The son of Captain William Palmer, Viscount Wolmer, in turn son of Roundell Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne, and the Honourable Grace Ridley, Lord Selborne succeeded to his grandfather's titles in 1971.
Robert Jocelyn Palmer (fifth child and third son of the 3rd Earl of Selborne) and the 11th Baroness Lucas and 7th Lady Dingwall.
3rd Rock from the Sun | James Earl Jones | Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener | Emerson, Lake & Palmer | Earl | Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts | Earl of Derby | Earl Warren | Arnold Palmer | Earl of Pembroke | Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer | Earl of Warwick | South Carolina's 3rd congressional district | Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford | Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury | Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby | Earl of Shrewsbury | William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham | Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester | Michigan's 3rd congressional district | Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron | Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick | Earl of Leicester | John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon | Amanda Palmer | Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex | Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester | Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer |
It was created in 1882 for the lawyer and Liberal politician Roundell Palmer, 1st Baron Selborne, along with the subsidiary title of Viscount Wolmer, of Blackmoor in the County of Southampton.
He took an active share in its educational and social work, and was materially assisted in these respects by his second wife, Lady Laura Palmer, daughter of the 1st Earl of Selborne.
Born as Mary Dorothea Palmer, she was the daughter of Roundell Palmer (later Earl of Selborne) and his wife, Laura, a daughter of the 8th Earl Waldegrave.
Graduating BA in 1842, he took his BCL, was elected Vinerian scholar and fellow, and having read in chambers with Roundell Palmer (afterwards Lord Selborne), was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1846.
Lord Waldegrave married his first cousin, Lady Mary Dorothea Palmer, daughter of Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne, on 5 August 1874.