Charles Eliot (diplomat)

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Charles Norton Edgecumbe Eliot (January 8, 1862March 16, 1931) was a British diplomat and colonial administrator who initiated the policy of white supremacy in the British East Africa protectorate (now Kenya).

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[edit] Career

Eliot was born at the village of Sibford Gower near Banbury, Oxfordshire, England and educated at Cheltenham College. A scholar and linguist, Eliot served in diplomatic posts in Russia (1885), Morocco (1892), Turkey (1893), and Washington, D.C. (1899). He was knighted in 1900.

After his service in British East Africa he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield until 1912 when he was appointed the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong from 1912 to 1918.

A formidable scholar of Buddhism, and British ambassador in Japan, 1919-25. A lifelong bachelor. He greatly regretted the ending of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1921.

Eliot died at sea in the Straits of Malacca.

[edit] Major scholarly works by Eliot

[edit] See also

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Political offices
Preceded by:
Sir Arthur Henry Hardinge
Governor of Kenya
1900–1904
Succeeded by:
Sir Donald William Stewart