Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith

Julian Edward George Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith KCMG (22 April 1916 – 16 January 2011) was a British colonial administrator.

Background and education

Asquith was the only son of Raymond Asquith, a barrister, by his wife the former Katherine Horner. He was the grandson of H. H. Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, British Prime Minister from 1908 until 1916. Lord Oxford's two older sisters both predeceased him; the younger of these was Lady Perdita Rose Mary Asquith, later Lady Hylton (1910–1996), who was married to William Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton.

He inherited the earldom in 1928 on the death of his grandfather, as his father (the eldest son) had been killed in the First World War. He was raised as a Roman Catholic (his mother had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1923) and was educated at St Ronan's School and Ampleforth College. He then became a scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, where he received an M.A. In 1941 Asquith served as a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and Assistant DC Palestine (1942–48).

Career

Lord Oxford was Deputy Chairman Secretary of the British Administration Tripolitania from 1949 to 1950, Director of Interior Tripolitania in 1951 and Advisor to the Prime Minister of Libya in 1952. In 1955 he was Administrative Secretary of Zanzibar and from 1958 to 1962 was the Administrator of Saint Lucia. He became a Companion of Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1961. Oxford was the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Seychelles from 1962 to 1967, and the Commander of the British Indian Ocean Territory from 1965 to 1967. In 1964, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George. He also held the posts of Constitutional Commander of the Cayman Islands in 1971, and Turks and Caicos Islands from 1973 to 1974.

Family

Lord Oxford married Anne Mary Celestine Palairet (14 November 1916 Paris — 19 August 1998 at Frome, Somerset), daughter of Sir (Charles) Michael Palairet KCMG (1882–1956) by his wife Mary de Vere Studd, on 28 August 1947 at the Brompton Oratory. Anne Oxford was also a Roman Catholic via her parents' conversions. The Countess of Oxford and Asquith died in 1998, leaving five children: two sons, both diplomats, and three daughters (the middle married to another diplomat).

Lord Oxford inherited the Mells Estate from his mother Katherine Asquith, younger daughter of Sir John Horner of Mells and his wife Frances Graham.

Lord Oxford died, aged 94, on 16 January 2011. The peerage, which he had held for over eighty years, passed to his elder son, Raymond (b. 1952), a former British diplomat. His younger son the Honourable Dominic Asquith is British Ambassador to Egypt as of 2007, and a former British Ambassador to Iraq.

Sources

• Who's Who 2007 "Oxford and Asquith, The Earl of" and "Asquith, Dominic"
• "Obituary: The Countess of Oxford and Asquith", Daily Telegraph, 1998.
• John Joliffe. "Obituary: The Countess of Oxford and Asquith" The Independent, 7 September 1998, available online.
• Burke's Peerage & Landed Gentry: Oxford and Asquith, full article only by subscription.

References

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith

Government offices
Preceded by Sir John Thorp as Commissioner of Saint Lucia	Administrator of Saint Lucia 1958–1962	Succeeded by Gerald Jackson Bryan
Preceded by Sir John Thorp	Governor of the Seychelles 1962–1967	Succeeded by Sir Hugh Norman-Walker
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Herbert Henry Asquith	Earl of Oxford and Asquith 1928–2011	Succeeded by Raymond Asquith