Tales of Old Japan

Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale in the County of Northumberland, is a title that has been created twice, both times in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was firstly created in 1802 for the lawyer and politician Sir John Freeman-Mitford. He was Speaker of the House of Commons between 1801 and 1802 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland between 1802 and 1806. His only son, the second Baron, served as Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords from 1851 to 1886. In 1877 he was created Earl of Redesdale, in the County of Northumberland, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Lord Redesdale never married and on his death in 1886 both titles became extinct. The Earl bequeathed his substantial estates to his first cousin twice removed, the diplomat, politician and writer Sir Algernon Freeman-Mitford, the great-grandson of the historian William Mitford, elder brother of John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale.