Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff | |
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Governor of Madras Presidency | |
In office 5 November 1881 – 8 December 1886 | |
Governors General | The Marquess of Ripon, The Earl of Dufferin |
Preceded by | William Huddleston (acting) |
Succeeded by | Robert Bourke |
Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies | |
In office 23 April 1880 – 26 June 1881 | |
Monarch | Queen Victoria |
Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone |
Preceded by | The Earl Cadogan |
Succeeded by | Leonard Courtney |
Under-Secretary of State for India | |
In office 8 December 1868 – 17 February 1874 | |
Monarch | Queen Victoria |
Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone |
Preceded by | The Lord Clinton |
Succeeded by | Lord George Hamilton |
Member of Parliament forElgin Burghs | |
In office 1857–1881 | |
Monarch | Victoria |
Preceded by | George Skene Duff |
Succeeded by | Alexander Asher |
Personal details | |
Born | Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff (1829-02-21)21 February 1829 Eden,Aberdeenshire, Scotland |
Died | 12 January 1906(1906-01-12) (aged 76) Chelsea, London, England |
Political party | Liberal |
Spouse | Anna Julia Webster |
Children | 8, includingClaire Grant Duff |
Parent(s) | James Grant Duff Jane Ainslie |
Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant DuffGCSI, CIE, PC, FRS (21 February 1829 – 12 January 1906), known asM. E. Grant Duff before 1887 and asSir Mountstuart Grant Duff thereafter, was a Scottish politician, administrator and author. He served as theunder-secretary of state for India from 1868 to 1874,under-secretary of state for the colonies from 1880 to 1881 and thegovernor of Madras from 1881 to 1886.
The son of the distinguished British historianJames Grant Duff, he was educated atGrange School andBalliol College, Oxford, before being called to the English bar. He practised and taught law for a short time before starting a political life and entering theHouse of Commons as theLiberal Member of Parliament forElgin Burghs.
His abilities won him government positions and he wasUnder-Secretary of State for India,Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies andGovernor of Madras. His performance in politics and administration has received mixed reviews during the 1880s: "a politician of brilliant promise and scant performance, of wide information which he seemed to turn to much account, of abilities which would have made the fortunes of half a dozen men and of which he made little enough."[1]
On his return from Madras, he retired from politics and served in various art and scientific societies, before passing away in 1906.
Duff was born in Eden,Banff, Banffshire on 21 February 1829, the elder son ofJames Grant Duff, a well-knownIndian official fromBombay Presidency and British Resident in the princely state ofSatara, and his wife Jane Catherine, daughter of SirWhitelaw Ainslie.[2] He was named afterMountstuart Elphinstone whom James Grant Duff regarded as his mentor. He had his schooling atEdinburgh Academy andGrange School and atBalliol College, Oxford, from 1847 to 1850.[2] He became a MA in 1853.[2] During these years he experienced problems with his vision, and for the rest of his life he relied on the sight of others.
He studied law at theInns of Court and passed with honours, ranked only behindJames Fitzjames Stephen.[2] He was called to the bar atInner Temple, London on 17 November 1854[3] and practised as a junior underWilliam (later Mr Justice) Field.[2] During this time he lectured at the Working Men's College and wrote for theSaturday Review.[2] Soon afterwards, he entered politics and joined the Liberal Party.
In the 1857 election he was elected to theHouse of Commons as the Liberal Party's candidate forElgin Burghs, holding the seat without interruption until 1881.[2] He was returned unopposed at every election except in 1880, when he easily defeated a Conservative candidate. Every year from 1860, Stuart delivered an elaborate speech to his constituents, many of which were collected and reprinted, often on foreign affairs.
As an MP, Duff was mainly concerned with foreign policy, a subject on which he became known as an authority. He travelled widely, wrote extensively, and met with many of Europe's leading personalities. In 1866, he was elected rector of the University of Aberdeen, holding the post until 1872.
In 1868,William Ewart Gladstone appointed DuffUnder-Secretary of State for India under the Duke of Argyll.[4] Duff held the office until the government was defeated in 1874. He worked well with the secretary of state Argyll; their relationship was described by Duthie as 'rather deliberately obedient to Argyll; and always in agreement with him on policy'.
When Gladstone came back to power in 1880, Grant Duff was appointedUnder-Secretary of State for the Colonies and sworn of thePrivy Council.[2][4] He served until 26 June 1881, when he was appointedGovernor of Madras.[2][5]
He was captivated by the beach atMadras on an earlier visit to the city.[6][7] As a result, when he became governor in 1881 he immediately commenced the construction of a promenade along the beach.[6] The beach was extensively modified and layered with soft sand and was named "The Marina".[6] The promenade was opened to the public in 1884.[6]
On the naming of the beach, Grant Duff explained in a letter:
We have greatly benefitted Madras by turning the rather dismal beach of five years ago into one of the most beautiful promenades in the world. From old Sicilian recollections, I gave in 1884 to our new creation the name of Marina; and I was not a little amused when walking there last winter with the Italian General Saletta, he suddenly said to me 'On se dirai a Palerme'.[7]
In 1864, several specimens of a yellow floweringiris were collected by Mr. B. T. Lowne on the banks of the riverKishon inIsrael. It was later found by Grant Duff on the plains of Esdraelon (Jezreel Valley).[8][9] The iris was then named after him,Iris grant-duffii.[10]
He was a strong supporter ofDietrich Brandis in his reorganization of theMadras Forest Department and expansion ofsystematic forestconservancy in India.[11]
His tenure was filled with a number of controversies and allegations of partisan behaviour and injustice. He was sharply criticised for the way he handled theChingleput Ryots' Case and the arrests and trials following theSalem riots of 1882.The Hindu accused him of indulging in vindictive and vengeful behaviour. In one of the articles, he was criticised thus: "Oh! Lucifer! How art thou fallen? Oh! Mr Grant-Duff, how you stand like an extinct volcano in the midst of the ruins of your abortive reputation as an administrator! Erudite you may be, but a statesman you are not."[12] He was also accused of deliberately nurturing a movement againstBrahmins.[13]
However,Louis Mallet, the then Under-Secretary of State for India, was all praise for him. On receipt of his last minute as governor, Mallett said, "I doubt whether any governor has left behind so able and so complete a record".[2]
W. S. Blunt, the British publicist, who visited Madras in November 1884, said of Grant Duff:
"And Mr. Grant Duff?", I asked a friend. "We consider him, he said "a failure. He came out as Governor of Madras with great expectations, and we find him feeble, sickly, unable to do his work himself, and wholly in the hands of the permanent officials. The Duke of Buckingham, of whom we expected less, did much more, and much better. "...I found this opinion of Grant Duff a general one among the natives. Though a clever man, he had spent all his life in the confined atmosphere of the House of Commons, and was quite unable to deal with a state of society so strange to him as that which he found in India[7]
TheMadras Mahajana Sabha was established in 1884 withP. Rangaiah Naidu as its president andR. Balaji Rao as its vice-president.[14] This is considered to be one of the oldest Indian political organisations in theMadras Presidency, notwithstanding theMadras Native Association, which was a failure. Members of the Madras Mahajana Sabha played a pivotal role in corresponding with Indian associations in other provinces and forming theIndian National Congress in 1885. The Indian National Congress held its first session atBombay in December 1885, attended by 72 delegates including 22 from the Madras Presidency. Grant Duff was made aCompanion of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1881 and aGrand Commander of the Order of the Star of India in March 1887. In July 1886, Gladstone tried to get apeerage for him but failed.
On an official visit toRome a few years after the conclusion of his tenure, Grant Duff records that the Speaker of theItalian ParliamentBiancheri inquired about the size of the province that Grant Duff had governed.[15] On receiving the reply that the province was 'larger than Italy, including all the Italian islands', Biancheri astonishedly asked "What an empire is that, in which such a country is only a province?".[15]
On his return to England in 1887, he devoted himself to the arts and sciences. He was Lord Rector ofUniversity of Aberdeen in 1866–1872. He was member of theAthenaeum, theCosmopolitan Club, Literary Society, Grillion's Club, Breakfast Club and was the president of theRoyal Geographical Society from 1889 to 1893 and of theRoyal Historical Society from 1892 to 1899.[2] He was treasurer of the exclusive dining club known asThe Club from 1893.[2] He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society in 1881, and was appointed a trustee of theBritish Museum in 1903.[2]
He was Chairman of the Liberty and Property Defence League, established to curb socialist tendencies in the Liberal Party.
In April 1859 he married Anna Julia Webster; they had four sons and four daughters, including:
He died in his home in Chelsea, London in January 1906, aged 76,[18] and was buried in Elgin Cathedral, Scotland.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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Preceded by | Member of Parliament forElgin Burghs 1857–1881 | Succeeded by |
Political offices | ||
Preceded by | Under-Secretary of State for India 1868–1874 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies 1880–1881 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | Governor of Madras 1881–1886 | Succeeded by |
Academic offices | ||
Preceded by | Rector of the University of Aberdeen 1866–1872 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | President of the Royal Historical Society 1891–1899 | Succeeded by |