Richard Solomon (Attorney General)

Bust by Francis Derwent Wood

The grave of Sir Richard Solomon in Brookwood Cemetery

Sir Richard Solomon GCMG KCB KCVO KC (18 October 1850 - 10 November 1913) was a member of Parliament and the Attorney General of the Cape Colony and of the Transvaal.

Richard Solomon was born on Oct. 18, 1850, in Cape Town, and was educated at South African College & Peterhouse Cambridge before being called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1879.

He was elected to the Cape Parliament in 1893, and was appointed Attorney-General of the Cape Colony from 1898 to 1901. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1901, on the occasion of the visit to the Cape of Good Hope of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George V and Queen Mary).^[1] Sir Richard served as legal advisor to Lord Kitchener during the Second Boer War, and then to the Transvaal Administration from 1901 until 1902. Following the peace treaty in May 1902, he was on 21 June appointed Attorney General, in the Colony of Transvaal, and thus a member of the executive council of the governor, Lord Milner.^[2] He represented South Africa at the Delhi Durbar in 1903 and brought back gold and silver medals for the country.

He married Mary Walton in 1881 and they had one daughter.^[3] Sir Richard Solomon was part of a large and influential Cape family, of St Helenan Jewish descent. Members of the Solomon family were heavily involved in Cape politics, were physically all extraordinarily tiny in stature, but included some of the greatest legal minds in southern Africa. The great Cape Colony politician Saul Solomon was Sir Richard's uncle, and his brother was the Transvaal politician Edward Phillip Solomon.^[4]

His final position was as High Commissioner in London for the Union of South Africa from 1910 until his death. He died in London on 10 November 1913^[5] and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery.

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