The Cranworth Society, Downing College's law society, was founded in 1921. It was named after Robert Monsey Rolfe, Lord Cranworth. Rolfe was born in 1790 and went to Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating as Seventeenth Wrangler in 1812. In 1815 he was elected a Fellow of Downing. He took silk in 1832 when he also became Member for Penryn. He was knighted and made Solicitor-General in 1834. In November 1839 he accepted a judgeship as one of the Barons of the Exchequer and was raised to the peerage in 1850. He held the Great Seal as Lord Chancellor for five years from 1852 and from 1856-7. He died in 1868.