| Honorific Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Lord Forester | |
| Office: | Member of Parliament for Wenlock |
| Term Start: | 1801 |
| Term End: | 1820 |
| Predecessor: | Parliament of Great Britain |
| Alongside: | John Simpson |
| Successor: | Francis Forester William Lacon Childe |
| Term Start1: | 1790 |
| Term End1: | 1800 |
| Predecessor1: | Sir Henry Bridgeman George Forester |
| Alongside1: | Sir Henry Bridgeman, John Simpson |
| Successor1: | Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Birth Name: | Cecil Forester |
| Death Place: | Belgrave Square, London |
| Education: | Westminster School |
| Alma Mater: | Christ Church, Oxford |
| Children: | 9 |
Cecil Weld-Forester, 1st Baron Forester (baptised 7 April 1767 – 23 May 1828) was a Tory British Member of Parliament and later peer.
Born Cecil Forester and baptised at St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury,[1] he was the eldest son of Anne (Townshend) Forester and Lt-Col. Cecil Forester, MP for Wenlock.[2] He assumed the additional surname of Weld by Royal Licence in 1811, upon inheriting Willey Park from his cousin George Forester. Among his younger siblings were George Townshend-Forester (Recorder of Wenlock), the Rev. Townshend Forester (Prebendary of Worcester), and Maj. Francis Forester (MP for Wenlock who married Lady Louisa Vane, a daughter of the 1st Duke of Cleveland).[3]
His paternal grandparents were William Forester, also MP for Wenlock (and son of Sir William Forester and Lady Mary Cecil, a daughter of the 3rd Earl of Salisbury), and the former Catherine Brooke.[4] His maternal grandfather was Robert Townshend.
He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford.[5]
He was elected to the House of Commons for Wenlock in 1790, a seat he held until 1820. The latter year he was raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom as Baron Forester, of Willey Park in the County of Shropshire. He had initially asked to be titled as Baron Wenlock to spite the rival local Lawley family who later did take the title.[5]
During the time of the French Revolutionary Wars, Forester was in 1800 captain of the Wenlock volunteers troops, becoming ultimately lieutenant-colonel in command in 1804.[5] In 1813 he served as treasurer of the Salop Infirmary in Shrewsbury.[6]
In 1800, Weld-Forester married Lady Katherine Mary Manners (1779–1829), daughter of Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland, and Lady Mary Isabella Somerset.[7] They had nine children, four sons and five daughters, including:[8]
He died of gout at Belgrave Square, London in 1828, aged 61, and was buried at Willey parish church.[11] His tomb was sculpted by John Carline.[12] He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son John George Weld-Forester. Lady Forester died in 1829. His daughters Anne and Selina were leaders of fashionable society, and both were intimate friends of Benjamin Disraeli. It was often said that Disraeli in his last years was in love with Selina, but since she was not free to marry, he proposed to the widowed Lady Anne instead, in the hope of remaining close to both sisters.
Through his youngest daughter Selina, he was a grandfather of Lady Florence Bridgeman, wife of Henry Lascelles, 5th Earl of Harewood, and mother to his great-grandson, Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood, through whom Lord Forester's descendants would be in the British line of succession to the throne through his descendant Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood.[13]