Constituency : Petersfield 1885-92, Edinburgh West 1892-5 ( from 1886 Liberal Unionist )
William defeated his predecessor William Nicholson who contested the election as a Liberal Conservative. Another Tory joined the contest and William won by 161 votes.
William was the son of the former Liberal Lord Chancellor Roundell Palmer, now Lord Selborne. This gave him the title of Viscount Wolmer. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford. He was assistant private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Childers from 1882 to 1885. In 1883 he married Lord Salisbury's daughter.
William had an advanced cast to his views and voted for Labouchere's House of Lords motion
William followed his father into the Liberal Unionists. He was blackballed at Brooks after his defection but the local Liberals made no effort to challenge him in 1886 . Salisbury failed to persuade the local Tories to stand down and William won by 111 votes .He switched to Edinburgh West in 1892.
In 1895 William joined Salisbury's government as under-secretary of state for the colonies under Chamberlain. That same year he succeeded his father as Earl of Selborne. In 1900 he joined the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty.
In 1905 William succeeded Lord Milner as High Commissioner for South Africa. He accepted the change in policy when the Liberal government took office and expressed it in the Selborne Memorandum. He retired in 1910 just before the establishment of the Union of South Africa.
William returned to England and became President of the Board of Agriculture in Asquith's Coalition government in 1915. He resigned in protest at Asquith and Lloyd George's handling of the Home Rule negotiations following the Easter Rising.
He died in 1942 aged 82.
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