Malmesbury, James Howard Harris

Malmesbury, James Howard Harris, 3rd Earl of (1807-1889), English statesman, son of the 2nd earl, was born on the 25th of March 1807, and educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford. He led a life of travel for several years, making acquaintance with famous people; and in 1841 he had only just been elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative, when his father died and he succeeded to the peerage. His political career, though not one which made any permanent impression on history, attracted a good deal of contemporary attention, partly from his being foreign secretary in 1852 and again in 1858-1859 (he was also lord privy seal in 1866-1868 and in 1874-1876), and partly from his influential position as an active Tory of the old school in the House of Lords at a time when Lord Derby and Mr Disraeli were, in their different ways, moulding the Conservatism of the period. Moreover his long life—he survived till the 17th of May 1889—and the publication of his Memoirs of an Ex-Minister in 1884, contributed to the reputation he enjoyed. These Memoirs, charmingly written, full of anecdote, and containing much interesting material for the history of the time, remain his chief title to remembrance. Lord Malmesbury also edited his grandfather’s Diaries and Correspondence (1844), and in 1870 published The First Lord Malmesbury and His Friends: Letters from 1745 to 1820. He was succeeded as 4th earl by his nephew, Edward James (1842-1899), whose son, James Edward (b. 1872) became the 5th earl in 1899.