James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin
| The Right Honourable The Earl of Elgin KT, GCB, PC | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Viceroy of India | |
| In office 21 March 1862 – 20 November 1863 | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Preceded by | The Earl Canning |
| Succeeded by | Sir Robert Napier As Acting Governor-General |
| Governor General of the Province of Canada | |
| In office 1847–1854 | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Preceded by | The Earl Cathcart |
| Succeeded by | Sir Edmund Walker Head, Bt |
| Governor of Jamaica | |
| In office 1842–1846 | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Preceded by | Sir Charles Metcalfe, Bt |
| Succeeded by | George Berkeley As Acting Governor |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 20 July 1811 London, United Kingdom |
| Died | 20 November 1863 (aged 52) Dharamsala, Punjab, British India |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse(s) | (1) Elizabeth Cumming-Bruce (d. 1843) (2) Lady Mary Lambton (d. 1898) |
| Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford |
| Signature |  |
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine, KT, GCB, PC (20 July 1811 – 20 November 1863), was a British colonial administrator and diplomat. He was the Governor General of the Province of Canada, a High Commissioner in charge of opening trades with China and Japan, and Viceroy of India.[1] As British High Commissioner in China during the Second Opium War, after repeatedly attacking China, he ordered the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860.
Early life and education
Lord Elgin was the son of the 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine and his second wife. Elgin's wife, Lady Mary Lambton, was a daughter of the 1st Earl of Durham, a prominent author of the Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839), and niece of the Colonial Secretary the 3rd Earl Grey.
He shared his birthday 20 July with his father. He had seven brothers and sisters and four half-sisters and one half-brother from his father's first marriage.[2] Lord Elgin's father was reportedly impoverished by the purchase of the Elgin Marbles. His father had acquired them at great expense, but sold them to the British government for much less.[2]
James Bruce was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, graduated with a first in Classics in 1832. While at Oxford, he became friends with William Ewart Gladstone.[2]
Career
He was elected at the 1841 general election as a Member of Parliament for Southampton, but the election was declared void on petition. He did not stand in the resulting by-election.[3]
Jamaica
James Bruce became Governor of Jamaica in 1842,[4] and in 1847 was appointed Governor General of Canada.[5]
Canada
Under Lord Elgin, the first real attempts began at establishing responsible government in Canada. In 1848, the moderate reformers of both Canada East and Canada West, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin, won their elections, and Lord Elgin asked them to form a government together. Lord Elgin became the first Governor General to distance himself from the affairs of the legislature. Since then, the Governor-General has had a largely symbolic role with regards to the political affairs of the country. As Governor-General, he wrestled with the costs of receiving high levels of immigration in the Canadas, a major issue in the constant debate about immigration during the 19th century.
In 1849 the Baldwin-Lafontaine government passed the Rebellion Losses Bill, compensating French Canadians for losses suffered during the Rebellions of 1837. Lord Elgin granted royal assent to the bill despite heated Tory opposition and his own misgivings over how his action would be received in England. The decision sparked the Burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal by an English-speaking mob. Elgin was assaulted. Instead of calling in the military, he withdrew his family to their country residence and allowed civil authorities to restore order. The French-speaking minority in the Canadian legislature also unsuccessfully tried to have him removed from his post.
In 1849, the Stony Monday Riot took place in Bytown on Monday 17 September. Tories and Reformists clashed over the planned visit of Lord Elgin, one man was killed and many sustained injuries. Two days later, the two political factions, armed with cannon, muskets and pistols faced off on the Sappers Bridge. Although the conflict was defused in time by the military, a general support for the Crown's representative, triumphed in Bytown (renamed Ottawa by Queen Victoria in 1854). In 1854, Lord Elgin negotiated the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States in an attempt to stimulate the Canadian economy. Later that year, he granted royal assent to the law that abolished the seigneurial system in Quebec, and then resigned as Governor-General.
China and Japan
In 1857 he became High Commissioner to China and travelled to China and Japan in 1858-59, where he led the bombing of Canton. He oversaw the end of the Second Opium War by signing the Treaties of Tianjin on 26 June 1858.
In June 1860 he returned to China to assist with additional attacks, which were initially led by his brother. On 18 October 1860, Elgin, not having received the Chinese surrender and wishing to spare the royal city of Beijing, ordered the complete destruction of the Yuan Ming Yuan (or Old Summer Palace) outside the city in retaliation for the imprisonment, torture, and execution of almost 20 European and Indian prisoners (including two British envoys and a journalist for The Times). The Old Summer Palace was a complex of palaces and gardens eight kilometres northwest of the walls of Beijing; it had been built during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and was where the emperors of the Qing Dynasty resided and handled government affairs. An alternative account says that Elgin had initially considered the destruction of the Forbidden City. But, fearing that this act might interfere with the signing of the Convention of Beijing, which was where it was being negotiated, he opted for the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in its stead.[6]
The Old Summer Palace was fired by 3,500 British troops and burned for three days. Elgin and his troops looted many treasures from the Yuan Ming Yuan imperial gardens and took them to Britain. Attacks on the Summer Palace were also made, but the extent of destruction was not as great as to Yuan Ming Yuan. On 24 October 1860 Elgin signed the Convention of Beijing, which stipulated that China was to cede part of Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong in perpetuity to Britain.
In between Elgin's two trips to China, he had visited Japan. In August 1858, he signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce whose negotiation was much eased by the recent Harris Treaty between Japan and the United States. Elgin was ambivalent about the British policy on forcing opium on the people in the Far East. It was not without internal struggle that he carried out the duty laid on him by Britain. In a letter to his wife, in regard to the bombing of Canton he wrote, "I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life."[2]
He had three sons with a Chinese woman in China while serving in the country. He took the three sons back to England at the end of his term. He left his Chinese concubine in China because she was unfit for upper British society.
India
He became Viceroy of India in 1862, and was the first to use Peterhoff, Shimla as the official residence of the Viceroy. He died in 1863 of a heart attack while crossing a swinging rope and wood bridge over the river Chandra, on the lap between Kullu and Lahul.[7] He was buried in the churchyard of St. John in the Wilderness in Dharamshala.
Legacy
The towns of Kincardine, Port Elgin and Bruce Mines and the counties of Bruce and Elgin in Ontario are named after him, as are the communities of Elgin, New Brunswick and Elgin, Nova Scotia. Numerous Elgin Roads and Elgin Streets in Canada, India and Hong Kong are also named in his honour, as is the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa.[8]
His legacy in Canada was the subject of a 1959 National Film Board of Canada short docudrama, Lord Elgin: Voice of the People, directed by Julian Biggs.[9]
See also
- List of Lieutenant Governors of Ontario
- List of Lieutenant Governors of Quebec
- Anglo-Chinese relations
- Anglo-Japanese relations
References
- ↑ "Canadian Encyclopedia". Historica Foundation, Toronto. 2011< Retrieved 31 Jan 2011>
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on James Bruce, http://www.oxforddnb.com/ Accessed 20 March 2009
- ↑ Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 279. ISBN 0-900178-26-4.
- ↑ Sargeaunt, William C.; Birch, Arthur N. (1862). The Colonial Office List for 1862. London, UK: Edward Stanford. p. 128.
- ↑ Gough, Barry M. (2011). Historical Dictionary of Canada. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-8108-7504-3.
- ↑ Harris, David. Van Slyke, Lyman P. (2000)
- ↑ Raaja Bhasin, Shimla - The Summer Capital of British India
- ↑ "Lord Elgin Hotel - Ottawa Resort Information - History". Lordelginhotel.ca. Retrieved 2012-06-14.
- ↑ Biggs, Julian. "Lord Elgin: Voice of the People". Online film. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
Sources
- Wrong, George M. The Earl of Elgin, Toronto : G.N. Morang, 1906. Also digitized by Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions, 2003.
- Morison, John Lyle. The Eighth Earl of Elgin : A Chapter in Nineteenth-century Imperial History, London : Hodder and Stoughton, 1928.
- Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, 1857-8-9 (2 volumes), Laurence Oliphant, 1859 (reprinted by Oxford University Press, 1970) {No ISBN}
- Checkland, S.G. The Elgins 1766-1917 : A Tale of Aristocrats, Proconsuls and Their Wives. Aberdeen : Aberdeen University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-08-036395-4.
- Harris, David. Van Slyke, Lyman P. (2000). 'Of Battle and Beauty: Felice Beato's Photographs of China, University of California Press. ISBN 0-89951-100-7.
- John Newsinger, "Elgin in China," The New Left Review, 15 May/June, 2002. pp. 119–40.
- James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003)
- "Moving Here, Staying Here:" The Canadian Immigrant Experience, Library and Archives Canada, A letter from Lord Elgin, Governor General of the Canadas, to the Colonial Office
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin. |
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Elgin
- Works by James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin at Internet Archive
- Works by or about Earl of Elgin at Internet Archive
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Ringmar, Erik (2013). Liberal Barbarism: The European Destruction of the Palace of the Emperor of China (PDF). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Lord Elgin, "Second Mission to China, 1860," from Extracts from the Letters of James, Earl of Elgin to Mary Louisa, Countess of Elgin, 1847-1862 (London, 1864)
- Painting: James Bruce, Earl of Elgin, circa 1855. McCord Museum
- "Elgin and Kincardine, James, Earl of (ELGN861J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Abel Rous Dottin Viscount Duncan |
Member of Parliament for Southampton 1841–1842 With: Charles Cecil Martyn |
Succeeded by Humphrey St John-Mildmay George William Hope |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by The Lord Colchester |
Postmaster General 1859–1860 |
Succeeded by The Lord Stanley of Alderley |
| Government offices | ||
| Preceded by Sir Charles Metcalfe, Bt |
Governor of Jamaica 1842–1846 |
Succeeded by George Berkeley (acting) |
| Preceded by The Earl Cathcart |
Governor General of the Province of Canada 1847–1854 |
Succeeded by Sir Edmund Walker Head, Bt |
| Preceded by The Earl Canning |
Viceroy of India 1862–1863 |
Succeeded by Sir Robert Napier (acting) |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by James Erskine Wemyss |
Lord Lieutenant of Fife 1854–1863 |
Succeeded by James Hay Erskine Wemyss |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by The Earl Cathcart |
Chancellor of King's College 1847–1849 |
Succeeded by Peter Boyle de Blaquière (as Chancellor of the University of Toronto) |
| Preceded by The Lord Lytton |
Rector of the University of Glasgow 1859–1862 |
Succeeded by The Viscount Palmerston |
| Peerage of Scotland | ||
| Preceded by Thomas Bruce |
Earl of Elgin Earl of Kincardine 1841–1863 |
Succeeded by Victor Bruce |
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