The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Loch, His Excellency Sir Henry Brougham
Loch, His Excellency Sir Henry Brougham, G.C.M.G., late Governor of Victoria, is the son of James Loch, of Drylaw, sometime M.P. for St. Germans and Wick Burghs, and Ann his wife, daughter of Patrick Orr, of Bridgeton, Forfarshire, and was born on May 23rd, 1827. He was in the royal navy from 1840 to 1842, entered the 3rd Bengal Cavalry in 1844, and was appointed aide-de-camp to Lord Gough, Commander-in-Chief in India, in 1846. In 1850 he was appointed adjutant and second in command of Skinner's Horse, and in 1854 was sent to Bulgaria to assist in organising the Turkish cavalry. In the same year he crossed to the Crimea in H.M.S. Agamemnon, and was attached to Lord Elgin's special embassies to China and Japan from 1857 to 1860. He was the bearer to England of the treaty of Yeddo concluded with Japan in 1858, and was treacherously taken prisoner in 1860 by the Chinese, who carried him about in a cage with Mr. Boulby, the Times correspondent, and exhibited him to their fellow-countrymen. On his liberation in the same year he returned to England, and ratified the treaty of Tientsin and the Convention of Pekin. He was appointed private secretary to Sir George Grey, Secretary to the Home Department in 1861, colonel commandant 4th Battalion Cheshire Regiment in 1873, and was Governor of the Isle of Man from 1863 to 1882, when he was appointed Commissioner of Her Majesty's Woods, Forests, and Land Revenue. This post he held till 1884, when he was appointed Governor of Victoria, and assumed the post on July 15th. His régime was highly popular, and in March 1889 he left Melbourne for England on leave of absence. During his stay in London he was pressed by the Government to accept the post of Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for South Africa. Ultimately he somewhat reluctantly assented, and proceeded to the Cape viâ Melbourne, where he arrived on Oct. 18th, 1889, and left again for the Cape, where he is still Governor, on Nov. 16th, 1889. Sir Henry Loch married on May 7th, 1862, Elizabeth, daughter of Hon. Edward Villiers, brother of fourth Earl of Clarendon. He was created C.B. in 1861, K.C.B. in 1880, and G.C.M.G. in 1887.