Thomas Cholmondeley, 1st Baron Delamere their seat at Vale Royal Abbey, Cheshire which had been in the family since 1615. Cholmondeley served as High Sheriff of Cheshire in 1792 and then in 1796 was elected to the House of Commons for his father's old seat of Cheshire, which he retained until 1812. In 1821 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Delamere of Vale Royal in the County of Chester. The current baron, the 5th Baron Delamere, paints a picture of his early-19th century ancestor with deft, harsh strokes: On 17 December 1810, Cholmondeley married Henrietta Elizabeth Williams-Wynn, daughter of Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th
Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere advantage to the world." Richard Meinertzhagen (himself a complex figure of Africa's colonial days) quoted Delamere as proclaiming, “I am going to prove to you all that this is a white man's country.” These views held great sway among the settlers because Delamere was their undisputed, if unofficial, leader and, in some measure, spokesman for 30 years. He was a member of the Legislative Council, the Executive Council, and, in 1907, became President of the Colonists’ Association. In 1921 he established the Reform Party. Errol Trzebinski, who wrote a number of books on Kenya's colonial elite, wrote of him: “Delamere