1ST

EARL OF

See also:

• THOMAS
• THOMAS (c. 1654-1720)
• THOMAS (d. 110o)
• THOMAS, ARTHUR GORING (1850-1892)
• THOMAS, CHARLES LOUIS AMBROISE (1811-1896)
• THOMAS, GEORGE (c. 1756-1802)
• THOMAS, GEORGE HENRY (1816-187o)
• THOMAS, ISAIAH (1749-1831)
• THOMAS, PIERRE (1634-1698)
• THOMAS, SIDNEY GILCHRIST (1850-1885)
• THOMAS, ST
• THOMAS, THEODORE (1835-1905)
• THOMAS, WILLIAM (d. 1554)

THOMAS

See also:

• GEORGE
• GEORGE, 8TH MARQUESS OF TWEEDDALE (1787-1876)
• GEORGE, HENRY (1839—1897)
• GEORGE, LAKE
• GEORGE, SAINT (d. 303)

GEORGE

See also:

• BARING

BARING

See also:

• 1ST EARL OF THOMAS GEORGE BARING NORTHBROOK (1826-1904)

NORTHBROOK (1826-1904)  , English statesman, eldest son of the first baron (long known as Sir Francis Baring; see BARING), was born on the 22nd of January 1826, and educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with honours in 1846 . He entered upon a political career, and was successively private secretary to Mr Labouchere (Lord Taunton), Sir George Grey, and Sir Charles Wood (Viscount Halifax) . In 1857 he was returned to the House of Commons in the Liberal interest for Penryn and Falmouth, which constituency he continued to represent until he became a peer on the death of his father in 1866 . He was a lord of the admiralty in 1857-1858; under-secretary for war, 1861; for India, 1861-1864; for the home department, 1864-1866; and secretary to the admiralty, 1866 . When Mr Gladstone acceded to power in 1868, Lord Northbrook was again appointed under-secretary for war, and this office he held until February 1872, when he was appointed governor-general of India . In January 1876, however, he resigned . He had recommended the conclusion of arrangements with Shere Ali which, as has since been admitted, would have prevented the second Afghan war; but his policy was overruled by the duke of Argyll, then secretary of state . Lord Northbrook was created Viscount Baring of Lee in the county of Kent and earl of North-brook in the county of Southampton . From ,88o to 1885 he held the post of first lord of the admiralty in Mr Gladstone's second government . During his tenure of office the state of the navy aroused much public anxiety and led to a strong agitation in favour of an extended shipbuilding programme . The agitation called forth Tennyson's poem " The Fleet." In September 1884 Lord Northbrook was sent to Egypt as special commissioner to inquire into its finances and condition . The inquiry was largely unnecessary, all the essential facts being well known, but the mission was a device of Mr Gladstone's to avoid an immediate decision on a perplexing question .

Lord Northbrook, after six

weeks of inquiry in Egypt, sent in two reports, one general, advising against the withdrawal of the British garrison, one financial . His financial proposals, if accepted, would have substituted the financial control of Great Britain for the international control proposed at the London Conference of June-August of the same year . A heavy blow would thus have been struck at internationalism in Egypt . Mr Gladstone was not, however, prepared to give a British guarantee of the interest of the loan, and so Lord Northbrook's mission proved abortive . The £9,000,000 loan issued in 1885 bound Egypt even more securely in international fetters (see Cromer's Modern Egypt, 1908, vol. ii. chap. xlv.) . When Mr Gladstone formed his third ministry in 1886 Lord Northbrook held aloof, being opposed to the home rule policy of the premier; and he then ceased to take a prominent part in political life . In 1890 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Hampshire . He died on the 15th of November 1904 . He had married in 1848 Elizabeth Sturt, sister of Lord Alington, and was succeeded as 2nd earl by his eldest son, who as Lord Baring had been M.P. for Winchester (188o-1885) and North Bedford (1886-1892) . See B . Mallet, Thomas George, Earl of Northbrook (1908) .