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Baron Forester

Title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ4862378
Source-derived summary

Baron Forester, of Willey Park in the County of Shropshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 17 July 1821 for Cecil Weld-Forester, who had previously represented Wenlock in the House of Commons. Born Cecil Forester, he assumed the additional surname of Weld by royal licence in 1811. His son, the second Baron, also represented Wenlock from 1790 in Parliament, and later served in the Tory administration of Sir Robert Peel as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords) from 1841 to 1846.

He was succeeded by his younger brother, the third Baron. He sat as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Wenlock for 46 years, and was Father of the House from 1873 to 1874. His nephew, the fifth baron, also represented Wenlock in Parliament as a Conservative. Both his son, the sixth baron, and grandson, the seventh baron, served as mayor of Wenlock. As of 2017, the title is held by the latter's grandson, the ninth baron, who succeeded his father in 2004.

The family were anciently hereditary foresters of Wellington Hay in Mount Gilbert Forest, and lived at Wellington or at Watling Street Hall (later Old hall), where they had a half virgate of land held by keeping the Hay.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Baron Forester” as title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1821, 1811, 1790, 1841—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Baron, Forester and Title can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4862378. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1821, 1811, 1790 and 1841.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Baron Forester primary sources, Baron Forester archive and Baron research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Baron Forester” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.