlow , who was Bishop of Lincoln from 1779 to 1787 and Prince-Bishop of Durham of the Church of England from 1787 to 1791 . He attended the 597 founded and thus probably oldest school in the world, The King's School in Canterbury and then the Gonville and Caius College of the University of Cambridge . After completing his studies he was admitted to the bar in 1754 as a barrister at the Bar Association ( Inns of Court ) of Inner Temple . For his lawyer's merits he was appointed in 1762 Attorney (King's Counsel) and for Bencher of the Bar Association of the Inner Temple appointed. In 1765 he was appointed chief secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , but did not take this office.

Instead, Thurlow was for the conservative Tories as a member of the lower house ( House of Commons ) selected and represented in this until 1778 the constituency of Tamworth . In addition, he was from 1769 to 1770 Treasurer (Treasurer) of the Bar Association of Inner Temple. As successor to John Dunning he was Solicitor General in 1770 and held this office until he was replaced by Alexander Wedderburn in 1771. He then again succeeded William de Gray in 1771 as Attorney General and held this position until he was again in 1778 by Alexander Wedderburn was replaced.

In 1778 Thurlow succeeded Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (Lord High Chancellor) and held this post until 1783. At the same time he became in 1778 member of the Secret Privy Council ( Privy Council ) . On June 3, 1778, he was further than Baron Thurlow , of Ashfield in the County of Suffolk in the hereditary nobility of the Peerage of Great Britain raised and thus a member of the upper house ( House of Lords ) . After a brief vacancy, he again took over the office of Lord Chancellor in 1783, which he now held until 1792. In addition, he acted as the successor to Robert Henley, 2nd Earl of Northington between 1786 and his death in 1806 as the agent of the Treasury ( Teller of the Receipt of the Exchequer ) . During this time, due to his office as Lord Chancellor from 1788 until the end of his tenure as Lord High Steward in the House of Lords, he led the trial of Warren Hastings , which, however, was not acquitted until April 1795 under his successor Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn ended for Hastings.

After completing his tenure as Lord Chancellor, he was raised on June 12, 1792 as Baron Thurlow, of Thurlow in the County of Suffolk, in the hereditary nobility of the Peerage of Great Britain . The special thing about this peerage was that due to the lack of male descendants, it provided for an inheritance in favor of his three nephews and sons of his younger brother Thomas Thurlow, who died in 1791. After his death on September 12, 1806, he was buried in London's Temple Church . While the title of Baron Thurlow, of Ashfield in the County of Suffolk, first bestowed on him in 1778, expired for lack of male descendants, the title of Baron Thurlow, of Thurlow in the County of Suffolk, conferred in 1792, went to his nephew Edward Hovell-Thurlow .

Web links

• Entry on cracroftspeerage.co.uk
• Entry in leighrayment.com
• Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow of Thurlow on thepeerage.com , accessed August 12, 2017.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baron Thurlow (of Ashfield in the County of Suffolk) 1778-1806	Title expired
New title created	Baron Thurlow (of Thurlow in the County of Suffolk) 1792-1806	Edward Hovell-Thurlow