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.

Early life Born Cecil Forester and baptised at St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, he was the eldest son of Anne ( Townshend) Forester and Lt-Col. Cecil Forester, MP for Wenlock. He assumed the additional surname of Weld by Royal Licence in 1811, upon inheriting Willey Park from his cousin George Forester.

His paternal grandparents were William Forester, also MP for Wenlock (and son of Sir William Forester and Lady Mary Cecil, a daughter of the 3rd Earl of Salisbury), and the former Catherine Brooke. His maternal grandfather was Robert Townshend.

Career 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 of the United Kingdom as Baron Forester, of Willey Park in the County of Shropshire. He had initially asked to be titled as Baron Wenlock to spite the rival local Lawley family who later did take the title.

Personal life Portrait of his son, George Weld-Forester, 3rd Baron Forester, -1870. In 1800, Weld-Forester married Lady Katherine Mary Manners (1779–1829), daughter of Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland, and Lady Mary Isabella Somerset. They had 11 children, six sons and five daughters:

John George Weld-Forester, 2nd Baron Forester (1801–1874), who married Alexandrine, Viscountess Melbourne ( Countess von Maltzan), a daughter of Joachim Carl Ludwig, Count von Maltzan, and widow of Frederick Lamb, 3rd Viscount Melbourne. Hon. Henrietta Maria Weld-Forester (10 December 1809 – 22 April 1841), who married Albert Denison, 1st Baron Londesborough, son of Gen. Henry Conyngham, 1st Marquess Conyngham, in 1833. Lt.-Col. Hon. Henry Townshend Weld-Forester (21 January 1821 – 5 May 1897), Grenadier Guards, died unmarried

He died of gout at Belgrave Square, London in 1828, aged 61, and was buried at Willey parish church. His tomb was sculpted by John Carline. He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son John George Weld-Forester. Lady Forester died in 1829. His daughters Anne and Selina 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 Lady Anne instead, in the hope of remaining close to both sisters.

Descendants Through his youngest daughter, Hon. Selina Louisa Weld-Forester, he was a grandfather of Lady Florence Bridgeman, wife of Henry Lascelles, 5th Earl of Harewood, and mother to his great-grandson, Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood, through whom Lord Forester's descendants would 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.