Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow
British lawyer and Tory politician (1731-1806)
Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow, PC (9 December 1731 – 12 September 1806), was a British lawyer and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1765 to 1778 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Thurlow. He served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain for fourteen years and under four Prime Ministers.
Early life
Born at Bracon Ash, Norfolk, Thurlow was the eldest son of Reverend Thomas Thurlow. Thomas Thurlow, Bishop of Durham, was his brother. He studied at King's School, Canterbury and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. However, he was forced to leave Cambridge in 1751 without a degree after coming into conflict with the authorities of the university. He was for some time articled to a solicitor in Lincoln's Inn, but in 1754 he was called to the Bar, Inner Temple. After a slow start, Thurlow eventually established a successful legal practice. He was made a King's Counsel in 1761 and was elected a bencher of the Inner Temple in 1762.
Political career
Thurlow then turned to politics, and in 1768 he was elected Member of Parliament for Tamworth as a Tory.
“Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow” enters the record as british lawyer and Tory politician (1731-1806). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Edward, Thurlow and Baron can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q44599. VIAF identifies the subject as 48787202. The Library of Congress control number is no90021111. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1731, 1806, 1765 and 1778.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow” 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.