James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin

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James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin

James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine KT , GCB , PC (born July 20, 1811 in London , † November 20, 1863 in Dharamsala , British India ) was a British colonial official and diplomat. He was Governor of Jamaica , Governor General of British North America, and Viceroy of India .

Life

Bruce was the second son of the famous archaeologist Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of James Townsend Oswald von Dunnikier. He attended Eton and studied at Christ Church College , Oxford University (BA, 1833; MA, 1835).

After the death of his half-brother George, called Lord Bruce, (George Charles Constantine), who died unmarried in 1840, he had become heir to the title of Count. On April 22, 1841 he married Elizabeth Mary, daughter of CL Cumming Bruce. In the July 1841 elections he ran for Southampton and was elected a member of the House of Commons (MP). Lord Melbourne resigned and Sir Robert Peel became Prime Minister . His father died on November 14, 1841, making James Bruce the 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine. Through this inheritance he automatically belonged to the House of Lords , the British House of Lords , and thus the lower-ranking mandate in the House of Commons was omitted.

Stations of his life

Jamaica

In March 1842, at the young age of thirty, he was selected for the important post of Governor of Jamaica by Sir Frederick Stanley , then Secretary for the Colonies . On the crossing, in mid-April, her ship ran into a coral reef off Turk's Island near Saint Thomas and had to be abandoned. All people got off board and were rescued. But Lady Elgin never fully recovered from the shock of that night. Two months after the shipwreck, she gave birth to her daughter Elma. Lady Elgin died in the summer of the following year. In spring 1846 he took a leave of absence from his service and did not return to Jamaica.

James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin

Canada

They agreed that he should become Governor General of Canada . In the meantime he became engaged to Lady Mary Louisa Lambton, daughter of the First Earl of Durham. They married on November 7, 1846 and set sail for America in early 1847. Henry Gray, 3rd Earl Gray , Lord Gray, became the new Colonial Secretary in February 1852.

Although Elgin was installed as governor general of the four individual provinces of British North America, he did not have the power to rule Nova Scotia , New Brunswick or the Prince Edward Islands . With no budget of his own or officials, Lord Elgin relied solely on his moral authority to cooperate or consult with the other governors to maintain inter-colonial cooperation, particularly in the postal system, assistance with shipping, railroad development and telegraphy.

In 1848 the reform parties of Canada East and Canada West, led by Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin , won a majority over the Conservative Party. Lord Elgin demanded that these two parties form a coalition government. After the formation of this new government, Lord Elgin became the first governor who did not make legislation but gave real power to the government through the elected representatives. He signed a number of laws proposed by Lafontaine that had passed Parliament. He also managed the Canadian feudal system (seigniorial system) in Canada East from which foresaw amnesty as a result of the Patriots' War for the heads of the "Patriote movement" that had been sent into exile.

In 1849, Elgin was attacked by an English-speaking mob in Montréal and the Parliament building was set on fire (MONTRÉAL RIOTS). His efforts there to mediate between the warring English- and French-speaking sections of the population ultimately earned him the hatred of both groups, which was to erupt in numerous violent riots. The Montréal merchants felt the effects of an economic depression and advocated annexation to the United States.

In 1854 he signed a bilateral agreement with the United States to promote the Canadian economy. This agreement would pave the way for the Confederation .

Lord Elgin played a key role in Canada's early development. During his tenure as Governor General of the Province of Canada from 1847 to 1854, he oversaw the transfer of executive and legislative power to Canada.

He was followed in 1855 by Sir Edmund Head as Governor General.

Family members continue his work

Lord Elgin's brother, Robert Bruce (1813–1862), who was overseer of negotiations with the Indians from 1849 to 1854, negotiated the Lake Huron and Lake Superior Accords, which helped expand the province of Canada westward.

James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin

Another brother, Frederick Bruce (1814-1867), served as British Minister in Washington from 1865 to 1867. He addressed royal and colonial concerns, mainly claims arising from the American Civil War and the Fenian threat to the colonies of British North America. The Fenians were members of a secret society, the Fenian Brotherhood , formed around 1858 by Americans of Irish descent, with branches in the United States and Ireland . Their goal was to end English rule in Ireland and part of their strategy was to liberate Canada from the British. Approximately 10,000 Fenians fought in the American Civil War and they were eager to occupy the British colonies when the war was over.

Likewise, his son Victor Alexander Bruce , 9th Earl of Elgin and 13th Earl of Kincardine, played his part in Canadian history when he served as Colonial Secretary in London from 1905 to 1908. In that position, he recommended that Canada take control of its outer borders by negotiating an international fisheries agreement between Canada and Newfoundland (then a separate Dominion), and he also helped resolve fisheries disputes arising from the border with Labrador revealed.

China

In 1857, shortly after the outbreak of the Second Opium War , Elgin was appointed Special Commissioner for China . A year later, the first phase of the war came to an end with the Treaty of Tianjin . This forced the Chinese to make significant concessions ( most-favored nation clause , establishment of diplomatic relations, etc.), but the Qing government refused to implement them . After Emperor Xianfeng had commissioned British and French emissaries to be tortured and executed, Lord Elgin set off a British punitive expedition which, among other things, laid the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, a widely admired masterpiece of architecture and garden art, to rubble and ashes. The commander of the French forces of the expeditionary force, General Montauban, refused to take part in this retaliation.

India

In 1861 Lord Elgin became Viceroy of India , where he died two years later during a business trip from Simla to Lahore. Lord Elgin found his final resting place in Dharamsala in the graveyard of St. John in the Wilderness Church.

chronology

  • He was in the office of Governor-General of Jamaica from 1842 to 1846.
  • He served as Governor-General of Canada from 1846 to 1854.
  • He was knighted in 1847, Order of the Thistle (KT)
  • On November 13, 1849, he was appointed 1st Baron Elgin, of Elgin [UK].
  • He was Lord Lieutenant of Fife from 1854 to 1863.
  • He was appointed Privy Counselor (PC) in 1857.
  • He held the office of Plenipotentiary Minister for China from 1857 to 1859.
  • He was made Knight of the Order of Bath: Grand Cross, Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1858.
  • He held the post of Postmaster General from 1859 and 1860.
  • He held the office of Minister General Plenipotentiary for China again from 1860 to 1861.
  • He held the office of Viceroy of India from January 21, 1862 to November 20, 1863

family

Before he left for Canada he became engaged to Lady Mary Louisa Lambton, daughter of John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham . They married on November 7, 1846, and in early 1847 they traveled to America. Children of James Bruce, 12th Earl of Kincardine and Lady Mary Louisa Lambton:

  • Victor Alexander Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin , 13th Earl of Kincardine (May 16, 1849 - Jan 18, 1917)
  • Hon. Robert Preston Bruce (Dec 4, 1851 - Dec 8, 1893)
  • Hon. Frederick John Bruce (Sept 16, 1854 - Jan 26, 1920)

Reception in art

Lord Elgin is one of the main characters in Stephan Thome's novel God of the Barbarians (Berlin 2018).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Elma (née Bruce), Lady Thurlow (1842–1923), Wife of 5th Baron Thurlow; daughter of 8th Earl Elgin
  2. ^ Former Governors General of Canada
  3. ^ Baldwin and LaFontaine in Historic Canada
  4. ^ Rebellion Losses Bill in: The Canadian Encyclopedia
  5. ^ The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 signed in London on the 20th day of October 1818 in the Library Archives of Canada
  6. ↑ Confederation of Canada refers to the union of colonies of British North America into the Dominion of Canada
  7. ↑ James Bruce, The Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, 1848 to Lord Elgin Collection
  8. ↑ One of the survivors of the legation was the French African explorer Pierre-Henri Stanislas d'Escayrac de Lauture .
  9. ^ The war against China in 1860 . Verlag der Dyk'schen Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1865, p. 106 ( % BAEscayrac + de + Lauture + china & hl = de & ei = vQ75TKrHD8yOswaiwJDFAw & sa = X & oi = book_result & ct = result & resnum = 10 & ved = 0CFUQ6AEwCQ # v = onepage & q & f = false Google books [accessed on December 21, 2010]).
predecessor Office successor
Thomas Bruce Earl of Elgin
1841-1863 		Victor Bruce
Charles Metcalfe Governor of Jamaica
1842–1845 		George Berkeley
James Erskine Wemyss Lord Lieutenant of Fife
1854-1863 		James Hay Erskine Wemyss
Charles Abbot Postmaster General
1859-1860 		Edward Stanley
personal data
SURNAME Bruce, James, 8th Earl of Elgin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bruce, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British colonial official and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1863
Place of death Dharamsala , British India