Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury

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The Right Honourable The Lord Westbury PC, QC
Lord Chancellor
In office 26 June 1861 – 7 July 1865
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Viscount Palmerston
Preceded by	The Lord Campbell
Succeeded by	The Lord Cranworth
Personal details
Born	30 June 1800 (1800-06-30) Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
Died	20 July 1873 (1873-07-21) (aged 73)
Nationality	British
Political party	Liberal
Spouse(s)	(1) Ellinor Abraham (d. 1863) (2) Eleanor Tennant (d. 1894)
Alma mater	University of Oxford

Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury PC, QC (30 June 1800 – 20 July 1873), was a British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain between 1861 and 1865.

Background and education

Born at Bradford on Avon, in Wiltshire, he was the son of the doctor Richard Bethel. Taking 1st class in classics and 2nd class in mathematics, he joined Wadham College, Oxford, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1818, having been elected a fellow. In 1823 Bethell was called to the bar at the Middle Temple.

Legal career

Westbury was made a Queen's Counsel in 1840 was appointed vice-chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster in 1851. His most important public service was the reform of the then existing mode of legal education, a reform which ensured that students before call to the bar should have at least some acquaintance with the elements of the subject which they were to profess. In 1851 he obtained a seat in the British House of Commons, where he represented, first Aylesbury until 1859, then Wolverhampton for the next two years. Attaching himself to the liberals, he became Solicitor General in 1852, on whose occasion he was made a Knight Bachelor. He was nominated Attorney-General in 1856 and again in 1859, serving both times for two years.

Political career

File:1stLordWestbury.jpg

Lord Westbury.

On 26 June 1861, on the death of Lord Campbell, he was appointed Lord Chancellor and raised to the peerage as Baron Westbury, of Westbury, in the County of Wiltshire. Owing to the reception by parliament of reports of committees nominated to consider the circumstances of certain appointments in the Leeds Bankruptcy Court, as well as the granting a pension to a Mr Leonard Edmunds, a clerk in the patent office, and a clerk of the parliaments, the lord chancellor felt it incumbent upon him to resign his office, which he accordingly did on 5 July 1865, and was succeeded by Robert Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth. After his resignation he continued to take part in the judicial sittings of the House of Lords and the Privy Council until his death. In 1872 he was appointed arbitrator under the European Assurance Society Act 1872.

Character

Perhaps the best known of his decision was the judgment delivering the opinion of the judicial committee of the privy council in 1863 against the heretical character of certain extracts from the well-known publication Essays and Reviews. His principal legislative achievements were the passing of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, and of the Land Registry Act 1862 (generally known as Lord Westbury's Act), the latter of which in practice proved a failure. What chiefly distinguished Lord Westbury was the possession of a certain sarcastic humour; and numerous are the stories, authentic and apocryphal, of its exercise. In fact, he and Sir William Henry Maule filled a position analogous to that of Sydney Smith, convenient names to whom good things may be attributed.

Family

Lord Westbury married Ellinor Mary, daughter of Robert Abraham, in 1825. After her death in March 1863 he married Eleanor Margaret, daughter of Henry Tennant, in January 1873. Westbury died aged 71 on 20 July 1873, within a day of the death of Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, his special antagonist in debate, and was buried in the Great Northern Cemetery (now the New Southgate Cemetery). He was succeeded in the barony by his son from his first marriage, Richard. Lady Westbury died in December 1894.

References

• This article originally from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lord Westbury

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Quintin Dick Frederick Calvert	Member of Parliament for Aylesbury 1851 – 1859 With: Quintin Dick 1851–1852 Austen Henry Layard 1852–1857 Thomas Tyringham Bernard 1857–1859	Succeeded by Thomas Tyringham Bernard Samuel George Smith
Preceded by Hon. Charles Pelham Villiers Thomas Thornley	Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton 1859 – 1861 With: Hon. Charles Pelham Villiers	Succeeded by Hon. Charles Pelham Villiers Thomas Matthias Weguelin
Legal offices
Preceded by Sir Fitzroy Kelly	Solicitor General for England and Wales 1852–1856	Succeeded by James Archibald Stuart-Wortley
Preceded by Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Bt	Attorney General for England and Wales 1856–1858	Succeeded by Sir Fitzroy Kelly
Preceded by Sir Fitzroy Kelly	Attorney General for England and Wales 1859–1861	Succeeded by Sir William Atherton
Political offices
Preceded by The Lord Campbell	Lord Chancellor 1861 – 1865	Succeeded by The Lord Cranworth
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron Westbury 1861 – 1873	Succeeded by Richard Bethell