Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Blackwood, Frederick Temple
BLACKWOOD, FREDERICK TEMPLE HAMILTON-TEMPLE, first Marquis of Dufferin and Ava (1826–1902), diplomatist and administrator, was born at Florence on 21 June 1826. Vice-admiral Sir Henry Blackwood [q. v.] was his uncle. His father, Price Blackwood, fourth Baron Dufferin and Clandeboye in the Irish peerage, at one time captain R.N., married Helen Selina, one of the three famous daughters of Thomas (Tom) Sheridan [q. v.], her sisters being Jane Georgina, wife of Edward Adolphus Seymour, twelfth duke of Somerset, and Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, the Hon. Mrs. Norton [q. v.]. Dying ; on 21 July 1841, he entrusted his son, then at Eton, to the guardianship of Sir James Graham. The boy's mother {see Sheridan, Helen Selina] exercised a potent influence on him. After leaving Eton in April 1843 he spent eighteen months with her at home before he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, 1844-6. On finishing his residence at Oxford he spent the next ten years in managing his Irish estates, widening his circle of friends, and acquiring by travel a first-hand acquaintance with the near East. At the same time he identified himself with the liberal party, and being advanced to the English peerage took his seat as Baron Clandeboye, 31 Jan. 1850, in the House of Lords. He became lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria during the ministry of Lord John Russell, 26 June 1849 to 1852, and again under Lord Aberdeen, 28 November 1854 to 1858. He also established his reputation as a speaker, supporting (18 April 1853) Lord Aberdeen's motion for an inquiry into the management of Maynooth College, and speaking to an attentive house at considerable length (28 Feb. 1854) on landlord and tenant right in Ireland. His favourite recreation was yachting, and the Foam, which carried him to the Baltic in August 1854, gave him an opportunity of proving not only his seamanship but his presence of mind and courage. He got on board H.M.S. Penelope and the Hecla during the siege of Bomarsund; and not satisfied with his experiences of a naval action he advanced on foot into the French trenches, where he displayed notable strength of nerve. In February 1855 he made his first start in the field of diplomacy as attache to Lord John Russell's mission at the conference convoked at Vienna for the purpose of bringing the Crimean war to an end. The conference proved abortive. At the end of seven weeks Lord Dufferin returned to his yacht and achieved reputation as a brilliant writer by his account in 'Letters from High Latitudes ' of his voyage in 1856 to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen. His only other publication was 'Mr. Mill's Plan for the Pacification of Ireland examined' (published in 1868). He otherwise reserved his marked literary powers for official use. Tours which followed to Egypt, Constantinople, and Syria added fresh knowledge and experience and prepared him for his official career.
On 30 July 1860, at the age of thirty-four, he was appointed British commissioner to assist Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, Lord Dalling [q. v.], the British ambassador at the Porte, in inquiring into the massacres in the Levant and other districts of Syria with a view to preventing their recurrence. Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia named representatives to assist the Sultan in establishing order. But when it came to devising practical measures, French ambitions, the Sultan's insistence on his sovereign powers, popular feeling in Russia, the implacable blood feuds between Christian Maronites and Mussalman Druses, and the attempts of guilty Turkish officials to make scapegoats of the Druses interposed difficulties which seemed interminable. Lord Dufferin by his tact, firmness, and political sagacity found a way out of the labyrinth. His proposal to appoint an independent governor selected by the Porte and approved by the Powers was finally adopted the Syrian population being brought under a Christian governor nominated by the Porte with administrative councils appointed by the several communities. French hopes were disappointed to an extent which Lord Dufferin had occasion to realise during the concluding part of his diplomatic career, but his government (May 1861) conveyed to him 'the Queen's gracious approval of all his conduct,' and other Powers warmly recognised his ability, judgment, and temper. He was made a civil K.C.B. on 18 June 1861.
For the next few years Lord Dufferin engaged in political work at home. On 6 Feb. 1862 he moved in the House of Lords the address in answer to the Queen's speech and referred to the death of the Prince Consort in terms which touched Queen Victoria's heart. He received the riband of St. Patrick on 17 June 1863, and in the following year was made lord-lieutenant of co. Down. On 16 Nov. 1864 he obtained in Lord Palmerston's administration his first ministerial appointment as under-secretary for India, and in 1866 was transferred to the war office in a like capacity. In 1868 Gladstone became prime minister, and Dufferin was included in the new liberal ministry as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster without a seat in the cabinet. On the other hand he was advanced in the peerage to an earldom on 13 Nov. 1871, and he rendered useful service as chairman of a royal commission on military education. In 1872, on the retirement of Sir John Young, Lord Lisgar [q. v.], the second governor-general of confederated Canada, Lord Dufferin was nominated his successor, and entered on duties calculated to give full play to his talents.
Lord Dufferin was installed in office on 25 June 1872. It was a critical period of Canadian history. The federal union which was inaugurated in 1867 was completed after the arrival of Lord Dufferin by the admission to the dominion of Prince Edward Island on 1 July 1873. What was needed was to kindle the imagination of the population thus brought together, and inspire the several provinces with the true spirit of confederation, familiarising both them and the United Kingdom with the conception of a great nation within the empire. Some angry controversies had fanned into flame passions which tended to disunion rather than consolidation. The rebellion in Manitoba of Louis Riel [q. v.] against the new constitution had been quelled in 1870, but Riel and his lieutenant, Lepine, had escaped. Under Lord Dufferin's rule Riel was returned to parliament in Oct. 1873 as member for a constituency in Manitoba and evaded arrest, while fanning fresh resistance. Lepine, however, was captured and sentenced to be hanged in 1875, a sentence which Lord Dufferin commuted to one of short imprisonment. Another source of disturbance of a different character was the delay in completing the Canadian Pacific railway. After the opening of the second parliament of the united dominion at Ottawa in March 1873, a storm was raised over alleged fraudulent practices of Sir Hugh Allan, to whom the contract had been granted. The 'great Pacific scandal' led to the prorogation of parliament, a commission of inquiry, and the retirement of the conservative premier, Sir John Alexander Macdonald [q. v.], in favour of his liberal rival, Alexander Mackenzie [q. v.], who remained premier from November 1873 to October 1878. Yet, despite the angry turmoil, Lord Dufferin, by his personal influence and stirring speeches, pacified the agitators, filled the minds of Canadians with pride in their dominion, and impressed his own countrymen at home with a new conception of a Greater Britain. A speech of his at Toronto was described by the 'Spectator' (26 Sept. 1874) as restoring to politics their 'glow and spring.' On 26 May 1876 he was made G.C.M.G. In his farewell address to Canada in Sept. 1878 he boasted with truth that he left Canadians 'the truest-hearted subjects of her Majesty's dominions.' He infected them with his own visions of a glorious future, and at the time no greater service could have been rendered to the dominion and the Empire. In June 1879 he received the hon. degree of D.C.L. from Oxford.
Meanwhile in Feb. 1879 Dufferin became the British ambassador at St. Petersburg. The appointment was made by Lord Beaconsfield, the conservative prime minister, but it involved no severance from the liberal party. To maintain friendly relations with Russia while insisting upon unwelcome restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Berlin, and upon the complete observance of engagements undertaken in regard to central Asia and Afghanistan, was no easy task. The political situation was over-shadowed by the prevalence of nihilism, which was already manifesting itself in attempts on the Emperor's life. It must therefore have been a relief to Lord Dufferin when in June 1881 his own party, which had returned to office, transferred him as Ambassador to the Porte. Dufferin's first important task at Constantinople was connected with the demarcation of the frontier of Greece, and the introduction of reforms into Armenia.
In September 1881 the revolt at Cairo of Ahmed Arabi Bey against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha laid on Dufferin difficult and delicate responsibilities. The Sultan professed readiness to despatch his troops to restore order and Turkish control, but neither England nor France was prepared to agree to that course without imposing strict conditions and limitations. Recourse was had to a conference which was willing to accept the Sultan's intervention with a proviso which he deprecated. The long negotiations led to little result. In the summer of 1882 England took forcible action single-handed, after France declined co-operation. Arabi Bey was defeated at Tel-el-Kebir on 16 Sept. 1882, and the process of reorganising the Khedive's administration under British auspices was commenced. Throughout the negotiations at Constantinople Lord Dufferin by his tact and quiet resolution secured for his country liberty of action without unnecessarily provoking the susceptibilities of foreign governments, and prevented any attempt on the part of the Porte to ignore its engagements to the protecting Powers. He became consequently the central figure in the transactions at the Turkish capital. In October 1882 Gladstone's government sent him to Cairo to complete the work he had begun. He was directed to reconstruct the Egyptian administration ' on a basis which will afford satisfactory guarantees for the maintenance of peace, order, and prosperity in Egypt, for the stability of the Khedive's authority, for the judicious development of self-government, and the fulfilment of obligations towards foreign powers.' His notable Report of February 1883 was the outcome of these instructions. At the same time he recognised the possibility that Turkish authority would be restored, and it was in order to provide ' a barrier ' against that intolerable tyranny that he advocated a generous policy ' of representative institutions, of municipal and communal self-government, and of a political existence untrammelled by external importunity.' He called into being the legislative council and the assembly. Experience has since suggested that Egypt was not ripe for representative institutions even of the limited character which Dufferin devised, but Lord Dufferin's aims and motives were in the circumstances quite intelligible. He received on 15 May 1883 the cordial thanks of the British government, and on 15 June promotion to the G.C.B. Disappointment followed. As Dufferin admitted, the Hicks disaster in the Soudan in Nov. 1883, and Gordon's fateful mission to Khartoum next year, which he was not in a position to foresee, 'let in the deluge.'
On the retirement of George Frederick Samuel Robinson, Lord Ripon [q. v. Suppl. II], from the governor-generalship of India on 13 Dec. 1884 Dufferin was nominated to succeed him. The post was far more responsible and onerous than any he had previously held. But his special gifts of tact and conciliation and his interest in land questions were the precise qualities that were needed at the outset. When Lord Ripon left India it was distracted by angry controversy over the Ilbert bill, and by Ripon's unfinished schemes of self-government. The Indian press and congress party were agitating for constitutional changes, while in Bengal, Oudh, and the Punjab the relations of landlord and tenant were strained, and beyond the frontiers the Amir of Afghanistan was uncertain regarding British intentions and the position of his boundaries on the side of Russia. In this condition of unrest Lord Dufferin's personal magnetism and tact were at once called into play. By natural disposition and political profession favourable to reform and self-government, he had not forgotten his experiences in Egypt. In his speeches and published 'Resolutions' he enjoined on all sections of the population 'the need of unity, concord, and fellowship,' and 'the community of their interests.' Inviting the co-operation of educated Indians, and promising them a larger share in provincial affairs, he condemned incendiary speechifying, and refused to relax his grasp on the supreme administration. The 'parliamentary system' he put on one side as impossible. But he sanctioned a legislative council and a university at Allahabad for the North-west Provinces, and advocated the enlargement of the legislative councils elsewhere, with powers of interpellation and the right of discussing the provincial budget of each year. His dealing with the land question was equally reasonable, and he held the balance true between landlord and tenant. By Act VIII., 1885, which Lord Ripon had advanced to its penultimate stage, the Bengal land-owners were obliged to concede occupancy rights to their tenants who had cultivated their lands in a village for twelve years, and to accept certain limitations on their right of enhancing the rent. On the other hand the landowner's right to a fair share in the increased value of land was affirmed, facilities were created for settling disputes, and provision made for a survey and record of rights. In Oudh, by the Rent Act XXII. of 1885, tenants at will secured compensation for improvements, and were guaranteed possession for seven years in conditions which placed the landlords' rights on a just basis. By the Punjab Act XVI. of 1887, the rights of occupancy and profits of agriculture were judiciously divided without undue opposition.
At the same time the Amir of Afghanistan was charmed with his reception by Dufferin at Rawal Pindi in April 1885, and was so completely reassured as to the nature of the assistance he would receive if an unprovoked attack were made on him, that neither the Panjdeh conflict (1885) with Russia, nor in 1888 the rebellion of his cousin Ishak Khan, shook his confidence. Sindhia, the leading Mahratta sovereign in India, was gratified by the restoration of the Gwalior fortress in 1886, and cordial relations were established with all the native princes. While Lord Dufferin successfully pursued his work as conciliator Lady Dufferin in August 1885 instituted the 'National Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India.' The scheme touched the heart of the people, and its value was recognised by Queen Victoria, who bestowed on Lady Dufferin the royal order of Victoria and Albert as well as the imperial order of the Crown of India.
Lord Dufferin's policy included measures for strengthening British rule. He improved railway communications with Quetta and the Afghan border ; he increased the army by 10,600 British and 20,000 Indian soldiers, introduced the linked battalion and reserve system into the native army, and constituted a new force of Burma military police. By the annexa- tion of Upper Burma he completed the work of consolidation begun by Lord Dalhousie. King Thibaw having murdered most of his father's house, and refused to redress the wrongs inflicted on a British trading company, assumed a defiant attitude. Recourse to war became impera- tive. Mandalay was occupied on 28 Nov. 1885 by General Prendergast, and after his kingdom was annexed on 1 Jan. 1886 Sir Charles Bernard [q. v. Suppl. II] estab- lished a British administration. Other military operations during Dufferin's rule were in 1888 the expulsion of the Tibetans from a position which, taking advantage of the British policy of non-interference, they had seized at Lingtu within the protectorate of Sikkim, and expeditions against various clans of the Black Mountain on the North- west frontier.
Lord Dufferin retired from India in December 1888. For his Indian services he received advancement to a marquisate hi 1888, and on 29 May 1889 the city of London made him an honorary freeman. Early in 1889 he resumed his diplomatic career as ambassador at Rome. Italy, encouraged by her position as a member of the triple alliance, and stimulated by her past tradi- tions, was then seeking compensation for her exclusion from Tunis in a policy of adventure in East Africa, thus dissipating her economic energies and courting disaster. On 24 March 1891 Dufferin concluded with the Marchese di Rudini the protocol which defined the respective spheres of British and Italian influence in East Africa. Apart from the work of the embassy his leisure time was passed pleasantly in visiting the scenes of his father's closing years and places of family interest. Proof of his high reputation at home was given by his election as lord rector of St. Andrews University in April 1891, when he delivered an address to the students full of admirable and practical advice. On the death of Lord Lytton, British ambassador in Paris, in 1891, he was transferred in December to the British embassy in Paris, where he remained until 13 Oct. 1896. Lord Dufferin's earlier exploits in the Lebanon, Egypt, and Burma, in which he was deemed to have ignored French interests, led a party in France to assail the new British ambassador with criticism and quite unmerited suspicion. The French nation was passing at the time through a disturbing series of events the Panama canal scandals in 1892, the funeral of Marshal MacMahon in 1893, the assassination of President Carnot in June 1894, and the abdication of his successor, M. Casimir Perier, in the following year. The British ambassador defended himself with vigour against the imputation of hostile designs which were entirely foreign to his character, and though perhaps he never attained in Paris the full amount of popularity which he commanded elsewhere, he succeeded in gaining the confidence and regard of the French government. By the part which he took in the discussion of the Siamese question he contributed to the satisfactory settlement of a possible cause of conflict with France. Siam was a near neighbour of Burma and of the Malay states, and a line of British Indian frontier as far as the Mekong had been traced. On the east, however, the kingdom was exposed to peaceful penetration and even hostile attack from the possessions of France in Cochin China. The agreement signed by Lord Salisbury and the French ambassador on 15 Jan. 1896 secured the independence of the central part of Siam, fixed the 'Thalweg' of the Mekong as the limit of the possessions and spheres of influence of the two powers, and included a provision for delimitation in Nigeria. Other differences with France in the Congo and elsewhere were adjusted, and when Lord Dufferin, having completed his seventieth year, retired from official life he left Paris in 1896 with every public assurance that he had rendered excellent service towards the improvement of relations between the two countries.
Lord Dufferin had become warden of the Cinque Ports in 1891, but he resigned the office in 1895 in order that he might spend the rest of his days at Clandeboye in quiet attention to his own affairs. Civic and academic honours still flowed upon him in a constant stream. He was made hon. LL.D. of Cambridge in 1891, was given the freedom of Edinburgh in 1898, and was elected lord rector of its university in 1901. But misfortune put the finishing touch to a career of previously unbroken success. Through an error of judgment he was induced in 1897 to accept the chairmanship of the London and Globe Finance Corporation, a financial company connected with the mining markets, of whose affairs no one except the managing director, Whitaker Wright [q. v. Suppl. II], had any knowledge. In Dec. 1900 he resigned his position in order to attend the bedside of his youngest son, Frederic, of the 9th lancers, who was severely wounded in South Africa but recovered. Dufferin, however, soon learned that the corporation was in difficulties, and at once resumed his position, courageously facing the storm. The mischief was widespread. On 9 Jan. 1901 (see The Times, 10 Jan.) Lord Dufferin explained his position to a meeting of shareholders in a 'manly and touching address,' and his own honour and spirit were unimpeached. But he had associated himself with a speculative business which he could not control, and thus ruined others, while bringing heavy losses upon his own family.
This disaster, together with the death of his eldest son, Lord Ava, who had been wounded in the South African war on Waggon Hill in Jan. 1900, clouded the close of a brilliant life. He delivered his rectorial address to the Edinburgh students on 14 Nov. 1901, and soon after his return to Clandeboye broke down in health. He died there on 12 Feb. 1902, and there he was buried.
Dufferin married on 23 Oct. 1862 Harriot, daughter of Archibald Rowan Hamilton, at Killyleagh Castle, co. Down. His wife survived him with three sons and three daughters. He was succeeded in the title by his son Terence Temple, a clerk in the foreign office.
A statue of him by Sir Edgar Boehm, R.A., was erected by public subscription in Calcutta, and another by F. W. Pomeroy, A.R.A., in Belfast. Several portraits of him by Swinton and Ary Scheffer as a young man, and by Frank Holl, Benjamin Constant, and Henrietta Rae in later life, are at Clandeboye, in addition to a bust by Marochetti. A painting by G. F. Watts is in the National Portrait Gallery
[Life of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, by Sir Alfred Lyall, 2 vols. 1905; The Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, by C. E. D. Black, 1903; Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt, 2 vols. 1908; Lord Milner, England in Egypt, llth edit. 1904; Speeches in India by Lord Dufferin, 1890; L. Fraser, India under Curzon and after, 1911; Hansard's Parliamentary Debates; Parliamentary Blue Books on India and Egypt; The Times, 13 Feb. 1902; Annual Register, 1902.]