The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-10-12 00:00:00

DEATH OF LORD CHELMSFORD.

We regret to have to announce the death, in his 85th year,
of Lord Chelmsford, which occurred at his residence in
Eaton-square, London, on Saturday night, the sth inst., after
a very short illness. Lord Chelmsford returned to town from
Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where he had been staying some
weeks, on the 26th ult., to consult his medical advisers.
During his short illness he had been attended by Drs.
Andrew Clarke, Pollock, and Morgan, and underwent a pain-
ful operation about a week previous to his decease, which
had to be repeated on Friday last, since which he gradually
sank.—The Daily Telegraph gives the following brief sketch
of Lord Chelmsford's career :

"The Right Hon. Frederick Thesiger, Baron
Chelmsford in the Peerage of the 'United Kingdom,
D.C.L., F. R.S., was the son of Charles Thesiger' Col-
lector of Customs in the Island of St. Vincent, West
Indies. He was born in London in 1794, ad at a very
early age entered the Royal Navy, as midshipman,
on board the Cambrian frigate, having adopted the pro-
fession of his gallant uncle, Captain Sir Frederick
Thesiger, R.N., who was Aide-de-Camp to Lord
Nelson at Copenhagen. It is said that the youth
was himself in the boat which carried his uncle with
the despatch of Nelson asking for the capitulation of
the Danish fleet, an incident that is commemorated on
one of the bas-reliefs at the base of the column in
Trafalgar-square. In after life the noble lord often
referred with evident pleasure to his connection with
the Navy, but at the wish of his parents—his two elder
brothers having died young—he quitted the service of
the sea for the law. Another motive which weighed
with him was the destruction of his paternal property
by the great eruption of Mount Scouffrier in 1812. He
was called to the bar of the Hon. Society of Gray's Inn
in Michaelmas Term 1818, and went the Home
Circuit, in which he took a leading position and was
made a King's Counsel in 1834. In 180 he unsuccess-
fully contested Newark, but in the following month
was elected M.P., for Woodstock, which borough he
represented in the House of Commons until 1844.
In that year he was elected M.P., for Abingdon,
and sat for that borough until 1852, when he was re-
turned for Stamford, retaining his seat as its member
till 1858, when he became Lord Chancellor. Sir
Robert Peel had in 1844 chosen Mr. Thesiger for the
vacant Solicitor Generalship, and in the ensuing year he
succeeded Sir W. Follett as Attorney-General, retiring
in the year following on the downfall of Sir Robert Peel's
Ministry. He was recalled to the same office by Lord
Derby in 1852, and when his lordship succeeded to
power again in 1858 Sir Frederick became Lord Chan-
cellor. In Lord Derby's third administration he again
sat on the Woolsack, but when Mr. Disraeli became
Premier in 1868 Lord Chelmsford retired to give place
to Lord Cairns.
"The late lord married, March 9, 1822, Anna
Maria, youngest laughter and co-heir of Mr. Wm.
Tinling, of Southampton, and niece of Major Peirson,
the heroic defender of Jersey, by which lady, who
died April 9, 1855, he leaves surviving issue four 80118
and three daughters. The noble lord is succeeded in
the peerage by his BOD, Major-General Hon. Frederick
A. Thesiger, C. 8., who has seen service in the Crimea
and India, and is now Lieutenant Governor at the
Cape, where he has been in command of a division
operating against the Kaffir. The new peer was
born in 1827."

In noticing Lord Chelmsford's death, the Standard
remarks :

"The death of Lord Chelmsford, better known
twenty years ago as Sir Frederick Thesiger, closes a
career remarkable throughout for the display of energy,
and the achievement of success in very varied circum-
stances. It is not given to every man to begin life as
a fighting midshipman at thirteen, continue it as a
successful barrister through middle age, develope into
a law officer of the Crown at fifty-one, and, following
the fortunes of his party, be Lord Chancellor up to the
age of seventy-four--dying, full of age and honours, in
his eighty•fourth year. Yet this was the history
of the lawyer and statesman who died on Saturday
last. He was as was the uncle after whom
he was named—with Nelson at Copenhagen; but
it was perhaps happy for him that the loss of his
father's property in the West Indies compelled him
to seek a more lucrative profession than the navy, just
at the time when the English navy had completed its
grand share in the memorable struggle for the freedom
of England and the Continent. The rough life of an
English sailor lad in the times of the Great Admiral
was likely to impart a 'quickness to the intellect, and
a habit of discipline and self-control, invaluable in any
profession; whilst it is at least a probable conjecture
that young Theeiger's early years at sea did some-
thing towards giving him the iron constitution that
could alone have resisted two generations of sedentary
work and intellectual strain. Taken from a man-of-war
to chambers in Gray's inn, the ex-midshipman was net
long in showing his mettle. Called to the bar in 1818,
he soon gained favour with clients' and the leader-
ship of the Home Circuit, followed by a silk gown in

1834, were his immediate rewards. So promising an
advocate could hardly fail to aspire to the highest
place, and to court constituencies with a view to
those steps of advancement which led through the
House of Commons to the Woolsack. Member in
turn for Woodstock, Abingdon, and Stamford, he was,
in all, eighteen years in the House of Commons; but
he was Solicitor General in his fourth year, and
Attorney General the next—just thirty-three years ago.
Conservative opportunities for promotion came slowly
then; but in 1858 the goal was reached, and Baron
Chelmsford took his seat in the Upper House as Lord
Chancellor. Again, in the brief Conservative Ministry
from 1866 to 1868, he ocsupied the same position.
His history has been one more illustration of the
truth that in the most really aristocratic countries
a man needs no more than courage, ability, and in-
dustry in order to obtain the highest honours that the
nation can grant, and satiety the most exalted
ambition. The Theeigere, although many of them
have honourably distinguished themselves, and though
they have been happy in their alliances, are not even
an old English family. The ancestor of the late Lord
Chelmsford came to England from Saxony no earlier
than the eighteenth century, and his grandfather—
father of the Sir Frederick Thesiger who was Nelson's
aida-de-camp—is described simply as having married
Miss Gibson, of the city of Chester.' The union of
the two races seems to have had the happiest results,
and the name of Thesiger is bequeathed to a numerous
progeny, who have more than one family portrait they
may be proud to show."

The Daily News in speaking of Lord Chelmsford,
says "he was one of the few eminent lawyers who,
like Erskine, had served in the navy before thinking
of the bar—Erskine had, if we remember rightly,
served both in the army and the navy. Lord Chelms-
ford made an effective and amusing allusion to his
early occupations during a debate not many years ago
in the House of Lords. A Bill was under discussion
which had for its well-meant object the prevention of
the employment of young people in dangerous
gymnastic exhibitions, and one clause of it was so
framed as to prohibit the employment of boys in
occupations where they were compelled to climb
beyond a certain specified height. Llrd Chelmsford
observed that he would have been very glad if such a
statute had existed in his early days, for then if he had
committed a breach of discipline he could not have
been mastheaded for it."