Robert Walpole, 10th Baron Walpole


Robert Horatio Walpole, 10th Baron Walpole of Walpole, JP is a British politician and former member of the House of Lords.

Ancestors

Walpole is a relative of Sir Robert Walpole, the first British Prime Minister. He is the 10th and 8th Baron Walpole. His ancestors include Sir Robert Walpole's father Robert Walpole.

Education and local government career

He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. and an M.A. He served on the County Council of Norfolk for eleven years from 1970 to 1981.

House of Lords career

He entered the House on the death of his father in 1989. He was a crossbencher and was internally elected to continue serving after the House of Lords Act 1999 prevented most hereditary peers from sitting. He retired from Parliament on 13 June 2017.

Family

His heir is Jonathan Robert Hugh Walpole, a writer; he has four other children including Alice Walpole, a diplomat, by his first wife Judith Walpole, later Judith Chaplin. Their marriage was dissolved in 1979. In 1980 Walpole married Laurel Celia Ball with whom he has three further children.

Wealth and estates

His father's net estate as at his death in February 1989 was sworn as £2,065,295. In April 2016 he sold Wolterton Hall, the house commissioned by his ancestor the 1st Baron Walpole in 1742, where he and his father had lived. He lives nearby at Mannington Hall a house owned by his family since the 18th century.