Background
Born in London, Mitford was the younger son of John Mitford (d 1761) of Exbury, Hampshire, and Philadelphia, daughter of Willey Reveley of Newton Underwood, Northumberland.
Born in London, Mitford was the younger son of John Mitford (d 1761) of Exbury, Hampshire, and Philadelphia, daughter of Willey Reveley of Newton Underwood, Northumberland.
He was Speaker of the House of Commons between 1801 and 1802 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland between 1802 and 1806. Having become a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1777, Mitford wrote A Treatise on the Pleadings in Suits in the Court of Chancery by English Bill, a work reprinted several times in England and America. He was made a King"s Counsel in 1789.
In 1793 he succeeded Sir John Scott as Solicitor-General for England (receiving the customary knighthood at the same time), becoming Attorney General six years later, when he was returned to parliament as member for East Looe in Cornwall.
In February 1801 Mitford was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons and sworn of the Privy Council. Exactly a year later, he was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland and raised to the peerage as Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale in the County of Northumberland.
In February 1806 he was dismissed on the formation of the Ministry of All the Talents. In 1813 he secured the passing of acts for the relief of insolvent debtors, and became an opponent of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and other popular measures of reform.
He took the additional name of Freeman in 1809 on succeeding to the estates of Thomas Edwards Freeman.
Lady Redesdale died in August 1817. Lord Redesdale survived her by thirteen years and died at Batsford Park, near Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Gloucestershire, in January 1830, aged 81.
Royal Society; 1st United Kingdom Parliament. 17th Parliament of Great Britain. 18th Parliament of Great Britain]
In 1788 he became Member of Parliament for the borough of Bere Alston in Devon, and in 1791 he successfully introduced a bill for the relief of Roman Catholics, despite being himself a committed Anglican.
Although Lord Redesdale declined to return to official life, he was an active member of the House of Lords on its political and its judicial sides.
