Sir Robert Lawley, 5th Baronet

Sir Robert Lawley, 5th Baronet (22 March 1736 – 11 March 1793) was an English landowner and politician.

The family seat was Canwell Hall, Canwell, Staffordshire a thirty nine roomed mansion house built by Sir Francis, 2nd Baronet. He rebuilt the house in grand Georgian style to a design by architect James Wyatt.

He married Jane Thompson (1743 – 9 November 1816), sister of Beilby Thompson, of Escrick, Yorkshire on 11 August 1764. They had eight children baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Sutton Coldfield including:^[1]

• Jane Lawley (c. 1767–1852), married on 21 August 1793 Henry Willoughby, 6th Baron Middleton
• Robert Lawley, 1st Baron Wenlock (1768–1834)
• Anne Lawley (d. 1790)
• Sir Francis Lawley, 7th Baronet (c. 1782–1851)
• Paul Beilby Lawley (1784–1852)

In 1780, he was returned as Member of Parliament (MP) for Warwickshire, being the choice of the Whig manufacturing interests of Birmingham, which by this period could name one of two Warwickshire's two MPs without opposition. Despite this, he was not himself a Whig partisan but

had given the most incontrovertible indications of a sincere zeal in their cause, was unanimously selected as the voluntary object of their unbiassed preference...and at the county meeting, held a short time afterwards, he was named and accepted without any opposition. He is not likely to prove a speaker in the House, but ... it is supposed that he has no superiors in integrity. ^[2]

Lawley did not vote consistently with either party. His only two recorded speeches were on matters of constituency interest (on a bill to allow brass to be exported, and supporting a petition of some iron manufacturers). He retained his seat until his death in 1793.

See also

• Baron Wenlock

References

• Leigh Rayment's list of baronets
• Lewis Namier & John Brooke, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790 (London: HMSO, 1964)