George Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby

George Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby (1871)

George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby GCB , GCMG , PC , (born July 23, 1819 in London , England , † April 3, 1890 in Brighton , East Sussex ) was a British politician and colonial governor of Nova Scotia , Queensland , New Zealand and Victoria .

Life

origin

George Phipps was born in Portland Place in central London and grew up as an only child. His father was Constantine Henry Phipps, 2nd Earl of Mulgrave , who was made Marquess of Normanby on June 25, 1838, shortly before George Phipps was 19 years old . His mother was Maria Lydell, eldest daughter of Thomas Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth . As apparent marriage of his father, he led from 1831 the courtesy title Viscount Normanby and from 1831 the courtesy title Earl of Mulgrave .

military service

In November 1838 he entered the British Army and acquired an officer position as Ensign and Lieutenant of the Scots Fusilier Guards . In August 1848 he was promoted to major in the North York Regiment of Militia . He resigned from this post in March 1853.

In December 1863 he was appointed Honorary Colonel of the 1st Administrative Battalion of Tower Hamlets Rifle Volunteers .

Career in politics and administration

In April 1844 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire .

In September 1847 he was elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal Party MP for the Scarborough borough . He resigned his mandate in July 1851 when Queen Victoria made him court office of Comptroller of the Household . In August 1851 he was also admitted to the Privy Council . He resigned in February 1852 from his court office and was re-elected to Scarborough in the House of Commons in July 1852. He held this mandate until December 1857. In January 1853 the Queen gave him the office of Treasurer of the Household , which he held until February 1858. He was considered a clever, astute politician with excellent connections.

Governor of Nova Scotia (1858–1863)

On January 28, 1858 he was appointed lieutenant governor of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. He took office on February 5, 1858. Little is known about the five years of his tenure, only that he had to go through a political crisis between 1859 and 1860 with a dissolution of parliament in 1859 and a proposed dissolution of parliament in 1860, which he refused.

In 1859, McNair's Cove, founded around 1800, was renamed Mulgrave in his honor .

On September 17, 1863, he gave up the governorship after his father died in July 1863.

Back in England (1863–1871)

When his father died on July 28, 1863, he resigned his post of lieutenant governor and traveled back to England that autumn. He inherited his title of nobility as 2nd Marquess of Normanby and thereby became a member of the House of Lords . In December 1868, the Prime Minister awarded him William Ewart Gladstone the office of lord-in-waiting .

In 1868 he became a member of the provisional committee of the Royal Colonial Institute and later the vice-president of that institute. In 1869 he was appointed captain of the Gentlemen at Arms Corps , to which he belonged until 1871.

Queensland Governor (1871-1874)

On April 11, 1871, he was appointed governor of the Queensland colony . It is believed that he applied for the position as governor partly out of interest, but partly also for financial reasons. His Yorkshire estate is said to have earned him £ 7,000 a year. His governor's salary, which it later received in Victoria, was £ 10,000 a year.

As governor in Queensland, he received positive support and was known there as a shrewd and astute man who could be trusted. He found extensive similarities with Prime Minister Arthur Hunter Palmer , which despite dwindling majorities did not lead to political crises. Politically, he was assigned more to the conservative camp. In his honor, two rivers in Queensland were renamed, the Normanby River and the Mulgrave River .

In 1874 he was made Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George .

The Normanby River in Queensland with its tributaries East Normanby River , West Normanby River and Granite Normanby River and the island of Normanby in what is now Papua New Guinea were named after him.

Governor of New Zealand (1875–1879)

His tenure as governor of New Zealand began on January 9, 1875 and was particularly shaped by the appearance of George Edward Gray , who himself had been governor of New Zealand twice, from 1845 to 1855 and from 1861 to 1868. Gray entered the political scene in 1875 as parliamentarian and superintendent for the provinces and was then Prime Minister of New Zealand for two years from October 1877 . Gray, who had not thought much of James Fergusson , fought Phipps with all means and tried to enforce his Constitution Act against him, against which Gray outmaneuvered where he could. Both had a deep dislike for one another. Phipps was the right man in the right place for the Colonial Office in London, as it was a matter of keeping the independence movement in New Zealand under control and Grey's and Robert Stouts ' demand to be able to freely elect a governor in the future was an affront to Phipps Colonial Office and the British Crown. In addition, there were power struggles for the dissolution of parliament, which Gray demanded and Phipps rejected and finally prevailed. Phipps will not have been unhappy when the opportunity arose to become Governor of Victoria. He left New Zealand on February 21, 1879.

On May 30, 1877, he was elevated to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.

Governor of Victoria (1879-1884)

On February 24, 1879, he was appointed governor of the Victoria Colony. In Victoria, too, a government crisis awaited him that George Ferguson Bowen had left unsolved. He dissolved parliament in 1880, but the new elections did not bring together a satisfied, stable government. After another dissolution of parliament in 1881, the newly elected government survived two years until Phipps had to agree to dissolve it again in 1883.

Aside from any political turmoil, one of the outstanding events during his tenure was the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880 .

In 1885 he was beaten to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath .

Marriage and offspring

During his time in the military he met his wife Laura Russell (1816–1885), daughter of Robert Russell, Captain of the Royal Navy . They were married in Yorkshire on August 17, 1844. The marriage resulted in three daughters and four sons:

• Rev. Constantine Charles Henry Phipps, 3rd Marquess of Normanby (1846-1932);
• Lord William Brook Phipps (1847–1880), officer in the Royal Navy, ⚭ 1875 Constance Emma Keyser;
• Lord Henry George Russell Phipps (1851–1905) ⚭ 1878 Norma Caroline Georgina Hay;
• Lord Hervey Lepell Phipps (1854-1887);
• Lady Laura Elizabeth Phipps († 1934) ⚭ 1868 John Vivian Hampton;
• Lady Katherine Louisa Phipps (1850–1926) ⚭ 1868 Francis Egerton, 3rd Earl of Ellesmere ;
• Lady Constance Mary Phipps († 1883).

His wife died in 1885 after returning to England from Australia. He himself died after a long illness on April 3, 1890 in Brighton and was buried at St. Oswald's Church in Lythe, near Whitby , North Yorkshire . His eldest son inherited his title of nobility.

literature

• Gavin McLean: The Governors . Otago University Press, Dunedin 2006, ISBN 1-877372-25-0 (English).
• Geoffrey Curgenven Bolton: Normanby, second Marquess of (1819-1890) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 5. Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1974, ISBN 0-522-84061-2 , pp. 344-345 (English).
• Peter Burroughs: Phipps, George Augustus Constantine . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . tape 11: 1881-1890 . University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1982, ISBN 0-8020-3367-9 ( English , French ).
• Philip Mennell: Normanby, The Most Noble George Augustus Constantine Phipps . In: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography. Hutchinson & Co., London 1892, pp. 346-347 (English).
• Charles Mosley (Ed.): Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage . Volume 2, Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, Wilmington 2003, p. 2921.

Web links

Commons : George Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Earl of Mulgrave at Hansard (English)
• George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby on thepeerage.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} {Normanby, Marquess of (UK, 1838). Cracroft's Peerage, archived from the original on May 16, 2012 ; accessed on January 22, 2016 (English).  
2. ↑ London Gazette . No. 19671, HMSO, London, November 9, 1838, p. 2441 ( PDF , English).
3. ↑ London Gazette . No. 20636, HMSO, London, August 28, 1846, p. 3110 ( PDF , English).
4. ↑ London Gazette . No. 21421, HMSO, London, March 15, 1853, p. 784 ( PDF , English).
5. ↑ London Gazette . No. 22801, HMSO, London, December 29, 1863, p. 6757 ( PDF , English).
6. ↑ London Gazette . No. 20336, HMSO, London, April 19, 1844, p. 1323 ( PDF , English).
7. ↑ London Gazette . No. 21229, HMSO, London, July 22, 1851, p. 1893 ( PDF , English).
8. ↑ London Gazette . No. 21230, HMSO, London, July 25, 1851, p. 1917 ( PDF , English).
9. ↑ London Gazette . No. 21234, HMSO, London, August 8, 1851, p. 2033 ( PDF , English).
10. ↑ London Gazette . No. 21297, HMSO, London, March 2, 1852, p. 670 ( PDF , English).
11. ↑ London Gazette . No. 21341, HMSO, London, July 20, 1852, p. 2012 ( PDF , English).
12. ↑ London Gazette . No. 22072, HMSO, London, December 15, 1857, p. 4402 ( PDF , English).
13. ↑ London Gazette . No. 21401, HMSO, London, January 11, 1852, p. 72 ( PDF , English).
14. ↑ London Gazette . No. 22106, HMSO, London, March 2, 1858, p. 1207 ( PDF , English).
15. ↑ London Gazette . No. 22088, HMSO, London, January 29, 1858, p. 433 ( PDF , English).
16. ↑ Alpeus Todd: Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies. Longmans, Green, and Co., London 1880, p. 537.
17. ^ History of Mulgrave. Town of Mulgrave, archived from the original on July 20, 2011 ; accessed on August 12, 2014 .  
18. ↑ London Gazette . No. 23451, HMSO, London, December 18, 1868, p. 6704 ( PDF , English).
19. ↑ London Gazette . No. 23572, HMSO, London, December 31, 1869, p. 7461 ( PDF , English).
20. ↑ London Gazette . No. 23730, HMSO, London, April 21, 1871, p. 1978 ( PDF , English).
21. ↑ London Gazette . No. 23727, HMSO, London, April 11, 1871, p. 1848 ( PDF , English).
22. ^ Gavin McLean: The Governors. 2006, p. 85.
23. ↑ London Gazette . No. 24464, HMSO, London, May 30, 1877, p. 3442 ( PDF , English).
24. ↑ London Gazette . No. 24684, HMSO, London, February 25, 1879, p. 932 ( PDF , English).

predecessor	Office	successor
Constantine Phipps	Marquess of Normanby 1863-1890	Constantine Phipps