Roundell Cecil Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne (1887-1971) was educated at Winchester and University College, Oxford. Until 1941 he was known as Viscount Wolmer. In November 1910, at the comparatively early age of 23, he entered Parliament as the Conservative M.P. for Newton, Lancashire. From 1918 to 1940 he was M.P. for Aldershot. In 1941 he was called to the House of Lords in his father's barony of Selborne. He succeeded to the earldom in 1942.

Lord Selborne served in the First World War with the 3rd Battalion, Hampshire Regiment. Between 1916 and 1918 he was Assistant Director of the War Trade Department. During the inter-war years Lord Selborne was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (October 1922-January 1924) and Assistant Post Master General (November 1924-June 1929). From 1940 to 1942 he was Director of Cement, Ministry of Works and Building. In 1943 Churchill appointed him Minister of Economic Warfare, with political responsibility for the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

Lord Selborne was a major lay figure in British church affairs. From 1955 to 1959 he was Chairman of the House of Laity, Church Assembly, of which he had been a member since 1920. Between 1949 and 1961 he was President of the Church Army. For further details see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.