Charles Rodolph Trefusis, 19th Baron Clinton (9 November 1791 – 10 April 1866), styled The Honourable Charles Trefusis between 1794 and 1832, was a British peer and Tory politician. He succeeded to the barony following the death of his elder brother.
Background and education
Clinton was the second son of Robert Trefusis, 17th Baron Clinton, and his wife Albertina Marianna Gaulis. She was the daughter of Jean Abraham Rodolph Gaulis (died 1788)[1] of Lausanne, Switzerland, an important magistrate of that city.[2] Her mother was Jeanne-Louise-Dorothée Porta,[3] from another prominent Lausanne family. Her eldest brother, Clinton's uncle, was Abram Frederic Louis Juste Gaulis, a member of the Grand Council of Vaud and the heir and custodian of the Château de Colombier-sur-Morges, near Lausanne.[4] Another of his Swiss uncles was Charles Gaulis (died in Germany 23 August 1796), who fathered a child by Mary Jane de Vial (later Clairmont).[5] Clinton's cousin, Charles Gaulis Clairmont,[6] who grew up as stepbrother to Mary Shelley, ended up as Chair of English literature at Vienna University.[7]
Clinton was early orphaned: his father died in 1797 and his mother in 1798.
Lord Clinton married in 1831 Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Kerr, daughter of William Kerr, 6th Marquess of Lothian. They had four sons and seven daughters, including:
Colonel Hon. Walter Rodolph Trefusis (1838-1885), Colonel of the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards and Companion, Order of the Bath (C.B.); one of his five daughters (no sons), Marion, married Thomas Coke, 4th Earl of Leicester.