Charles Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 20th Baron Clinton

Charles Henry Rolle Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 20th Baron Clinton (2 March 1834 – 29 March 1904), styled The Honourable Charles Trefusis between 1832 and 1866, was a British Conservative politician. He served as Under-Secretary of State for India from 1867 to 1868.

Early life and education Clinton was born in Rome in 1834, the eldest son of the eight children of Charles Trefusis, 19th Baron Clinton, and Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Kerr, daughter of William Kerr, 6th Marquess of Lothian. His father was at the time suffering financial difficulties as the estates inherited from his own father were heavily mortgaged, partly to pay jointures and allowances to other family members. His younger brother was Hon. Mark Rolle (1835–1907) (born Mark George Kerr Trefusis), of Stevenstone, St Giles in the Wood, Devon, High Sheriff of Devon in 1864, a DL of Devon and High Steward of Barnstaple, who due to an inheritance at the age of six from his uncle by marriage, John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1750–1842), acquired a life interest in the largest private estate in Devon, amounting to about 55,000 acres and producing a high annual income. As Mark Rolle died without male progeny, his brother Lord Clinton became (in his issue) his heir, under the terms of the entail created by Lord Rolle. The bulk of his father's Devon estates and the title Baron Clinton had been inherited by marriage from the wealthy Rolle family of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe, a junior branch of the even wealthier Rolles of Stevenstone. When the Rolle mansion of Heanton Satchville burnt down, the then Lord Clinton purchased an estate on the opposite side of the valley in the small parish of Huish, and renamed the existing mansion there Heanton Satchville.

Clinton was educated at Eton College. In 1854, he graduated with first-class honours in law and modern history from Christ Church, Oxford.

Landholdings and wealth In later life, Lord Clinton owned estates in England of 18,135 acres, of which 14,431 were in Devon, worth £23,246 per annum, and in Scotland 16,655 acres worth £14,230 per annum. This contrasted with his former meagre annual allowance received from his father at the time of his first marriage of £700 per annum.

Marriage and issue Lord Clinton married twice. First, in 1858 at Fasque, near Fettercairn in Scotland, he wed his first cousin Harriet Williamina Hepburn-Forbes (d. 1869), daughter and heiress of Sir John Stuart Hepburn-Forbes, 8th Baronet (d.1867), of Fettercairn and Pitsligo, Scotland. The mothers of each were daughters of William Kerr, Marquess of Lothian, and their families initially opposed the match on the grounds of consanguinity. In 1867, in accordance with his father-in-law's will, he assumed by royal licence the additional surnames and arms of Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes. By Harriet he had five children: By Margaret he had seven further children: He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son from his first marriage, Charles Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton.