Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury
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The Right Honourable The Lord Westbury PC QC MP |
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|---|---|
 |
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| Lord Chancellor | |
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In office 26 June 1861 – 7 July 1865 |
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| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | The Viscount Palmerston |
| Preceded by | The Lord Campbell |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Cranworth |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
30 June 1800 Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire |
| Died |
20 July 1873 (aged 73) Lancaster Gate, London |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Liberal |
| Spouse(s) |
Ellinor Abraham (m. 1823; her death 1863) Eleanor Tennant (m. 1873) |
| Alma mater | Wadham College, Oxford |
Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury PC QC MP (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. He was knighted in 1852 and raised to the peerage in 1861.
Born at Bradford on Avon, in Wiltshire, he was the eldest son of the physician Richard Bethell of Bristol and Jane (née Baverstock). He was from an old Welsh family originally named Ap Ithel. His younger brother was John Bethell.
He was educated in Bath and Bristol before attending Wadham College, Oxford at only 14 years old. He received a scholarship the next year. He took first-class honors in classics and second class in mathematics, and 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.
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 1847, he ran unsuccessfully for Parliament; contesting Shaftesbury, he lost to Whig politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He was successful in his second attempt in 1851, when he was elected for Aylesbury. 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. He represented Wolverhampton from 1859–61.
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