William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst

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William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst

William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst (born January 14, 1773 Bath , † March 13, 1857 Knole House , Sevenoaks ) GCH PC was a British politician and statesman. He was Governor General of India from August 1823 to February 1828.

childhood and education

Amherst was born the son of Lieutenant General William Amherst, the aide-de-camp of King George III. and was governor of St. John's (Newfoundland) , and his wife Elisabeth Paterson. Raised on the Isle of Whight, his great-uncle Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst , took him after the death of his parents , from whom he inherited the title Baron Amherst , of Montreal in the County of Kent, in 1797 . He received his education at Westminster School and Christ Church College , Oxford and graduated in 1797 with a Master of Arts .

Special ambassador to the Chinese Empire

After the failure of the Macartney mission of 1792/93 he was at the head of the Amherst mission , a British embassy sent to China in 1816 by Prince Regent Georg on behalf of his father, King George III , who had regular trade relations with the Chinese Empire Tried to include Qing Dynasty. The mission's landing in China was at Pei Ho . There he refused to kowtow in front of a dragon figure (symbol for the emperor). On the advice of the accompanying second commissioner George Thomas Staunton , in return it was demanded that a mandarin be in front of a portrait of George III. kneel down what was refused; Amherst's suggestion that every Chinese ambassador before King George III. to kneel in the same way was rejected as impossible. The mission finally failed because Amherst did not have an immediate audience with Emperor Jiaqing after his arrival in Beijing and was therefore no longer received. On the way back along the Korean coast and the Ryūkyū Islands , his ship, the HMS Alceste, ran into a rock in the Gaspar Strait (Java Sea - Karimata Strait ) and sank. Amherst and some of his companions escaped to Batavia . In 1817 they came back to England, touching the island of St. Helena on their way home . Amherst used several opportunities to speak to Emperor Napoleon .

Governor General of India

Although his mission failed, he was not personally charged with it. When the Marquis of Hastings retired as Governor General of India in 1823 , Amherst was named to succeed him. The first Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826), which resulted in the cession of the provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim to the British Empire, is to be regarded as the most important event of his government .

However, Amherst was an inexperienced governor , at least for the first few days of his tenure in Calcutta . He was strongly influenced by high-ranking officers in Bengal , such as Sir Edward Paget . At the time, British Bengal was experiencing strong Burmese aggression over territorial disputes, which it had inherited from his acting predecessor, John Adam , who wanted to fix the Anglo-Burmese border on the Naf . On September 24, 1823, he ordered the troops to invade Burma. In the following two years, 15,000 soldiers lost their lives on the British side alone. The cost was £ 13,000,000 which caused an economic crisis in India. It is only thanks to a few powerful friends, such as George Canning and the Duke of Wellington , that he stepped out of this campaign unscathed. The war changed his attitude towards Burma significantly, as he stubbornly refused to annex southern Burma. Failing to stabilize his reputation, he was replaced in 1828. On his return he was raised in 1826 to 1st Earl Amherst , of Arracan in the East Indies, and Viscount Holmesdale , in the County of Kent.

Private life

His first wife was Sarah Archer (1762-1838), daughter of the 2nd Lord Archer and widow of Other Hickman-Windsor, 5th Earl of Plymouth († 1799). He married her on July 24, 1800. She brought several children into the marriage and they had four children together:

  • Lady Sarah Elizabeth Pitt Amherst (July 9, 1801 - August 8, 1876), married to John 2nd Baron Hay-Williams.
  • Hon. Jeffrey Amherst (born August 29, 1802, † August 2, 1826 in Barakpur in Bengal ).
  • William Pitt Amherst, 2nd Earl Amherst (September 3, 1805 - March 26, 1886), married to Gertrude Percy, daughter of the Bishops of Carlisle and Rochester.
  • Hon. Frederick Campbell Amherst (March 10, 1807 - October 12, 1829)

The Amherst pheasant was named after Lady Amherst, who first introduced this species to Bedfordshire.

After his wife's death in May 1838, William Pitt Amherst married his second wife Mary Sackville (1792–1864), daughter of John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset and widow of Other Hickman-Windsor, 6th , in 1839 at the age of 75 Earl of Plymouth (1789–1833), daughter-in-law of his first wife. While this was a very unusual marriage, it was not forbidden by church law or civil law. They didn't have any children.

Lord Amherst died in 1857 at the age of 84 in Knole House, the seat of the Dukes of Dorset and heir to his second wife.

Awards

  • 1797-1857 2nd Baron Amherst
  • 1804–1813 Lord of the Bedchamber
  • 1809–1811 envoy at the court of Naples
  • 1815 Privy Council (PC)
  • 1815–1823 Lord of the Bedchamber
  • 1823–1828 Governor General of Fort William (India)
  • 1826–1857 1st Earl Amherst and Viscount Holmesdale
  • February 17, 1829-1857 Member of the House of Lords
  • 1829-1835 Lord of the Bedchamber
  • 1834 Knight Grand Cross Guelph Order (GCH)
  • April 1, 1835 Governor General of Canada (settled by the resignation of Robert Peel on April 8, 1835)

literature

Web links

Commons : William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst of Arracan on thepeerage.com , accessed September 14, 2016.
  2. London Gazette 19255  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.thegazette.co.uk  
predecessor Office successor
Jeffrey Amherst Baron Amherst of Montreal
1797-1857
William Amherst
New title created Earl Amherst
1826-1857
William Amherst