Robert Walpole, 10th Baron Walpole

Walpole is a relative of Sir Robert Walpole, the first British Prime Minister. He is the 10th and 8th Baron Walpole (from two different creations). His ancestors include Sir Robert Walpole's father Robert Walpole (1650–1700).

He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. and an M.A. He served on the County Council of Norfolk for eleven years from 1970 to 1981.[1]

He entered the House on the death of his father in 1989. He was a crossbencher and was internally elected to continue serving after the House of Lords Act 1999 prevented most hereditary peers from sitting.[1] He retired from Parliament on 13 June 2017.[2]

His heir is Jonathan Robert Hugh Walpole (born 16 November 1967), a writer; he has four other children including Alice Walpole, a diplomat, by his first wife Judith Walpole (née Schofield), later Judith Chaplin OBE MP. Their marriage was dissolved in 1979. In 1980 Walpole married Laurel Celia Ball with whom he has three further children.

Wolterton Hall

His father's net estate as at his death in February 1989 was sworn as £2,065,295 (equivalent to £5,176,000 in 2019).[3] In April 2016 he sold Wolterton Hall, the house commissioned by his ancestor the 1st Baron Walpole in 1742, where he and his father had lived. He lives nearby at Mannington Hall a house owned by his family since the 18th century.