Robert Thornhagh Gurdon, 1st Baron Cranworth (18 June 1829 – 13 October 1902) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

.

Cranworth was the eldest son of Brampton Gurdon of Letton Hall in Norfolk and of Grundisbugh Hall in Suffolk. He was elected to the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 for South Norfolk

South Norfolk (UK Parliament constituency)

South Norfolk is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. From 1868 until 1885 it returned two members but thereafter elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

 as a Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 in 1880, a seat he held until 1885, when he was returned for Mid Norfolk. In 1886 he split with the Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

 over Irish Home Rule, and joined the Liberal Unionists. Cranworth continued to represent Mid Norfolk until 1892, and then again briefly in 1895. In 1899 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Cranworth, of Letton and Cranworth in the County of Norfolk.

Lord Cranworth married, firstly, Harriott Ellin Miles, daughter of Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet

Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet

Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet was an English politician, agriculturalist and landowner. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford and was created Baronet on April 19, 1859, of Leigh Court, Somerset....

, in 1862 and they had a daughter, Amy Harriott Gurden, in 1864. After her death in childbirth in 1864 he married, secondly, Emily Frances, daughter of Robert Boothby Heathcote, in 1874. He died in October 1902, aged 73, and was succeeded in the barony by his son from his second marriage Bertram Francis Gurdon. Lady Cranworth died in 1934.