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Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Privy Seal in the Baldwin Cabinet, was elevated to the peerage by the King. The rank of the title bestowed upon him was not mentioned.

The reasons for this elevation coming at such a time were obscure. Lord Robert is a free trader, and as such he was out of place in the Cabinet. For some time rumor had it that he was about to resign. It was even reported that he had resigned and that the elevation was the only way Premier Baldwin had of covering up dissension within the Cabinet. At any rate, Lord Robert did state that he would not contest his seat for Hitchin in the forthcoming elections on account of his health. It was on account of his health, which requires him to avoid great exertion, that he was promoted to the House of Lords.

Although Edgar Algernon Robert Cecil held a title, it was only by courtesy, a concession made to all sons of dukes and marquises; he was a commoner. His title will still be Lord, and, although a change of name is his prerogative, he will probably be known as Lord Cecil.

Lord Robert Cecil, 59 years of age, is the third son of the third Marquis of Salisbury, and belongs to a family which has been consistently and unobtrusively distinguished since the days of Edward VI, when William Cecil, afterward Lord Burghley, became one of the King's Secretaries of State, and later served Queen Elizabeth as Lord High Treasurer of England. Thus for more than 300 years almost every generation of Cecils has given a great man to the State. His great-grandfather was Lord Chamberlain to George III; his grandfather, Lord President of the Privy Council in Lord Derby's Cabinet of 1858; his father, one of the most celebrated of the Cecils, was three times Prime Minister and four times Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

In the present generation of Cecils there are four brothers: the fourth Marquis of Salisbury, Lord President of the Privy Council in the Baldwin Cabinet; Lord William Cecil, Bishop of Exeter; Lord Hugh Cecil, noted Parliamentarian; Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of the Crown in many capacities, whose chief fame rests upon the work he has done in the cause of the League of Nations.

Lord Robert has been described as "silent, quiet, destitute of elegance, apparently absentminded, cold, courteous.'" A London newspaper said of him, that, being a Cecil, "he was denied by racial antecedents all capacity to excite himself." Lord Robert is a lawyer, and is as well versed in ecclesiastical as in international law. He is a devoted and sincere Christian, and has probably done as much to get people to go to church as has any living man. In spite of being so well equipped, he has devoted most of his days to politics and, as a result, he has remained poor in his country's service.

He can be seen walking through a poor part of London (where he lives) dressed "disgracefully " in an ill-fitting suit with baggy trousers, a mis-shapen soft felt hat perched upon his massive head, carrying a portfolio of papers, nodding absently to neighbors as if he were lost in some abstruse theological question, as he marches with his characteristic swinging gait to St. Stephen's Club opposite the House of Commons.