Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/854

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NORTHCOTE.

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and Ghjvemor-General of India^ in Feb. 1872. He resigned in Feb., 1876, and was succeeded by Lord Lytton. In recognition of his dis- tinguished services he was created Viscount Baring of Lee in the county of Kent, and Earl of North- brook in the county of Southamp- ton. On the formation of Mr. Gladstone's cabinet in May, 1880, his lordrfiip was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.

NOETHCOTE, The Eioht Hon. Sib Stafford Henbt, Bart., G.C.B., M.P., F.R.S., eldest son of the late Henry Stafford Northcote, Esq., by his first wife, Agnes, only daughter of Thomas Cockburn, Esq., of Portland Place, London, was born in London Oct. 27, 1818. He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., first class in Classics, and third in mathematics, 1839; M.A., 1842; Hon. D.C.L., 1863). He was pri- vate secretary to Mr. Gladstone while that statesman was President of the Board of Trade (1845—45), and on being called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1847 he became Legal Secretary to the Board of Trade. On the death of his grand- father. Sir Stafford Henry North- cote, tiie seventh baronet, in 1851, he succeeded to the family title and estates. In acknowledgment of his services as one of the Secretaries to the Great Exhibition he was created a (Civil) Companion of the Bath. For several years he was engaged with Sir C. E. Trevelyan in inquir- ing into the condition of the civil establishments of the Crown, and they eventually drew up a report, presented in 1854, which led to the Civil Service being thrown open to public competition. He represented Dudley in the Conservative interest from March, 1855, till April, 1857 ; and sat for Stamford from July, 1858, till May, 1866, when he was first elected for North Devon, which constituency, though it had rejected him a few years previously (in 1857) hfi/a since returned him at every suc-

ceeding general election. He was Financiad Secretary to the Treasury during the first half of the year 1859, and he was appointed President of the Board of Trade in Lord Derby's third administration, in June, 1866, when he was sworn of the Privy Council. From March, 1867, till Dec. 1868, he was Secretaory of State for India. He was a mem- ber of the Joint High Commis- sion, whose labours resulted in the Treaty of Washington in 1871. When Mr. Disraeli formed his Cabinet in Feb. 1874, Sir Stafford Northcote was nominated Chancel- lor of the Exchequer, and he became also the leader of the Lower House, after the elevation of the Premier to the peerage as Lord Beaconsfield. Just previous to the resignation of the Conservative Government in April, 1880, he was created a G.C.B. It may be added that Sir Stafford Northcote was elected Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Jan. 12, 1869; presided over the Con- gress of the Social Science Associa- tion held at Bristol the same year ; was appointed a Commissioner to inquire into the law relating to Friendly Societies, Nov. 2, 1870; and was elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in April, 1875. He is the author of "The Case of Sir Eardley Wilmot, considered in a letter to a friend," 1847, being a vindication of Mr. Gladstone, who had been charged with recalling Sir Eardley Wilmot, Lieutenant- Governor of Van Diemen's Land, on account of rumours which had reached him with respect to that gentleman's private character; "A Statement of Facts connected with the election of the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone as Mem- ber for the University of Oxford in 1847, and on his re-election in 1852 and 1853," 8vo, Lond. 1858; "Twenty Years of Financial PoUcy : A Summary of the chief financial measures passed between 1842 and 1861, with a table of Budgets," 1862; "Speech in the House of