| Biography | Richard Godolphin Walmesley Chaloner, 1st Baron Gisborough (born Richard Godolphin Walmesley Long; 12 October 1856 23 January 1938) was a British soldier and politician. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) from 1895 to 1900 and 1910 to 1917, and a member of the House of Lords from 1917 until his death.
Chaloner was the son of Richard Penruddocke Long, an MP from 1859 to 1868, and younger brother of Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long. His family owned Rood Ashton House in Wiltshire and had lived in the county since the end of the 14th century. Chaloner's maternal grandfather was William Dick, an MP for Wicklow from 1852 to 1880. In 1888, he assumed the surname Chaloner by Royal licence, this was in accordance with the will of his maternal great-uncle Admiral Thomas Chaloner, who had inherited the Gisborough estate and Gisborough Hall through his mother, a descendant of Robert de Brus.
Chaloner was educated at Winchester College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst where he became Captain of the 3rd Hussars. He served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and in the Second Boer War. In 1882, he married Margaret Brocklesby Davis (died 1941) and they had two sons and four daughters. Their elder son, Richard, died in France in 1917 while guarding German prisoners of war.
Richard Chaloner was first elected to Parliament for Westbury in the 1895 general election. At the next general election in 1900, he was defeated by the Liberal candidate John Fuller. In the January 1910 general election, Chaloner was re-elected to Parliament succeeding the Liberal MP J. E. B. Seely in the constituency of Liverpool Abercromby. He retained this seat until 18 June 1917, when he was made Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, a post that expelled him from the Commons, thus effectively resigning from the Commons. On 23 June 1917, he was created Baron Gisborough, of Cleveland in the County of York, and became a member of the House of Lords. A by-election was held in Liverpool Abercromby to replace him. Lord Gisborough died in 1938 in Cleveland, aged 81, and was succeeded in the barony by his second son, Thomas. |