Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin

Victor Alexander Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, 13th Earl of Kincardine KG GCSI , GCIE , PC (born May 16, 1849 in Montreal , † January 18, 1917 in Dunfermline ) was a British statesman ( Liberal ). He held the courtesy title of Lord Bruce until the death of his father, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin , in 1863 .

Live and act

Victor Alexander Bruce at his country home in Scotland (1889)

Bruce was born in Montreal , where his father served as the British Governor General of the Dominion Canada . He was, in Glenalmond at Eton College in Eton and the College Balliol of the University of Oxford educated. His marriage had eleven children.

The member of the Liberal Party began his political career in 1886 as a labor commissioner in the Gladstone government . From 1894 to 1899 Bruce officiated as Viceroy of India at Gladstone's insistence and despite his own reservations and the skepticism of Queen Victoria . The more representative office of viceroy with its lavish lifestyle did not please the rather conservative and modest Bruce. In 1899 he returned to England and was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter . From 1902 to 1903 he was chairman of the parliamentary committee of inquiry that was supposed to investigate the conduct of the Second Boer War .

When the Liberals returned to government in 1905, Henry Campbell-Bannerman initially intended to transfer the office of Foreign Secretary to Bruce , but eventually agreed with Herbert Henry Asquith , the leader of the right wing party, that Edward Gray should be appointed to Bruce and Bruce should take over the office of the Secretary of State for the Colonies . As undersecretary of state, he was placed at his side, the young Winston Churchill , who, with his self-dramatic nature and his versatile talents, despite his lower office, was perceived by the public far more clearly than his superior, Bruce. In addition to Bruce's cautious, almost shy manner - it has often been attested that he almost never spoke up at cabinet meetings and also almost exclusively took part in discussions about his own department - his position in the House of Lords played a decisive role in helping him could not gain a profile in the House of Commons as the central stage of British politics. As Colonial Minister Bruce took a more conservative line, he opposed, among other things , the generous settlement of the South African question proposed by Prime Minister Campbell-Bannerman , which was finally resolved in favor of the conversion of the colonies in South Africa into a Dominion. In 1907 Bruce hosted the Empire Conference.

In 1908, following the death of Campbell-Bannerman and the formation of the Asquith government - in which he was not offered office - Bruce retired from public life.

literature

• Hyam, Ronald: Elgin and Churchill at the colonial office, 1905-1908: The watershed of the Empire-Commonwealth , London 1968.
• Saint Clair, William: Lord Elgin and the Marbles , London 1967.

Web links

Victor Bruce at Hansard (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
Henry Petty-FitzMaurice	Viceroy of India 1894–1899	George Nathaniel Curzon
James Bruce	Earl of Elgin Earl of Kincardine 1863-1917	Edward Bruce