Sir Robert Lawley, 5th Baronet

Who was Sir Robert Lawley, 5th Baronet?

Sir Robert Lawley, 5th Baronet 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, sister of Beilby Thompson, of Escrick, Yorkshire on 11 August 1764. They had eight children baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Sutton Coldfield including:

Jane Lawley, married on 21 August 1793 Henry Willoughby, 6th Baron Middleton

Robert Lawley, 1st Baron Wenlock

Anne Lawley

Sir Francis Lawley, 7th Baronet

Paul Beilby Lawley

In 1780, he was returned as Member of Parliament 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.