Richard Solomon (Attorney General)

Sir Richard Solomon GCMG KCB KCVO KC (18 October 1850 - 10 November 1913) was a member of Parliament and the Attorney General of the Cape Colony and of the Transvaal.

Richard Solomon was born on Oct. 18, 1850, in Cape Town, and was educated at South African College & Peterhouse Cambridge before being called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1879.

He was elected to the Cape Parliament in 1893, and was appointed Attorney-General of the Cape Colony from 1898 to 1901. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1901, on the occasion of the visit to the Cape of Good Hope of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George V and Queen Mary).^[1] Sir Richard served as legal advisor to Lord Kitchener during the Boer War, and then to the Transvaal Administration from 1901 until 1902, when he served on the Executive and Legislative Councils and was again appointed Attorney General, but this time to the Transvaal. He represented South Africa at the Delhi Durbar in 1903 and brought back gold and silver medals for the country.

He married Mary Walton in 1881 and they had one daughter.^[2] Sir Richard Solomon was part of a large and influential Cape family, of St Helenan Jewish descent. Members of the Solomon family were heavily involved in Cape politics, were physically all extraordinarily tiny in stature, but included some of the greatest legal minds in southern Africa. The great Cape Colony politician Saul Solomon was Sir Richard's uncle, and his brother was the Transvaal politician Edward Phillip Solomon.^[3]

His final position was as High Commissioner in London for the Union of South Africa from 1910 until his death. He died in London on 10 November 1913.^[4]

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