GeorgeHamiltonGordonAberdeen

ABERDEEN, GEORGE HAMILTON GORDON, 4TH EARL OF (1784-1860),

English statesman, was the eldest son of George Gordon, Lord

Haddo, by his wife Charlotte, daughter of William Baird of

Newbyth, Haddingtonshire, and grandson of George, 3rd earl of

Aberdeen. Born in Edinburgh on the 28th of January 1784,

he lost his father in 1791 and his mother in 1795; and as

his grandfather regarded him with indifference, he went to

reside with Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville. At

the age of fourteen he was permitted by Scotch law to name

his own curators, or guardians, and selecting William Pitt

and Dundas for this office he spent much of his time at their

houses, thus meeting many of the leading politicians of the

day. He was educated at Harrow, and St John's College, Cambridge,

where he graduated as a nobleman in 1804. Before this time,

however, he had become earl of Aberdeen on his grandfather's

death in 1801, and had travelled over a large part of the

continent of Europe, meeting on his journeys Napoleon Bonaparte

and other persons of distinction. He also spent some time in

Greece, and on his return to England founded the Athenian

Society, membership of which was confined to those who had

travelled in that country. Moreover, he wrote an article in

the Edinburgh Review of July 1805 criticizing Sir William

Gill's Topography of Troy, and these circumstances led Lord

Byron to refer to him in Eniglish Bardo and Scotch Reviewers

as ``the travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen.'' Having attained

his majority in 1805, he married on the 28th of July Catherine

Elizabeth Hamilton, daughter of John James, 1st marquess of

Abercorn. In December 1806 he was elected a representative

peer for Scotland, and took his seat as a Tory in the House of

Lords, but for some years he took only a slight part in public

business. However, by his birth, his abilities and his

connexions alike he was marked out for a high position, and

after the death of his wife in February 1812 he was appointed

ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at

Vienna, where he signed the treaty of Toplitz between Great

Britain and Austria in October 1813; and accompanying the

emperor Francis I. through the subsequent campaign against

France, he was present at the battle of Leipzig. He was

one of the British representatives at the congress of

Chatillon in February 1814, and in the same capacity was

present during the negotiations which led to the treaty of

Paris in the following May. Returning home he was created

a peer of the United Kingdom as Viscount Gordon of Aberdeen

(1814), and made a member of the privy council. On the 15th

of Juby 1815 he married Harriet, daughter of the Hon. John

Douglas, and widow of James, Viscount Hamilton, and thus

became doubly connected with the family of the marquess of

Abercorn. During the ensuing thirteen years Aberdeen took a

less prominent part in public affairs, although he succeeded

in passing the Entail (Scotland) Act of 1825. He kept in

touch, however, with foreign politics, and having refused to

join the ministry of George Canning in 1827, became a member

of the cabinet of the duke of Wellington as chancellor of the

duchy of Lancaster in January 1828. In the following June he

was transferred to the office of secretary of state for foreign

affairs, and having acquitted himself with credit with regard

to the war between Russia and Turkey, and to affairs in Greece,

Portugal and France, he resigned with Wellington in November

1830, and shared his leader's attitude towards the Reform

Bill of 1832. As a Scotsman, Aberdeen was interested in the

ecclesiastical controversy which culminated in the disruption of

1843. In 1840 he introduced a bill to settle the vexed question

of patronage; but disliked by a majority in the general assembly

of the Scotch church, and unsupported by the government, it

failed to become law, and some opprobrium was cast upon its

author. In 1843 he brought forward a similar measure ``to

remove doubts respecting the admission of ministers to

benefices.'' This Admission to Benefices Act, as it was called,

passed into law, but did not reconcile the opposing parties.

During the short administration of Sir Robert Peel in 1834

and 1835, Aberdeen had filled the office of secretary for

the colonies, and in September 1841 he took office again

under Peel, on this occasion as foreign secretary; the

five years during which he held this position were the most

fruitful and successful of his public life. He owed his

success to the confidence placed in him by Queen Victoria,

to his wide knowledge of European politics, to his intimate

friendship with Guizot, and not least to his own conciliatory

disposition. Largely owing to his efforts, causes of quarrel

between Great Britain and France in Tahiti, over the marriage

of Isabella II. of Spain, and in other directions, were

removed. More important still were his services in settling

the question of the boundary between the United States and

British North America at a time when a single injudicious

word would probably have provoked a war. In 1845 he supported

Peel when in a divided cabinet he proposed to suspend the duty

on foreign corn, and left office with that minister in July

1846. After Peel's death in 1850 he became the recognized

leader of the Peelites, although since his resignation his

share in public business had been confined to a few speeches

on foreign affairs. His dislike of the Ecclesiastical Titles

Assumption Bill, the rejection of which he failed to secure in

1851, prevented him from joining the government of Lord John

Russell, or from forming an administration himself in this

year. In December 1852, however, be became first lord of

the treasury and head of a coalition ministry of Whigs and

Peelites. Although united on free trade and in general

on questions of domestic reform, a cabinet which contained

Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, in addition to

Aberdeen, was certain to differ on questions of foreign

policy. The strong and masterful character of these and

other colleagues made the task of the prime minister one

of unusual difficulty, a fact which was recognized by

contemporaries. Charles Greville in his Memoirs says,

``In the present cabinet are five or six first-rate men of

equal, or nearly equal, pretensions, none of them likely to

acknowledge the superiority or defer to the opinions of any

other, and every one of these five or six considering himself

abler and more important than their premier''; and Sir James

Graham wrote, ``It is a powerful team, but it will require good

driving.'' The first year of office passed off successfully,

and it was owing to the steady support of the prime minister

that Gladstone's great budget of 1853 was accepted by the

cabinet. This was followed by the outbreak of the dispute

between France and Turkey over the guardianship of the

holy places at Jerusalem, which, after the original cause

of quarrel had been forgotten, developed into the Crimean

war. The tortuous negotiations which preceded the struggle

need not be discussed here, but in defence of Aberdeen

it may be said that he hoped and strove for peace to the

last. Rightly or wrongly, however, he held that Russell was

indispensable to the cabinet, and that a resignation would

precipitate war. His outlook, usually so clear, was blurred

by these considerations, and he lacked the strength to force

the suggestions which he made in the autumn of 1853 upon his

imperious colleagues. Palmerston, supported by Russell and

well served by Lord Stratford de Redcllffe, British ambassador

at Constantinople, favoured a more aggressive policy, and

Aberdeen, unable to control Palmerston, and unwilling to let

Russell go, cannot be exonerated from blame. When the war

began he wished to prosecute it vigorously; but the stories

of misery and mismanagement from the seat of war deprived

the ministry of public favour. Russell resigned; and on

the 29th of January 1855 a motion by J. A. Roebuck, for the

appointment of a select committee to enquire into the conduct

of the War, was carried in the House of Commons by a large

majority. Treating this as a vote of want of confidence

Aberdeen at once resigned office, and the queen bestowed

upon him the order of the Garter. He smoothed the way for

Palmerston to succeed him, and while the earl of Clarendon

remained at the foreign office he aided him with advice and

was consulted on matters of moment. He died in London on the

14th of December 1860, and was buried in the family vault at

Stanmore. By his first wife he had one son and three

daughters, all of whom predeceased their father. By his second

wife, who died in August 1833, he left four sons and one

daughter. His eldest son, George John James, succeeded as 5th

earl; his second son was General Sir Alexander Hamilton-Gordon,

K.C.B.; his third son was the Reverend Douglas Hamilton-Gordon;

and his youngest son Arthur Hamilton, after holding various

high offices under the crown, was created Baron Stanmore in

1893. Among the public offices held by the earl were those of

lord-lieutenant of Aberdeenshire, president of the society of

Antiquaries from 1812 to 1846 and fellow of the Royal Society.

Aberdeen was a distinguished scholar with a retentive memory

and a wide knowledge of literature and art. His private life

was exemplary, and he impressed his contemporaries with the

loftiness of his character. His manner was reserved, and

as a speaker he was weighty rather than eloquent. In public

life he was remarkable for his generosity to his political

opponents, and for his sense of justice and honesty. He

did not, however, possess the qualities which impress the

populace, and he lacked the strength which is one of the

essential gifts of a statesman. His character is perhaps best

described by a writer who says ``his strength was not equal

to his goodness.'' His foreign policy was essentially one of

peace and non-intervention, and in pursuing it he was accused

of favouring the despotisms of Europe. Aberdeen was a model

landlord. By draining the land, by planting millions of trees

and by erecting numerous buildings, he greatly improved the

condition of his Aberdeenshire estates, and studied continually

the welfare of his dependants. A bust of him by Matthew Noble

is in Westminster Abbey, and his portrait was painted by Sir

Thomas Lawrence. He wrote An Inquiry into the Principles

of Beauty in Grecian Architecture (London, 1822), and the

Correspondence of the Earl of Aberdeen has been printed

privately under the direction of his son, Lord Stanmore.

The 6th earl, George (1841-1870), son of the 5th earl,

was drowned at sea, and was succeeded by his brother

John Campbell Gordon, 7th earl of Aberdeen, (b. 1847), a

prominent Liberal politician, who was lord-lieutenant of

Ireland in 1886, governor-general of Canada 1893--1898,

and again the lord-lieutenant of Ireland when Sir Henry

Campbell-Bannerman formed his ministry at the close of 1905.

See Lord Stanmore, The Earl of Aberdeen (London, 1893); C.

C. F. Greville, Memoirs, edited by H. Reeve (London, 1888);

Spencer Walpole, History of England (London, 1878-1886),

and Life of Lord John Russell (London, 1889); A. W.

Kinglake, Invasion of the Crimea (London, 1877-1888);

Sir T. Martin, Life of the Prince Consort (London,

1875-1880); J. Morley, Life of Gladstone (London, 1903).

(A. W. H. deg. )

Source: An unnamed encyclopedia from a project that puts out-of-copyright texts into the public domain. This is from a *very* old source, and reflects the thinking of the turn of the last century. -- BryceHarrington