Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey

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Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey GCB, JP, DL, TD (11 February 183623 February 1918) was a British politician.

Brassey was the son of the railway contractor Thomas Brassey (1805-1870). He was educated at Rugby School and University College Oxford. He was Liberal MP for Hastings in 1868, a Lord of the Admiralty in 1880, and became Secretary to the Admiralty in 1884. He was knighted in 1881, and was created Baron Brassey of Bulkeley in 1886. From 1895 to 1900 he was Governor of Victoria, and was created Earl Brassey in 1911.

He was succeeded in the earldom by his son Thomas, styled Viscount Hythe. Thomas Brassey, 2nd Earl Brassey (1863-1919) was educated at Eton College and Balliol College Oxford. The second earl died in 1919, when the titles became extinct.

He served as President of the first day of the 1874 Co-operative Congress.[1]

Between July 6, 1876 and May 27, 1877 he circumnavigated the world in his steam-assisted three-masted topsail-yard schooner "Sunbeam". This voyage is said to have been the first circumnavigation by a private yacht. His son Thomas Allnut Brassey (1863-1919) left the "Sunbeam" at Rio de Janeiro in order to return to school in England. His wife Annie, Lady Brassey (1839-1887), published an account of the cruise entitled In The Trades, The Tropics, & The Roaring Forties, or, alternately, A Voyage In The Sunbeam: Our Home On The Ocean For Eleven Months.

In 1880 his book The British Navy was published. In 1886, he started The Naval Annual, generally referred to as Brassey's Naval Annual. He edited The Naval Annual until 1891. He was succeeded as editor by his son T.A. Brassey.

He was President of the Royal Statistical Society, 1879-80.

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
George Waldegrave-Leslie and
Patrick Francis Robertson
Member of Parliament for Hastings
2-seat constituency until 1885
(with Frederick North, to 1869;
Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth, 1869–1880
Charles James Murray, 1880–1883
Henry Bret Ince, 1883–1885)

18681886
Succeeded by
Wilson Noble
Political offices
Preceded by
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Secretary to the Admiralty
1884–1885
Succeeded by
Charles Thomson Ritchie
Preceded by
The Lord Wolverton
Lord-in-Waiting
1893–1895
Succeeded by
The Earl Waldegrave
Government offices
Preceded by
The Earl of Hopetoun
Governor of Victoria
1895–1900
Succeeded by
Sir George Clarke
Honorary titles
Preceded by
HRH The Prince of Wales
Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports
1908–1913
Succeeded by
The Earl Beauchamp
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
New Creation
Earl Brassey Succeeded by
Thomas Allnutt Brassey
Languages