Henry Drummond Wolff

File:Sir H. Drummond Wolff, seated.jpg

Sir Henry Drummond Wolff

Sir Henry Drummond Charles Wolff (12 October 1830 – 11 October 1908), known as Henry Drummond Wolff, was an English diplomat and Conservative Party politician, who started as a clerk in the Foreign Office.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref name="times">Template:Cite news</ref>

Background

Wolff was born in Malta, the son of Joseph Wolff and Lady Georgiana Mary Walpole, daughter of Horatio Walpole, 2nd Earl of Orford.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His father was a missionary who had converted from Judaism to Catholicism and then Anglicanism, and his mother was the niece of Prime Minister Robert Walpole.<ref name="times"/>

Wolff was educated at Rugby School.<ref name="times"/>

Political and diplomatic career

File:Henry drummond-wolff cartoon.png

Caricature from Punch, 1882

File:Henry Drummond-Wolff, Vanity Fair, 1874-09-05.jpg

Caricature by Ape published in Vanity Fair in 1874.

Wolff sat in parliament for Christchurch from 1874 to 1880 and for Portsmouth from 1880 to 1885. While MP for Christchurch he lived in Boscombe, where he developed the Boscombe Spa estate, and he played an active role in the public life of Bournemouth. In 1870 he presented Bournemouth Rowing Club with a four-oared racing boat. He was one of the group known as the Fourth Party.

In 1885 he went on a special mission to Constantinople and Egypt in connection with the Eastern Question,<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and as a result various awkward difficulties, hinging on the Sultan's suzerainty, were addressed.<ref name="EB1911">{{#if: |

   |{{#ifeq: Wolff, Joseph |
                |{{#ifeq: |
                             |
                             |
                           }}
                |
               }}
  }}{{#ifeq:  |
   |{{#ifeq: y |
                                    |This article
                                    |One or more of the preceding sentences
                                   }} incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 
  }}{{#invoke:template wrapper|{{#if:|list|wrap}}|_template=cite EB1911
   |_exclude=footnote, inline, noicon, no-icon, noprescript, no-prescript, _debug

   | noicon=1
  }}{{#ifeq:  ||}}</ref> Wolff negotiated a settlement whereby Britain and Turkey would each appoint a commissioner to Egypt to help the khedive's government conduct reforms of the army and the government. Wolff then assumed the role of British high commissioner in Egypt from 1885<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> to 1887. He was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Teheran in 1888, a post he held until 1891, and was then Ambassador to Madrid from 1892 to 1900. While serving in Spain, he would assist Ambassador Taylor, of the United States, in out maneuvering Foreign Minister O'Donnell.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Wolff was a notable raconteur and aided the Conservative Party by helping to found the Primrose League.<ref name="EB1911"/> He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1862 for various services abroad. He was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in 1878<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1889.

As the British Minister of Iran, he assisted Antoine Kitabgi Khan, the Director General of Persian Customs, in the negotiations that led Nasir al-Din Shah to grant a concession of full monopoly over Iran's tobacco industry to Major G. F. Talbot (20 March 1890).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> This concession resulted in the Tobacco Protest of 1891 and is generally considered to mark the beginning of social unrest and clear Islamic clerical influence leading up to the Persian Constitutional Revolution in 1905.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1901, as Kitabgi Khan was looking in Europe for capitalists who might be interested in investing in oil prospection in Iran, Wolff introduced him to Englishman William Knox D'Arcy, who had made a fortune in gold mines in Australia. On 28 May 1901, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah granted D'Arcy the first oil concession in Iran that later gave birth to British Petroleum. The deed of concession stipulated that Wolff would have 10% of the profits resulting from the venture.<ref>Davoudi Leonardo, "Petroleum and the British Empire: From the D'Arcy Concession to the First World War. PhD Thesis, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, 2017.</ref> Template:Clear

Personal life

Wolff's only daughter, Lucas Cleeve, was a novelist.<ref name="Cambridge">Template:Cite book</ref> Her son Algernon Kingscote was a notable tennis player. Wolff's grandson Henry Maxence Cavendish Drummond Wolff was briefly the Conservative Member of Parliament for Basingstoke.

He died at Brighton, one day before his 78th birthday.<ref name="times"/>

In popular culture

Wolff was portrayed by Charles Lloyd-Pack in the 1974 Thames TV mini-series Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill.

External links

• Template:Internet Archive author
• Template:Librivox author
• Template:Wikisource author-inline
• Template:Hansard-contribs
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book