CHELMSFORD, FREDERIC THESIGER, 1st BARON lord chancellor of England, was the third son of Charles Thesiger, and was born in London on April 15, 1794. Young Frederic Thesiger was originally destined for a naval career, and he served as a midshipman on board the "Cambrian" frigate in 1807 at the second bombardment of Copenhagen. About this time he succeeded to a valuable estate in the West Indies, so he left the navy and studied law, with a view to practising in the West Indies, and eventually managing his property in person. But a volcano destroyed the family estate, and he was thrown back upon his prospect of a legal practice in the West Indies. He en tered Gray's Inn in 1813, and was called on Nov. 18, 1818. God frey Sykes, whose pupil he was, advised him to try his fortunes in England. He accordingly joined the home circuit and practised at the Surrey sessions, also buying the right to appear at the old palace court (see LORD STEWARD).
In 1824 he distinguished himself by his defence of Joseph Hunt when on his trial at Hertford with John Thurtell for the murder of William Weare; and eight years later at Chelmsford assizes he won a hard-fought action in an ejectment case after three trials, to which he attributed so much of his subsequent success that when he was raised to the peerage he assumed the title Lord Chelmsford. In 1834 he was made king's counsel, and in 1835 was briefed in the Dublin election inquiry which unseated Daniel O'Connell. In 1840 he was elected M.P. for Woodstock. In 1844 he became solicitor-general, but having ceased to enjoy the favour of the duke of Marlborough, lost his seat for Woodstock and had to find another at Abingdon. In 1845 he became attorney-general, hold ing the post until the fall of the Peel administration on July 3, 1846. Thus by three days Thesiger missed being chief justice of the common pleas, for on July 6 Sir Nicholas Tindal died, and the seat on the bench, which would have been Thesiger's as of right, fell to the Liberal attorney-general, Sir Thomas Wilde. In 1852 he became M.P. for Stamford. On Lord Derby coming into office for the second time in 1858, Sir Frederic Thesiger was raised straight from the bar to the lord chancellorship (as were Lord Brougham, Lord Selborne, and Lord Halsbury). In the fol lowing year Lord Derby resigned. Again in 1866, on Lord Derby coming into office for the third time, Lord Chelmsf orcl became lord chancellor for a short period. In 1868 Lord Derby retired, and Disraeli, who took his place as prime minister, wished for Lord Cairns as lord chancellor. Lord Chelmsford died in London on Oct. 5, 1878. He had married in 1822 Anna Maria Tinling, and left four sons and three daughters, of whom the eldest, Fred erick Augustus, 2nd Baron Chelmsford (1827-1905), earned dis tinction as a soldier, while the third, Alfred Henry Thesiger (1838 8o), was made a lord justice of appeal and a privy councillor in 1877, at the age of 39, but died only three years later.
See Lives of the Chancellors (iqo8), by J. B. Atlay, who had the advantage of access to an unpublished autobiography of Lord Chelms ford.