Henry de Worms, 1st Baron Pirbright

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Henry de Worms, 1st Baron Pirbright PC DL JP FRS (20 October 18406 January 1903) was a British politician. Before his elevation to the peerage in 1895 he was known as Baron Henry de Worms.

The third son of Solomon Benedict de Worms, Hereditary Baron of the Austrian Empire, and Henrietta Samuel, he was educated at King's College London.

In 1864 de Worms married Fanny, eldest daughter of Baron Von Todesco, and in 1887 he married Sarah, daughter of Sir Benjamin Samuel Phillips. He had three daughters by his first marriage. Born Jewish, he was an active member of the Jewish community until he married a Christian woman. He then dissociated himself entirely from Judaism, and was buried in a Christian cemetery.

De Worms became a Barrister at the Inner Temple in 1863, and a fellow of King's College in the same year. He served as Conservative Member of Parliament for Greenwich from 1880-1885 and for Liverpool East Toxteth from 1885-1895. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade from 1885-1886 and from 1886-1888, and Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1888-1892. He was British Plenipotentiary and President of the Conference on Sugar Bounties in 1888, and later served as a Commissioner for the Patriotic Fund. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1889.

He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1888 and in 1895 was raised to the peerage as Baron Pirbright, which title became extinct on his death.

Publications include England's Policy in the East, The Earth and its Mechanism, The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Memoirs of Count Beust.


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