Ralph Paget

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Sir Ralph Spencer Paget KCMG, CVO
1st United Kingdom Ambassador to Brazil
In office 1918 – 1920
Preceded by	Mission upgraded
Succeeded by	Sir John Tilley
United Kingdom Minister to Denmark
In office 1916 – 1918
Preceded by	Sir Henry Lowther
Succeeded by	Sir Charles Marling
United Kingdom Minister to the Kingdom of Serbia
In office 1910 – 1913
Preceded by	Sir James Beethom Whitehead
Succeeded by	Sir Charles des Graz
United Kingdom Minister to Siam
In office 1904 – 1909
Preceded by	Sir Reginald Tower
Succeeded by	Arthur Peel
Born	26 November, 1864
Died	May 11, 1940 (aged 75) St. Raphael, France
Nationality	British
Spouse	Dame Leila Paget
Relations	Sir Augustus Paget, Sir Arthur Paget
Residence	Warren House, Kingston upon Thames
Alma mater	Eton College
Profession	Diplomat
Religion	Church of England

The Right Honourable Sir Ralph Spencer Paget, KCMG, CVO (26 November 1864 – 11 May 1940) was a diplomat in the British Foreign Service, culminating in his appointment as Ambassador to Brazil in 1918. He did varied service throughout the world, and is perhaps best remembered for his relief work in Serbia before and during the First World War.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 Sojourn in Siam 2.1 Back to Europe 3 Minister in Serbia 4 Return to England 5 War services 6 Denmark 7 Brazil 8 Retirement 9 Citations 10 Reference list

[edit] Early life and career

Ralph Spencer Paget was born on 26 November 1864, the third child and second son of Augustus Paget, also a career diplomat. His great-uncle, who died ten years before his birth, was the legendary Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey who had led the cavalry at Waterloo, and his uncle was the distinguished naval officer Lord Clarence Paget. He was educated at Eton College, where he won the Prince Consort's prize for German.^[1] He shone at rowing, being part of the winning "Novice Eight" in 1881, which also won in the Procession of Boats on 4 June of that year and later in the "House Four".^[2] After finishing school he studied abroad, becoming an "Arabic and Turkish scholar"^[3] before being nominated in April, 1888 attaché in the Foreign Service and sent to Vienna to serve with his father, the Ambassador to Austria-Hungary. In the autumn of 1889 he was sent to Egypt to work with Sir Evelyn Baring, the British Agent and Consul-General, who was in effect the de facto ruler of the country. While there he "gained an insight into the the realities of administrative reform" while Baring introduced his financial reforms.^[1]

He was dispatched in 1891 to Zanzibar, recently exchanged with Heligoland, and worked with General Gerald Portal (the colonial commissioner) to promote the "the first beginnings of European civilisation in the East of Africa".^[1] In June, 1892 he was sent to the British mission in Washington, DC where he stayed for only a year. In June, 1893 he then joined the legation in Tokyo, where he served as chargé d’affaires, where he served for six years. In 1895 he was promoted to Second Secretary.^[3] He made such a good impression that upon his arrival the Japanese journal Nichi Nichi Shimbun wrote;

Mr. Paget has plenty of springs and autumns to come, the future of great promise [is] before him and [he] will certainly make himself a name as a diplomatist of mark.^[4]

At the beginning of his service in Tokyo the First Secretary was Gerard Lowther, later one of the architects of the Entente Cordiale was considered to be acceptable neither to the Chinese or Japanese lobbies at the time of the Sino-Japanese War and there relied heavily on his subordinates, Paget included.^[5] He then served for five years under Sir Ernest Satow who took over in Tokyo.

In 1901 Paget was sent to the legation in Guatemala as chargé d’affaires, though with much increased responsibility as neighbouring Nicaragua came under his legation's jurisdiction also.^[6] The primary motivation of the diplomatic staff was economic, protecting British interests in Central America. He was kept busy, and saw varied service in the two countries. In a 1901 official visit to Nicaragua, his modesty was offended by the fact that every time he visited a town, he was greeted by brass bands playing the National Anthem. Despite his diplomatic bearing he felt compelled to ask that the practice cease.^[7] He did good work in Central America, although he was not "able to tolerate" either the Guatemalans or the oppressive weather. In September, 1902 he was promoted and appointed chargé d’affaires at the Bangkok legation in the Kingdom of Siam.

[edit] Sojourn in Siam

In Siam he was quickly put in de facto charge of the legation due to the recall of the Minister, Sir Reginald Tower. The climate was no better than Guatemala, and the Foreign Office had trouble filling the post for two years. Eventually, it was decided that after a period as First Secretary to the Legation from March, 1904 Paget would become Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in November at the age of forty.^[1] Upon taking charge in Bangkok he tried to have the Legation (built 1876) moved to land at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club due to its nearness to the river and generally unfavourable position. However the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Works refused to allocate funds and the project was eclipsed by first Paget's own work, and after his departure by the First World War.^[8]

During his tenure he had to deal with German economic encroachment in Siam and try and negotiate a new standard in Anglo-Siamese relations. The status of British nationals in Siam had to be addressed, along with a long-running dispute over the lengthy Siamese-Malay border and the construction of a Bangkok-Singapore railway. Paget was able to deal with all of these issues and brooked no opposition either from London or Bangkok. The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 led to four tributary Siamese states coming under autonomous British control as the Unfederated Malay States, while Britain recognised Siamese control of four other states, officially demarcating a border which remains today between Thailand and Malaysia. Under the terms of the treaty, signed in March, 1909, Britain also undertook to build a railway between the two spheres of influence.

[edit] Back to Europe

While laying the groundwork for this eventual success, in 1907 Paget married his younger cousin, Louisa Margaret Leila Wemyss Paget (1881–1958), daughter of General Arthur Paget. In the same year he was made a Companion of the Royal Victorian Order. In 1908 he was seriously considered for the position of British Ambassador to the German Empire in succession to Frank Lascelles.^[9] Instead he was dispatched to Munich to become the Minister Resident in the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Kingdom of Württemberg. His work there was relatively light, all major diplomatic intercourse taking place at the consulate in Berlin. In recognition of his services in Siam, Paget was promoted Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George in the King's Birthday Honours for 1909 and knighted.^[10]

Despite being popular in his new position, Paget managed to alienate the Permanent Under-Secretary back in Whitehall, Sir Charles Hardinge with his "mild" reports.^[11][12] He would only be able to return to work at the Foreign Office in 1913, when Hardinge had been ennobled and made Viceroy of India.^[13] In July, 1910 Paget was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Belgrade, being succeeded in Munich by Sir Vincent Corbett. In an unusual move, the new British king, George V, wrote a letter to the Prince Regent of Bavaria personally informing him of Sir Ralph's departure from Germany.^[14] The news of Paget's promotion to Minister to Serbia was announced in The Times on 5 August 1910.^[15]

[edit] Minister in Serbia

Paget arrived in Serbia on 21 September 1910^[16] and presented his credentials to King Petar three days later.^[17]

[edit] Return to England

In August, 1913 Paget was called back to England and appointed an Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in succession to Sir Louis Mallet.^[18]

[edit] War services

[edit] Denmark

[edit] Brazil

On 26 September 1918 it was announced that the Legation in Rio de Janeiro was being upgraded to an Embassy and that Paget had been approved by the King to be the first Envoy Extraordinary and Ambassador Plenipotentiary to Brazil.^[19] His departure was delayed however by being a permanent official of the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference with responibility for the Balkans. Most of the salient points of the Paget-Tyrrell Memorandum for the distribution of Central and Eastern Europe were eventually adopted. On 18 August 1919 he was sworn a member of the Privy Council before finally taking up his appointment in Brazil.^[20] He arrived in Rio in style, having been transported from the West Indies, where he had "been employed on a special mission"^[21] being transported in the battle cruiser HMS Renown, arriving on 2 October.^[22] On 8 October he was officially received by President Pessoa.

He spent only a year in Brazil though, despite being a success there, being awarded the honorary presidency of the British Chamber of Commerce in Brazil. Before he had been appointed to the post, he had written to a friend; "What I really long for in my innermost heart is an old cotton shirt, an old pair of pants, a good horse and open prairie or desert." In conversation with Sir John Tilley, who at the time Assistant Secretary at the Foreign Office, he was reminded that his ultimate ambition had been to become an ambassador. Paget responded that the goal was fulfilled as soon as the appointment was made. His plan to increase British immigration in Brazil was thwarted by the Overseas Settlement Office. Eventually recurring bad health and a bout of depression forced him to tender his resignation in August, 1920.

[edit] Retirement

After 1920 Sir Ralph Paget lived a further twenty years in the obscurity of private life. At last, he managed to take care of his health. Despite his neutral benevolence while he occupied the post in Belgrade, along with Lady Paget’s large-scale humanitarian work during the wars, it appears that the Serbian public, too preoccupied in the tense inter-war years, virtually forgot the Pagets. Nevertheless, Lady Paget never forgot Serbia. When in October 1934 the Yugoslav King Aleksandar I was assassinated, she visited Belgrade and was present at his funeral. Paget passed away on 10 May 1940 while in Saint-Raphaël, France.

His widow, Dame Leila Paget continued to be actively interested in the Balkans. With the German invasion of Yugoslavia and the influx of Yugoslavian exiles into Britain, Dame Leila did all she could to assist those in need, including selling her estate in Surrey. She died at Kingston upon Thames on 24 September 1958.

Paget's memory was recalled, if incorrectly, in Brazil where he served for only a year and a half. An episode in a recent television soap-opera involved Paget in a fictitious search for Colonel Percy Fawcett, who disappeared in the Amazon jungle in 1925. Erring, the screenplay writer placed the event in 1944, when Sir Ralph had already been dead for four years.

[edit] Citations

[edit] Reference list

• Antić, Čedomir (2006). Ralph Paget: A Diplomat in Serbia. Belgrade: Institute for Balkan Studies SASA. 
• Lee, Sir Sidney (1927). King Edward VII, Vol. II. London: Macmillan. 
• Steiner, Zara S. (1977). in Hinsley, F.H.: British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
• Steiner, Zara S. (1969). The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1898-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521076544. 

Diplomatic posts
New title Mission upgraded	British Ambassador to Brazil 1918–1920	Succeeded by Sir John A. C. Tilley
Preceded by Sir Henry Lowther	British Minister to Denmark 1916-1918	Succeeded by Sir Charles Marling
Preceded by Sir James Beethom Whitehead	British Minister to the Kingdom of Serbia 1910-1915	Succeeded by Sir Charles des Graz
Preceded by Sir Reginald Tower	British Minister to Siam 1904-1909	Succeeded by Arthur Robert Peel

Persondata
NAME	Paget, Sir Ralph Spencer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Leading British Diplomat in the Edwardian Era
DATE OF BIRTH	26 November 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH	10 May 1940
PLACE OF DEATH	Saint-Raphaël, France