Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne

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Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne

Henry Charles Keith Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne , KG , GCSI , GCMG , GCIE , PC (born January 14, 1845 in London , † June 3, 1927 in Clonmel , County Tipperary ) was Governor General of Canada , Viceroy of India and British Foreign Secretary .

Life

Petty-FitzMaurice came from a family that had produced several Whig politicians, including Prime Minister William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne . After attending Eton College and then studying at Oxford University , at the age of 21 he inherited his father's title of nobility, including the associated seat in the House of Lords .

In 1868 he first accepted a post as a member of the government under the Liberal government under William Ewart Gladstone . Until 1880 he held changing offices at the middle government level. That year he resigned in protest against Gladstone's policy on Ireland.

Governor General of Canada

Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, portrait of unknown date

From 1883 to 1888 he was Governor General of Canada. He was considered a capable governor general who brought a dispute with the United States of America over fishing rights to a peaceful solution. Lansdowne traveled extensively with his wife in the country, especially in the still untouched west. During his term of office, the Northwest Rebellion and the subsequent protest about their leader Louis Riel fell .

Viceroy of India

After completing his tenure as Governor General, he was offered the office of Viceroy of India by the British Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury , which Lansdowne held.

The post no longer had the prestige that the position previously had. By Lord Curzon apart, illusions made very few that have been appointed Viceroy of India in the second half of the 19th century, the fact that associated with that item tasks in no way was to ride from elephants and received by Indian prince but that it involved a lot of work. The evening before his departure for India, Lansdowne informed his mother that he had taken on a responsible and honorable position that would give him the opportunity to do meaningful work for his country on the one hand and to improve the opportunities and orientation of his children on the other. Ultimately, however, when he started this job he was motivated by a salary that would allow him to save enough to repay the mortgage on his property. Lansdowne was also aware that successful work in India would open up the prospect of further posts within the British government.

In India, Lansdowne reformed the army, police, local administration and the mint . There was a small, regionally limited uprising against British colonial rule in British India in 1890, but it was quickly put down. Lansdowne enforced the death penalty for the leaders of this rebellion, although it met with considerable opposition in Britain. His attempt to shorten the court process, however, was overruled by the British government. In 1894 Lansdowne returned to Great Britain.

Minister of War and Foreign Affairs

After he returned to England, he changed his party preference and supported the Conservative Party as a member of the current of Liberal Unionists . Lansdowne took over the post of Secretary of War , now as Tory . Due to the bad course of the Boer War, Lansdowne came under criticism; twice he offered to resign, but Prime Minister Salisbury stuck to Lansdowne. In the wake of the general election in 1900, Salisbury decided to reshuffle its cabinet and Lansdowne accepted the offer to become Foreign Secretary. On November 12, 1900, he moved to the head of the Foreign Ministry, where he also remained under Salisbury's successor, Arthur Balfour . Through the treaties with Japan in 1902 ( Anglo-Japanese Alliance ) and with France in 1904 ( Entente cordiale ) he ended the isolation of Great Britain. However, Lansdowne was also one of those people who were convinced that the struggle between Tsarist Russia and Great Britain for supremacy in Central Asia continued unabated. Tibet was one of the most problematic neighboring countries of British India in this so-called Great Game . It was almost inaccessible and ruled by the Dalai Lama and Buddhist monks, who showed indifference to the government in India. Little was known about Tibet from the western point of view and what little was known came from a handful of European explorers and a number of pundits such as Nain Singh , who traveled to Tibet for the British-Indian surveying authority Great Trigonometrical Survey in 1866 and among others until it reached Lhasa. Tibet was seen as a country that consciously closed itself off from the outside world and whose religious rulers were keen to keep their subjects in ignorance of the outside world. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Tibetan government had proven unwilling for more than 20 years to facilitate any trade with India or even allow the border from Sikkim or Bhutan to be crossed into Tibetan territory. However, a number of Britons have assumed that Tibet is more open to Tsarist Russia. In February 1903 Lansdowne summed up to the Russian ambassador:

“We are much more interested in Tibet than Russia. It follows that whenever there is any sign of Russian activity, we will be forced to take action, not on the same level, but surpass the actions of the Russians. Should they send a mission or an expedition there, we would do the same, but in much larger numbers ”

During his term of office, in addition to the British Tibet campaign , the Dogger Bank incident also fell , which became a severe test of British-Russian relations.

During his time as Foreign Minister Lansdowne was also leader of the Conservative and Unionist faction in the House of Lords .

On December 4, 1905 Lansdowne resigned from his office. He was succeeded by the liberal Edward Gray .

Opposition politician

Lord Landsdowne

After the Liberal election victory in 1906, Lansdowne became a conservative opposition leader in the House of Lords. He was one of the leaders in the unsuccessful venture to veto the liberal government's draft laws in the House of Lords. After fierce parliamentary fighting, the Parliament Act was finally passed in 1911 , which broke the veto power of the House of Lords. In 1915 Lansdowne was a minister in the war coalition with no fixed responsibilities. After arguments with David Lloyd George , he resigned from this position in December 1916. He became active again in November 1917 when a letter from him was printed in the Daily Telegraph , in which he advised a negotiated peace with Germany. Although this proposal met with some approval from the population, it was unanimously rejected in the government.

family

John Singer Sargent : Evelyn Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, 1902, eldest daughter of Lord Lansdowne.

Lansdowne married Lady Maud Evelyn Hamilton, daughter of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn , in 1869 . The couple had two sons and two daughters:

The eldest son succeeded him in the title when Lansdowne died in 1927. His wife survived him; she died in 1932.

Honors

In Pakistan, the Lansdowne Bridge is named after him.

literature

  • Lawrence James: Raj. The Making of British India. Abacus, London 1997, ISBN 0-349-11012-3 .
  • Simon Kerry: Lansdowne: The Last Great Whig. Unicorn Publishing Group, London 2017, ISBN 1-910787-95-7 .
  • Lansdowne, Henry Charles Keith Petty Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 31 : English literature - Oyama, Iwao . London 1922, p. 727 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Lawrence James: Raj. The Making of British India. , P. 314.
  2. ^ Gerard J. Lyne: The Lansdowne Estate in Kerry under WS Trench 1849-72 . Geography Publications, Dublin 2006, pp. Xlii – xliii, ISBN 0-906602-81-5
  3. ↑ a b Lawrence James: Raj. The Making of British India. P. 390
  4. ↑ Lawrence James: Raj. The Making of British India. P. 390 and p. 391. In the original the quote is We are much more closelyinterest than Russia in Tebet, it followed that, should there be any display of Russion activity in that country, we should be obliged to reply by a display of activity not only equivalent to, but dispatcher that made by Russia. If they sent a mission or an expedition, we should have to do the same, but in greater strength.
  5. ↑ Hans Fenske : The beginning of the end of old Europe. The allied refusal to hold peace talks 1914–1919 . Olzog Verlag, Munich 2013.
  6. ^ Henry James Morgan: Types of Canadian women and of women who are or have been connected with Canada . Toronto, 1903 archive.org
predecessor Office successor
Henry Petty-FitzMaurice Marquess of Lansdowne
1866-1927 		Henry Petty-FitzMaurice
Emily Petty-Fitzmaurice Lord Nairne
1895-1927 		Henry Petty-FitzMaurice
Henry Campbell-Bannerman Secretary of State for War
1895-1900 		William St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton
personal data
SURNAME Petty-FitzMaurice, Henry, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lansdowne, 5th Marquess of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Foreign Secretary
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1845
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 1927
Place of death Clonmel