James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin

The Right Honourable The Earl of Elgin KT GCB PC
Viceroy of India
In office 21 March 1862 – 20 November 1863
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	The Earl Canning
Succeeded by	Sir Robert Napier As Acting Governor-General
Governor General of the Province of Canada
In office 1847–1854
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	The Earl Cathcart
Succeeded by	Sir Edmund Walker Head, Bt
Governor of Jamaica
In office 1842–1846
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	Sir Charles Metcalfe, Bt
Succeeded by	George Berkeley As Acting Governor
Personal details
Born	(1811-07-20)20 July 1811 London, United Kingdom
Died	Dharamsala, Punjab, British India
Nationality	British
Spouse(s)	(1) Elizabeth Cumming-Bruce (d. 1843) (2) Lady Mary Lambton (d. 1898)
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford
Signature

James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine KT GCB PC (20 July 1811 – 20 November 1863), was a British colonial administrator and diplomat. He was the Governor General of the Province of Canada, a High Commissioner in charge of opening trades with China and Japan, and Viceroy of India. As British High Commissioner in China during the Second Opium War, after repeatedly attacking China, he ordered the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860.

Early life and education

Lord Elgin was the son of the 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine and his second wife.

He shared his birthday 20 July with his father. He had seven brothers and sisters and four half-sisters and one half-brother from his father's first marriage. Lord Elgin's father was reportedly impoverished by the purchase of the Elgin Marbles. His father had acquired them at great expense, but sold them to the British government for much less.

James Bruce was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, graduated with a first in Classics in 1832. While at Oxford, he became friends with William Ewart Gladstone.

Career

He was elected at the 1841 general election as a Member of Parliament for Southampton, but the election was declared void on petition. He did not stand in the resulting by-election.

Jamaica

James Bruce became Governor of Jamaica in 1842, and in 1847 was appointed Governor General of Canada.

Canada

James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin sculpture in front of Parliament Building (Quebec)

Under Lord Elgin, the first real attempts began at establishing responsible government in Canada. In 1848, the moderate reformers of both Canada East and Canada West, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin, won their elections, and Lord Elgin asked them to form a government together. Lord Elgin became the first Governor General to distance himself from the affairs of the legislature. Since then, the Governor-General has had a largely symbolic role with regards to the political affairs of the country. As Governor-General, he wrestled with the costs of receiving high levels of immigration in the Canadas, a major issue in the constant debate about immigration during the 19th century.

In 1849 the Baldwin-Lafontaine government passed the Rebellion Losses Bill, compensating French Canadians for losses suffered during the Rebellions of 1837. Lord Elgin granted royal assent to the bill despite heated Tory opposition and his own misgivings over how his action would be received in England. The decision sparked the Burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal by an English-speaking mob. Elgin was assaulted. Instead of calling in the military, he withdrew his family to their country residence and allowed civil authorities to restore order. The French-speaking minority in the Canadian legislature also unsuccessfully tried to have him removed from his post.

In 1849, the Stony Monday Riot took place in Bytown on Monday 17 September. Tories and Reformists clashed over the planned visit of Lord Elgin, one man was killed and many sustained injuries. Two days later, the two political factions, armed with cannon, muskets and pistols faced off on the Sappers Bridge. Although the conflict was defused in time by the military, a general support for the Crown's representative, triumphed in Bytown (renamed Ottawa by Queen Victoria in 1854). In 1854, Lord Elgin negotiated the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States in an attempt to stimulate the Canadian economy. Later that year, he granted royal assent to the law that abolished the seigneurial system in Quebec, and then resigned as Governor-General.

China and Japan

In 1857, Lord Elgin became High Commissioner to China and travelled to China and Japan in 1858-59, where he led the bombing of Guangzhou (Canton). He oversaw the end of the Second Opium War by signing the Treaties of Tianjin (Tientsin) on 26 June 1858.

In June 1860, Lord Elgin returned to China to assist with additional attacks, which were initially led by his brother. On 18 October 1860, not having received the Chinese surrender and wishing to spare the imperial capital of Beijing (Peking), he ordered the complete destruction of the Old Summer Palace (Yuanming Yuan) outside the city in retaliation for the imprisonment, torture, and execution of almost 20 European and Indian prisoners (including two British envoys and a journalist for The Times). The Old Summer Palace was a complex of palaces and gardens eight kilometres northwest of the walls of Beijing; it had been built during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and was where the emperors of the Qing dynasty resided and handled government affairs. An alternative account says that Lord Elgin had initially considered the destruction of the Forbidden City. However, fearing that this act might interfere with the signing of the Convention of Beijing, which was where it was being negotiated, he opted for the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in its stead.

Entry of Lord Elgin into Beijing, 1860

The Old Summer Palace was set aflame by 3,500 British troops and burnt for three days. Lord Elgin and his troops looted many treasures from the palace and took them to Britain. Attacks on the nearby Summer Palace (Qingyi Yuan) were also made, but the extent of destruction was not as great as to the Old Summer Palace. On 24 October 1860, Lord Elgin signed the Convention of Beijing, which stipulated that China was to cede part of Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong in perpetuity to Britain.

In between Lord Elgin's two trips to China, he had visited Japan. In August 1858, he signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce whose negotiation was much eased by the recent Harris Treaty between Japan and the United States. Lord Elgin was ambivalent about the British policy on forcing opium on the people in the Far East. It was not without internal struggle that he carried out the duty laid on him by Britain. In a letter to his wife, in regard to the bombing of Guangzhou, he wrote, "I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life."

India

Grave memorial at St. John in the Wilderness church in Dharamsala

He became Viceroy of India in 1862, and was the first to use Peterhoff, Shimla as the official residence of the Viceroy. He died in 1863 of a heart attack while crossing a swinging rope and wood bridge over the river Chadly, on the lap between Kullu and Lahul. He was buried in the churchyard of St. John in the Wilderness in Dharamshala.

Family

Elgin's first marriage to Elizabeth-Mary Cumming-Bruce on 22 April 1841 was short lived, his wife dying shortly after the birth of a second daughter on the 7 June 1843.

Elgin's second wife, Lady Mary-Louisa Lambton, mother of the 9th Earl of Elgin was a daughter of the 1st Earl of Durham, a prominent author of the Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839), and niece of the Colonial Secretary the 3rd Earl Grey.

Legacy

The towns of Kincardine, Port Elgin and Bruce Mines and the counties of Bruce and Elgin in Ontario are named after him, as are the communities of Elgin, New Brunswick and Elgin, Nova Scotia. The Elgin Bridge in Singapore was named after him including numerous Elgin Roads and Elgin Streets in Canada, India and Hong Kong are also named in his honour, as is the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa.

His legacy in Canada was the subject of a 1959 National Film Board of Canada short docudrama, Lord Elgin: Voice of the People, directed by Julian Biggs.

See also

• List of Lieutenant Governors of Ontario
• List of Lieutenant Governors of Quebec
• Anglo-Chinese relations
• Anglo-Japanese relations

Sources

• Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, 1857-8-9 (2 volumes), Laurence Oliphant, 1859 (reprinted by Oxford University Press, 1970) {No ISBN}
• "Moving Here, Staying Here:" The Canadian Immigrant Experience, Library and Archives Canada, A letter from Lord Elgin, Governor General of the Canadas, to the Colonial Office
• Also digitized by Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions, 2003.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Elgin
• Works by James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Earl of Elgin at Internet Archive
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Lord Elgin, "Second Mission to China, 1860," from Extracts from the Letters of James, Earl of Elgin to Mary Louisa, Countess of Elgin, 1847-1862 (London, 1864)
• Painting: James Bruce, Earl of Elgin, circa 1855. McCord Museum
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Abel Rous Dottin Viscount Duncan	Member of Parliament for Southampton 1841–1842 With: Charles Cecil Martyn	Succeeded by Humphrey St John-Mildmay George William Hope
Political offices
Preceded by The Lord Colchester	Postmaster General 1859–1860	Succeeded by The Lord Stanley of Alderley
Government offices
Preceded by Sir Charles Metcalfe, Bt	Governor of Jamaica 1842–1846	Succeeded by George Berkeley (acting)
Preceded by The Earl Cathcart	Governor General of the Province of Canada 1847–1854	Succeeded by Sir Edmund Walker Head, Bt
Preceded by The Earl Canning	Viceroy of India 1862–1863	Succeeded by Sir Robert Napier (acting)
Honorary titles
Preceded by James Erskine Wemyss	Lord Lieutenant of Fife 1854–1863	Succeeded by James Hay Erskine Wemyss
Academic offices
Preceded by The Earl Cathcart	Chancellor of King's College 1847–1849	Succeeded by Peter Boyle de Blaquière (as Chancellor of the University of Toronto)
Preceded by The Lord Lytton	Rector of the University of Glasgow 1859–1862	Succeeded by The Viscount Palmerston
Peerage of Scotland
Preceded by Thomas Bruce	Earl of Elgin Earl of Kincardine 1841–1863	Succeeded by Victor Bruce