Richard Solomon

Sir Richard Solomon, (18 October 1850 – 10 November 1913) was a South African attorney and legislator. He was a member of Parliament and the Attorney General of the Cape Colony and Attorney General, Lieutenant-Governor, and Agent-General of the Transvaal Colony. After serving as Agent-General of the Transvaal from 1907 to the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, Solomon was the first High Commissioner of South Africa to the United Kingdom to his death in 1913. Early life Richard Solomon was born in 1850 in Cape Town, the third son of Rev. Edward Solomon and his wife, Jessie Matthews. His father was a missionary for the native population. Solomon was part of a large and influential Cape family, originally of St Helenan Jewish descent, but who had converted to Anglicanism. He was baptised at one month old in Cape Town. Members of the Solomon family were heavily involved in Southern African politics: Saul Solomon was his uncle, and his brothers were the Transvaal politician Edward Phillip Solomon, and judge and later Chief Justice of South Africa, Sir William Henry Solomon. He married Elizabeth Mary Walton in 1881 and they had one daughter.