Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Bartlett, Ellis Ashmead
BARTLETT, Sir ELLIS ASHMEAD (1849–1902), politician, born in Brooklyn, New York, on 24 August 1849, was eldest son of Ellis Bartlett of Plymouth, Massachusetts, a graduate of Amherst, and a good classical scholar, who died in 1852. His mother was Sophia, daughter of John King Ashmead of Philadelphia. On the father's side he was directly descended from Robert Bartlett or Bartelot, of Sussex, who landed on Plymouth Rock from the ship Ann in 1623 and married in 1028 Mary, daughter of Richard Warren, who had sailed in the Mayflower in 1620. On his mother's side he derived through her father from John Ashmead of Cheltenham, who settled in Philadelphia in 1682, and through her mother from Theodore Lehman, secretary to William Penn, first governor of Pennsylvania.
Ellis and his younger brother, William Lehman Ashmead, now Mr. Burdett-Coutts, were brought to England in early boyhood by their widowed mother, and were educated at a private school, The Braddons, at Torquay. Ellis showed precocity in classics; but illness interrupted his studies, except in history, of which aided by an admirable memory he early gained a wide knowledge. On 16 Feb. 1867 he matriculated from St. Mary Hall, Oxford, but soon migrated to Christ Church. A taste for politics asserted itself at Oxford. Becoming the recognised leader of the conservative party in the Union, and an ardent champion of Disraeli, he was elected president in Easter term 1873, defeating Mr. Asquith by a large majority. He was also prominent in athletics. He graduated B.A. at Christ Church in 1872 with first-class honours in law and history, and proceeded M.A. 1874. After leaving Oxford he became an inspector of schools 1874-7, and an examiner in the privy council office (education department) 1877-80. On 13 June 1877 he was called to the bar from the Inner Temple.
With a view to ascertaining the truth regarding the reported 'Bulgarian atrocities' of 1876, Ashmead Bartlett visited Servia, Bulgaria, and Roumelia in 1877-8, and was a witness of barbarous outrages committed by Bulgarians and Russians on the Turkish inhabitants in Roumelia. He conceived the strongest distrust of Russia, and returning to England began a vigorous campaign against that power by speech and pen. In 1880 Lord Beaconsfield assigned to him what was practically the 'pocket borough' of Eye, in Suffolk. He held the seat until it was disfranchised under the redistribution bill of 1884. In 1885 he was elected for the more popular constituency of the Ecclesall division of Sheffield, for which he sat until his death. Energetic in his loyalty to the conservative party, he chiefly devoted himself both inside and outside the House of Commons to advocacy of British imperialism. In the House he was untiring in attack on liberal foreign policy and, notably in his first parliament, proved a constant torment to Gladstone. But a tendency to grandiloquence excited in parliament the impatient ridicule of his opponents. Outside the House he quickly gained an exceptional reputation as a platform speaker which he maintained throughout his public life. He was probably in greater demand among conservative organisers of great popular meetings than any other speaker, and invariably roused the enthusiasm of his audiences to the highest pitch. His organising capacity was also of much service to his party. He was chairman of the National Union of Conservative Associations for three years, 1886-7-8, and he carried on a ceaseless propaganda on behalf of his principles and his party by pamphlets, articles, and letters to the press. In March 1880, too, he started 'England,' the first conservative penny weekly newspaper. This venture, which rendered great service to the conservative cause, he conducted in its original form until June 1886. Continued in a somewhat different shape until 28 May 1898, it was a constant drain on his resources, and helped to involve him in financial embarrassments which clouded the closing years of his life. On the accession of conservatives to power in June 1885 Ashmead Bartlett became civil lord of the admiralty, and he returned to the office in July 1886 on the formation of Lord Salisbury's second administration. He showed himself an industrious official, retired on the fall of the government in Aug. 1892, when he was knighted. On the outbreak of war between Turkey and Greece in 1897 Sir Ellis proceeded to Constantinople, where the Sultan conferred on him the grand cordon of the Medjidieh, and he joined the Turkish army in the field. He was present at the defeat of the Greeks at Mati and was among the first non-combatants to enter Tyrnavo and Larissa. He was afterwards taken prisoner by the commander of a Greek warship and carried to Athens, but was soon released. When the Boer war broke out in South Africa in Oct. 1899 Sir Ellis went to the front and witnessed some early stages of the campaign, in which two of his sons took part. He died in London, after an operation for appendicitis, on 18 Jan. 1902, and was buried at Tunbridge Wells.
He married in 1874 Frances Christina, daughter of Henry Edward Walsh, and had issue five sons and three daughters. His eldest son, Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, is well known as a war correspondent.
Ashmead Bartlett's published works included 'Shall England keep India?' (1886); 'Union or Separation' (1893); 'British, Natives and Boers in the Transvaal; the Appeal of the Swazi People ' (1894); 'The Transvaal Crisis; the Case for the Uitlander Residents' (1896); 'The Battlefields of Thessaly' (1897).
A portrait by Ernest Moore of Sheffield, painted in 1895, belongs to the family. A cartoon by 'Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1882.l[The Times, 20 Jan. 1902; Foster's Bartlett, Ellis Ashmead, and Men at the Bar; private information; cf. Lucy's Gladstone Parliament, 1880-5, pp. 150 seq.; and Unionist Parliament, 1895-1900, pp. 145 seq.]