Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Euan-Smith, Charles Bean
EUAN-SMITH, Sir CHARLES BEAN (1842–1910), soldier and diplomatist, one of several sons of Euan Maclauren Smith of George Town, British Guiana, by his wife Eliza Bean, was born at George Town on 21 Sept. 1842. He was educated at a preparatory school near Rugby, and subsequently by an English tutor at Bruges. Appointed ensign in the Madras infantry at the age of seventeen, he was promoted lieutenant in 1861, captain in 1870, major in 1879, lieutenant-colonel in 1881, and colonel in 1885, retiring in 1889. After serving in the expedition to Abyssinia in 1867 he was present at the capture of Magdala, was secretary in 1870–1 to Sir Frederick Goldsmid [q. v. Suppl. II] during the special mission of the latter to Persia, to settle various frontier questions, and accompanied Sir Bartle Frere [q. v.] in his special anti-slave trade mission to Zanzibar and Muscat in 1872 as military attache. He was made C.S.I, in November of that year. Subsequently he was in charge of the consulate-general at Zanzibar from June to September 1875, was first assistant resident at Hyderabad in 1876, and received the appointment of consul at Muscat in July 1879. During the Afghan war of 1879-80 he was on special duty as chief political officer on the staff of Lieut.-general Sir Donald Stewart [q. v. Suppl. I], and subsequently took part in Lord Roberta's expedition for the relief of Kandahar, receiving the medal with two clasps and the bronze star for his share in the campaign. During the following years he held political appointments in Mewar, Banswara, Bhartpur and Karauli. In December 1887 he was appointed to succeed Sir John Kirk as British consul-general at Zanzibar. Here he was plunged into the various thorny discussions arising out of German annexations and claims advanced by France and other European countries to the immunities flowing from consular jurisdiction in the territories on the mainland, which had been acquired from the sultan by the British East Africa Company. He showed much skill in dealing with these questions, and in June 1890 he obtained the consent of the sultan to an agreement by which the latter placed himself under the protection of Great Britain, thus paving the way to the conclusion of agreements by the British government with France and Germany, and greatly facilitating an ultimate settlement. He had been made C.B. in 1889, and on this occasion was advanced to be K.C.B. in the civil division. In March 1891 he was appointed British envoy in Morocco, and was furnished by Lord Salisbury with special instructions, foremost among which was a direction to negotiate a new commercial treaty on a broad and liberal basis. In April 1892 he started from Tangier on a special mission to Fez, taking with him the draft of a commercial treaty, the terms of which had been settled in consultation with the Foreign Office, and provided also with instructions as to the language he should hold with regard to the questions of slavery exercised under treaty by the legations of foreign powers. A long and wearisome negotiation with the sultan and his ministers ensued, in which every device of intimidation, obstruction, and tergiversation was employed by the Moorish negotiators, and eventually, after the treaty had more than once been accepted by the sultan only to be again rejected or subjected to entirely inadmissible modifications, Euan-Smith left Fez with the staff of the mission. Fresh negotiations were opened by commissioners Bent by the sultan, while the mission was on its way to the coast, but these proved equally delusive, and the British envoy returned to Tangier having effected little or nothing beyond the appointment of a British vice-consul at Fez, where France, Spain, and the United States already had consular agents. The objections of the sultan and his advisers to the proposals with which Euan-Smith had been charged were clearly too deep-rooted to be removed by arguments of persuasion, and Lord Salisbury decided on desisting from further efforts. But the effect of the negotiations and of episodes connected with them was seriously prejudicial to Euan-Smith's influence as British representative, and he ceased to hold the appointment in July 1893. In June of that year the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L. and he was made hon. fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. He devoted his attention for the rest of his life to commercial business, taking an active part as chairman or director of several companies. In July 1898 he was offered by Lord Salisbury and accepted the appointment of minister resident at Bogota, in the republic of Colombia, but resigned it without proceeding to his post. He died in London on 30 Aug. 1910. He married in 1877 Edith, daughter of General Frederick Alexander, R.A., and had by her one daughter.
[The Times, 31 Aug. 1910; Foreign Office List, 1911, p. 417; India Office List; papers laid before Parliament.]