Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon, (19 August 1857 – 1 November 1941) was a British politician, diplomat, art collector and author.

Early life

Vincent was born at Slinfold, West Sussex on He was the youngest son of Sir Frederick Vincent, 11th Baronet of Stoke D'Abernon (1798–1883) and, his second wife, Maria Copley (d. 1899).Richard Davenport-Hines,
Vincent, Edgar, Viscount D'Abernon (1857–1941)
, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 10 July 2011. Among his older siblings were brothers Sir William Vincent, 12th Baronet and Sir Frederick d'Abernon Vincent, 15th Baronet, whom he succeeded as 16th Baronet in 1936. He was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England, Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. i ...

for the diplomatic service. Instead, he spent five years as a member of the

Coldstream Guards The Coldstream Guards is the oldest continuously serving regular regiment in the British Army. As part of the Household Division, one of its principal roles is the protection of the monarchy; due to this, it often participates in state ceremonia ...

before coming into the service as secretary to Lord Edmond FitzMaurice, Queen's Commissioner on the East Rumelian Question.

Career

Vincent was appointed Commissioner for the Evacuation of

Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...

(ceded to Greece by Turkey) and advised the Egyptian government on financial matters from 1883 to 1889. That year, he became governor of the Imperial Ottoman Bank. One of his policies was to get the Bank involved in South African mining shares on European stock exchanges. This caused a speculation craze in Constantinople where tens of thousands of people bought South African mining shares, a lot of them with money loaned from the Ottoman Bank. This led to a run on the Bank in late 1895 and then a crash in the share values, followed by an international panic and the financial ruin of many of those who invested in the shares. Vincent who personally made a fortune from the shares was heavily condemned for his role in the disaster. In 1896, the banking office in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

was occupied by a group of armed Armenians who threatened to destroy the building with bombs. Vincent escaped through a skylight and notified the Turkish authorities at the Sublime Porte and secured a negotiator from the Russian Embassy. The attackers agreed to surrender their bombs in exchange for safe passage to exile in France, being conducted on Sir Edgar's private vessel.

Member of Parliament

In 1899, he was elected a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Member of Parliament for

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

. He was less a true Conservative than a personal devotee of the Conservative leader, A. J. Balfour. He held the seat until losing to a Liberal in 1906. He opposed the Conservative policy of

Tariff Reform The Tariff Reform League (TRL) was a protectionist British pressure group formed in 1903 to protest against what they considered to be unfair foreign imports and to advocate Imperial Preference to protect British industry from foreign competitio ...

and unsuccessfully stood for the Liberal Party in Colchester in December 1910. In July 1914 he was raised to the peerage as Baron D'Abernon of Esher, Surrey, upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister,

H. H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ...

Poland

D'Abernon was part of the Interallied Mission to Poland in July 1920, during the Polish-Soviet War. Later this experience provided material for his book ''The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World: Warsaw, 1920'' (1931).

Ambassador to Germany

From 1920 to 1925, D'Abernon was the British Ambassador to Berlin. In September 1921 he wrote that the success of the Inter-Allied Military Commission of Control, which reported on German disarmament, meant that there would be no military danger from Germany for many years and that it would be impossible for the Germans to conceal the manufacture of heavy weaponry. In February 1922 he criticised the idea of a military alliance between Britain and France:

The fundamental criticism...is that England undertakes definite and very extensive responsibilities in order to avoid a danger which she believes to be largely imaginary. An armed attack by Germany on France within the next twenty-five years is admittedly improbable, an attack by Germany on England in the same period even more so...the whole tone of the French is to assume that the real danger to the future peace of Europe is military aggression by Germany.

On 9 February 1925 D'Abernon wrote that it was necessary "to abandon the view that Germans are such congenital liars that there is no practical advantage in obtaining from them any engagement or declaration. On this assumption progress is impossible. Personally I regard the Germans as more reliable and more bound to written engagements than many other nations". Lord Vansittart called D'Abernon "the pioneer of

appeasement Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governme ...

". General

J. H. Morgan Brigadier-General John Hartman Morgan (20 March 1876 – 8 April 1955) was a British lawyer with expertise in constitutional law. He lectured and wrote on the topic, and he also joined military service during World War I. Early life Morgan, ...

also called D'Abernon "the apostle of ′appeasement′" and claimed D'Abernon "did not believe in the possibility, much less the probability, of a German military revival".

Later life

After his retirement from the foreign service, D'Abernon devoted his time to directorships of numerous domestic organisations such as the Lawn Tennis Association, the Race Course Betting Control Board, the Medical Research Council, and the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, and the

Royal Mint The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's oldest company and the official maker of British coins. Operating under the legal name The Royal Mint Limited, it is a limited company that is wholly owned by HM Treasury, His Majesty's Treasury and is un ...

advisory committee. He was also a trustee of the National and

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Galleries and President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1926 to 1928.

Personal life

D'Abernon married the renowned beauty Helen Venetia Duncombe, daughter of

William Duncombe, 1st Earl of Feversham William Ernest Duncombe, 1st Earl of Feversham (28 January 1829 – 13 January 1915), known as The Lord Feversham between 1867 and 1868, was a British Conservative politician. Biography Duncombe was the son of William Duncombe, 2nd Baron Fevers ...

, in 1890. Together they shared a love of society and the fine arts, especially English painting. Both had portraits made by

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

. She posed for hers in 1904 at their villa, the Palazzo Giustinian, in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

. Vincent was Chairman of the royal commission on National Museums and Galleries, which published its report in 1928. The bulk of their art collection was sold at auction in 1929. Two works once in their collection are in the National Gallery, three at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and others at the (Mellon)

Yale Center for British Art Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...

and other museums. The collection included 17th century Ottoman textiles. D'Abernon died of

hypostatic pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

and

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms beco ...

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th ...

in November 1941. He had no children and the viscountcy and barony created for him therefore became extinct. There were no remaining heirs to the 1620 baronetcy and that too became extinct on his death.

Honours

D'Abernon was appointed Knight Commander of the

Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III. It is named in honour ...

(KCMG) in 1887, promoted to Knight Grand Cross (GCMG) in 1917, and made Knight Grand Cross of the

Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) a ...

(GCB) in 1926. He joined the

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mo ...

in 1920. D'Abernon was elevated to the peerage as Baron D'Abernon, of Esher in the county of Surrey, in 1914 and advanced to

Viscount D'Abernon Viscount D'Abernon, of Esher and of Stoke d'Abernon in the County of Surrey, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 20 February 1926 for the politician, diplomat and writer Edgar Vincent, 1st Baron D'Abernon who h ...

, of Esher and Stoke d'Abernon in the county of Surrey, in 1926. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

(FRS) in 1934. D'Abernon succeeded his elder brother Sir Frederick D'Abernon Vincent, 15th Baronet of Stoke d'Abernon as 16th Baronet in 1936.

Styles and honours

* Edgar Vincent (1857–1887) * Sir Edgar Vincent KCMG (1887–1899) * Sir Edgar Vincent KCMG MP (1899–1906) * Sir Edgar Vincent KCMG (1906–1914) * The Right Honourable The Lord D'Abernon KCMG (1914–1917) * The Right Honourable The Lord D'Abernon GCMG (1917–1920) * The Right Honourable The Lord D'Abernon GCMG PC (1920–1926) * The Right Honourable The Viscount D'Abernon GCMG PC (1926) * The Right Honourable The Viscount D'Abernon GCB GCMG PC (1926–1934) * The Right Honourable The Viscount D'Abernon GCB GCMG PC FRS (1934–1941)

Works

* ''A Grammar of Modern Greek'' (1881) * ''Alcohol – Its Action on the Human Organism'', His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1918 * ''An Ambassador of Peace'', 3 volumes, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1929–1931 * ''The eighteenth decisive battle of the world: Warsaw, 1920'', Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1931; reprinted by Hyperion Press, Westport, Conn., 1977,

Notes

References

*Paul Auchterlonie, 'A Turk of the west: Sir Edgar Vincent's career in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire,’ ''British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies'' 27:1. (2000) pp. 49–68. ISSN 1353-0194 *Richard Davenport-Hines, �
Vincent, Edgar, Viscount D'Abernon (1857–1941)
, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 10 July 2011.

External links

Lord Curzon and the Appointment of Lord D'Abernon as Ambassador to Berlin in 1920
by Gaynor Johnson, ''Journal of Contemporary History'', Vol. 39, No. 1, 57–70 (2004)
National Registry Archive contains several excerpts of D'Abernon writings
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dabernon, Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount 1857 births 1941 deaths People educated at Eton College Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Germany English art collectors Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Vincent, Edgar Vincent, Edgar Vincent, Edgar UK MPs who were granted peerages People associated with the National Gallery, London Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Vincent, Edgar Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Exeter People from Slinfold Barons created by George V Viscounts created by George V