BARON

See also:

• ROBERT
• ROBERT (1275—1343)
• ROBERT, HUBERT (1753-1808)
• ROBERT, LOUIS LEOPOLD (1794-1835)

ROBERT MONSEY ROLFE

See also:

• BARON ROBERT MONSEY ROLFE CRANWORTH (1790-1868)

CRANWORTH (1790-1868)  , lord chancellor of England, elder son of the Rev . E . Rolfe, was born at Cranworth, Norfolk, on the 18th of December 179o . Educated at Bury St Edmunds, Winchester, and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1816, and attached himself to the chancery courts . He represented Penryn and Falmouth in parliament from 1832 till his promotion to the bench as baron of the exchequer in 1839 . In 1850 he was appointed a vice-chancellor and created Baron Cranworth, and in 1852 he became lord chancellor in Aberdeen's ministry . He continued to hold the chancellorship in the administration of Palmerston until the latter's resignation in 1857 . He was not reappointed when Palmerston returned to office in 1859, but on the retirement of Lord Westbury in 1865 he accepted the great seal for a second time, and held it till the fall of the Russell administration in 1866 . Cranworth died in London on the 26th of July 1868 . Never a very zealous law reformer, Cranworth's name is associated in the statute book with only one small measure on conveyancing . But as a judge he will continue to hold first rank . His judgments were marked by sound common sense, while he himself was remarkably free from the prejudices of his profession .

Few men of his

day enjoyed greater personal popularity than Cranworth . He left no issue and the title became extinct on his death . See The Times, 27th of July 1868; E . Manson, The Builders of our Law (1904) ; E . Foss, The Judges of England (1848—1864) ; J . B . Atlay, Lives of the Chancellors, vol. ii . (1908) .