Henry Northcote, 1st Baron Northcote

Henry Stafford Northcote, 1st Baron Northcote

Henry Stafford Northcote, 1st Baron Northcote , GCMG , GCIE , CB , PC (born November 18, 1846 in London , England , † September 29, 1911 in Ashford , Kent ) was the third Governor General of Australia .

Career

Henry Stafford Northcote, 1st Baron Northcote, second son of the conservative politician and statesman Sir Stafford Northcote , later 1st Earl of Iddesleigh, was born on November 18, 1846 in London, England. He attended Eton College and studied at the University of Oxford . He then worked as a diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Northcote was elected to the House of Commons for the Exeter constituency in 1880 . He held this seat until 1899. In the Conservative government of Lord Salisbury , he held subordinate ministerial offices. That year he was appointed governor of Bombay . Since he had not inherited his father's title as the second-born son, he was raised to the nobility as Baron Northcote . He was still in Bombay as governor when Colonial Minister Joseph Chamberlain offered him the office of Governor General of Australia .

The first two Governors General, Lord Hopetoun and Lord Tennyson , had short terms and problematic relationships with Australian ministers. The British and Australian governments wanted stability and continuity, so Northcote was installed for a five-year term. His lifelong experience in politics and his time in Bombay made him a suitable cast. He was neither authoritarian like Hopetoun nor staid like Tennyson, which made a good impression on politicians and the public.

This was important because Northcote was the first Australian Governor General to grapple with unstable political conditions. In April 1904 Prime Minister Alfred Deakin resigned from office. He was followed in quick succession by laboratory leader Chris Watson , free trade leader George Reid, and then finally Deakin again. Both Watson and Reid asked Northcote to dissolve Parliament before their respective resignations; in both cases he refused. It was a sign of Northcote's strong position that these decisions were generally respected.

Like its predecessors, Northcote saw himself as both a diplomatic agent for the British government and a viceroy. He was also actively involved in the negotiations between the British and Australian governments over the controversial trade and shipping issues, although his influence waned after 1906 when the Liberal Party came to power in the UK .

Northcote and Deakin fell out in 1907 when the Governor General refused, on instructions from London, to approve a law that restricted the possibility of appeals against decisions by Australian courts before the Privy Council in London. Deakin, though a staunch imperialist , believed that Australia's parliaments should be sovereign in Australia, and so bluntly told Northcote so. This led Northcote to announce in February 1908 that he would like to resign a year earlier. He left Australia in September. In England his health deteriorated, so that he died childless in 1911. His barony became extinct with his death.

Lady Alice Northcote

Henry Stafford Northcote's wife, Lady Alice Northcote, was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1919.

literature

• Serle, Percival (1949). " Northcote, Henry Stafford ". Dictionary of Australian Biography . Sydney: Angus and Robertson.