Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Baron Skelmersdale

Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Baron Skelmersdale (7 March 1771 – 3 April 1853), was a British landowner and politician.

Bootle-Wilbraham was the son of Richard Wilbraham-Bootle and his wife Mary, daughter of Robert Bootle. He inherited Lathom House on the death of his father in 1796 and changed his name by royal licence in 1814 to Bootle-Wilbraham.

He was elected to the House of Commons for Westbury in 1795,^[1] a seat he held until 1796, and then represented Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1796 to 1812, Clitheroe from 1812 to 1818 and Dover from 1818 to 1828. On 30 January 1828 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Skelmersdale, of Skelmersdale in the County Palatine of Lancaster.^[2]

Lord Skelmersdale married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Reverend Edward Taylor, in 1796. She died in 1840. Skelmersdale survived her by thirteen years and died in April 1853, aged 82. They had a number of children, including: Richard Bootle-Wilbraham (1801–1844), Edward Bootle-Wilbraham (1807–1882), and Emma Caroline Smith-Stanley, Countess of Derby.

He was succeeded in the barony by his grandson Edward, his eldest son the Hon. Richard Bootle-Wilbraham having predeceased him.

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990, ^{[page needed]}
• "WILBRAHAM BOOTLE (afterwards BOOTLE WILBRAHAM), Edward (1771–1853), of Lathom House, Lancs". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages ^{[self-published source] [better source needed]}

• Portrait of Lord Skelmersdale
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Edward Bootle-Wilbraham