James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin

James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine (July 20, 1811 – November 20, 1863) was a British colonial administrator and diplomat, best known as Governor General of the Province of Canada and Viceroy of India. He was the son of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin. His second wife was Lady Mary Louisa Lambton, daughter of Lord Durham, the author of the groundbreaking Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839), and niece of the Colonial Secretary, Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey.

Career

Jamaica

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

Canada

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 remove himself from the affairs of the legislature, leading to the essentially symbolic role that the Governor-General now has.

In 1849 the Baldwin-Lafontaine government passed the Rebellion Losses Bill, compensating French Canadians for losses suffered during the Rebellions of 1837. Lord Elgin signed the bill despite heated Tory opposition and his own personal misgivings, sparking riots in Quebec, during which Elgin himself was assaulted by an English-speaking mob and the Parliament buildings were burned down. 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 September 17. Tories and Reformists clash over the planned visit of Lord Elgin, one man was killed and many sustain injuries. Two days later, the two political factions, armed with cannons, muskets and pistols faced off on the Sappers Bridge. Although the conflict was diffused 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 signed the law that abolished the seigneurial system in Quebec, and then resigned as Governor-General.

China and Japan

In 1857 he became High Commissioner to China, and he visited China and Japan in 1858-9, where he oversaw the end of the Second Opium War and ordered the destruction of the Yuanming Yuan, the Old Summer Palace outside Beijing, cited by some as one of the most uncivilized acts of cultural vandalism of all time.

Elgin also signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce with Japan in August 1858 soon after the Harris Treaty.

India

He became Viceroy of India in 1861, and died in Dharamasala in 1863.

References

Wrong, George M. The Earl of Elgin. Toronto : G.N. Morang, 1906. Also digitized by Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions 2003.
Morison, John Lyle. The eighth Earl of Elgin : a chapter in nineteenth-century imperial history. London : Hodder and Stoughton, 1928.
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}
Checkland, S.G. The Elgins 1766-1917 : a tale of aristocrats, proconsuls and their wives. Aberdeen : Aberdeen University Press, 1988. ISBN 0080363954.
John Newsinger, 'Elgin in China,' The New Left Review, 15 May/June, 2002. pp. 119-40.
James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003)

External links

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