Thomas Cholmondeley, 1st Baron Delamere


Thomas Cholmondeley, 1st Baron Delamere, of Vale Royal, Cheshire, was a British landowner and politician. He was elected MP for Cheshire in 1796, a seat he held until 1812.

Background

He was born on 9 August 1767 in Beckenham, Kent, the eldest son of Thomas Cholmondeley, Vale Royal, Cheshire and Dorothy Cowper. On his father's side he descended from a younger brother of Robert Cholmondeley, 1st Earl of Leinster, and Hugh Cholmondeley, father of Robert Cholmondeley, 1st Viscount Cholmondeley, from whom the Marquesses of Cholmondeley descend. Delamere was an indirect descendant of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain.
The Cholmondeleys were long established at their seat at Vale Royal Abbey, Cheshire which had been in the family since 1615.
Cholmondeley was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1781 and entered Pembroke College, Oxford in 1785.

Career

He served as High Sheriff of Cheshire in 1792 and then in 1796 was elected to the House of Commons for his father's old seat of Cheshire, which he retained until 1812. On 17 July 1821 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Delamere, of Vale Royal in the County Palatine of Chester. Hugh Cholmondeley, 5th Baron Delamere paints a picture of his early-19th-century ancestor with deft, harsh strokes:

Family

On 17 December 1810, Cholmondeley married Henrietta Elizabeth Williams-Wynn, daughter of Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Baronet, and his wife, Charlotte (née Grenville). That union produced five children and numerous grandchildren:
The marriage of the baron's third son, Henry, produced nine grandchildren; and of these, Lionel would become chaplain to the and would write the first English-language history of the isolated Bonin Islands, including notes of changes which evolved after annexation by Meiji Japan in 1875.
Cholmondeley died in London on 30 October 1855 at the age of 88. He was succeeded in the land, estates and title by his eldest son Hugh Cholmondeley.