Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury

Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury (painting by Michele Gordigiani in the National Portrait Gallery , London )

Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury PC QC (born June 30, 1800 in Bradford-on-Avon , Wiltshire , † July 20, 1873 in London ) was a British lawyer and politician of the Whigs and later the Liberal Party , who was a member of parliament for several years of the House of Commons and was Lord Chancellor between 1861 and 1865 .

Life

Lawyer and MP

Bethell, son of the physician Richard Bethell, completed after school, first studying at Wadham College of Oxford University , which he in 1818 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA), and in 1822 a Master of Arts graduated (MA). He then became a Fellow of Wadham College, where he completed postgraduate studies in law . After being admitted to the Middle Temple as a lawyer , he began working as a barrister in 1823 . For his long-time lawyer's services he was in 1840, both so-called "Bencher" the Bar Association of the Middle Temple and Crown Counsel (Queen's Counsel) and served in 1841 as head of the specialized in commercial law, antitrust law, wills and estate legal profession (Chancery Bar) .

On April 11, 1851, Bethell was elected as a candidate for the liberal Whigs for the first time as a member of the House of Commons and represented there initially until April 28, 1859 the constituency of Aylesbury and then until June 27, 1861 the constituency of Wolverhampton .

After serving as Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster between 1851 and 1852 , he was appointed Solicitor General in 1852 by Prime Minister George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen , as the successor to Fitzroy Kelly . He also held this office in the subsequent cabinet of Prime Minister Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston , and as such was Deputy Attorney General until his replacement by James Stuart-Wortley in 1856 and thus one of the most important advisers to the Crown and the government. In 1853 he was beaten to a Knight Bachelor degree and from then on carried the suffix "Sir".

Lord Chancellor

Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury (engraving by DJ Pound after a photograph by John Jabez Edwin Mayall )

He then succeeded Alexander Cockburn as Attorney General in 1856 and held this office until the end of Palmerston's tenure on February 20, 1858. He was replaced by Fitzroy Kelly.

After Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, became Prime Minister again on June 12, 1859, Bethell, who had become Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) in 1860, once again succeeded Fitzroy Kelly as Attorney General June 1861. He was succeeded by William Atherton , the previous Solicitor General of England and Wales.

Thereafter, on June 26, 1861, Bethell was appointed Lord Chancellor (Lord Chancellor) by Prime Minister Palmerston and thus succeeded John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell, who had died two days earlier . He held the office until July 7, 1865 and was replaced by Robert Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth .

Through a letters patent dated June 27, 1861, Bethell, who also became a member of the Privy Council , was raised as a hereditary peer with the title Baron Westbury , of Westbury in the County of Wiltshire , and thus belonged to the House of Lords until his death as a member.

His first marriage to Ellinor Mary Abraham on November 19, 1825 resulted in eight children, including the eldest son Richard Augustus Bethell , who inherited the title after the death of his father.

Web links

Commons : Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Richard Bethell at Hansard (English)
• Entry on cracroftspeerage.co.uk
• Entry in leighrayment.com
• Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury, on thepeerage.com , accessed August 21, 2015.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baron Westbury 1861–1873	Richard Bethell