Cecil Weld-Forester, 1st Baron Forester

Cecil Weld-Forester, 1st Baron Forester (baptised 7 April 1767 – 23 May 1828) was a Tory British Member of Parliament and later peer.

Born Cecil Forester and baptised at St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, he assumed the additional surname of Weld by Royal licence in 1811, upon inheriting Willey Park from his cousin George Forester. He was elected to the House of Commons for Wenlock in 1790, a seat he held until 1820. The latter year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Forester, of Willey Park in the County of Shropshire.

Lord Forester married Lady Katherine Mary Manners, daughter of Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland and his wife Lady Mary Somerset, in 1800. They had nine children, four sons and five daughters. He died of gout at Belgrave Square, London in 1828, aged 61, and was buried at Willey parish church. He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son John George Weld-Forester. Lady Forester died in 1829. His descendants would later be in the British line of succession to the throne through his descendant Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood, the wife of his great-grandson, Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood.

Of his five daughters, Anne, who married George Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield, and Selina, who married Orlando Bridgeman, 3rd Earl of Bradford, were leaders of fashionable society, and both were intimate friends of Benjamin Disraeli. It was often said that Disraeli in his last years was in love with Selina, but since she was not free to marry, he proposed to the widowed Anne instead, in the hope of remaining close to both sisters. Anne refused his proposal on the grounds that they were both too old to start a new life.

References

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990,
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
• Lundy, Darryl. "p. 1598 § 15976". The Peerage.