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Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale

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The Right Honourable
The Lord Redesdale
GCVO KCB JP DL FRPS
Portrait by Samuel Lawrence, 1865
Member of Parliament
for Stratford-on-Avon
In office
4 July 1892 – 8 July 1895
Preceded byFrederick Townsend
Succeeded byVictor Milward
Personal details
Born
Algernon Bertram Mitford

(1837-02-24)24 February 1837
London, England
Died17 August 1916(1916-08-17) (aged 79)
Batsford, Gloucestershire, England
Political partyConservative
Spouse
Lady Clementina Ogilvy
​
​
(m. 1874)​
Children9, including David
EducationEton College
Alma materChrist Church, Oxford
Portrait in Vanity Fair by Leslie Ward, 1902

Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, GCVO, KCB, JP, DL, FRPS (24 February 1837 – 17 August 1916) was a British diplomat, collector, and writer who wrote as A.B. Mitford. His most notable work is Tales of Old Japan (1871). He was the paternal grandfather of the Mitford sisters.

Early years

Mitford was the son of Henry Reveley Mitford (1804–1883), of Exbury House, Hampshire, and the great-grandson of the historian William Mitford. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Classics. While his paternal ancestors were landed gentry, whose holdings included Mitford Castle in Northumberland, his mother Lady Georgiana Jemima Ashburnham was daughter of the 3rd Earl of Ashburnham and Lady Charlotte Percy, a scion of the Dukes of Northumberland.[1] His father, an erstwhile Attaché at Florence,[2] lived in Germany and Paris after separating with Lady Jemima who remarried to the Hon. Francis Molyneux.

Like his cousin Swinburne, he was named Algernon after his great-grandfather Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley; however, he mostly went by his middle name Bertram and was known familiarly as "Bertie".[3]

Career

Diplomacy

Entering the Foreign Office in 1858, Mitford was appointed Third Secretary of the British Embassy at Saint Petersburg in 1863. He was then in the service of the Diplomatic Corps at Peking and Shanghai until 1866.[2]

Mitford went to Japan as Second Secretary to the British Legation at Edo in 1866.[2] He was to remain in Japan for the next several years until 1870. This was during the time of the Meiji Restoration when Imperial rule was restored from the Tokugawa shogunate and the seat of power migrated from Kyoto to Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Mitford's memoirs recount the troubled time of the foreign settlements at Kobe over the fortnight following American Rear-Admiral Henry Bell's death, and the death of British consul Francis Gerard Myburgh. He then served as secretary under Myburgh's replacement, John Frederick Lowder. There he met Ernest Mason Satow and became acquainted with Saigō Takamori, a famed samurai who would lead the Satsuma rebellion. Mitford travelled extensively across the hinterland of Japan, recording his various travels in his diary.[4] He retired from the diplomatic service in 1873.[2] Later that year, he travelled to Japan once again, this time via America.[5]

Following the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, in 1906 Mitford accompanied Prince Arthur on a visit to Japan to present the Emperor Meiji with the Order of the Garter. He was asked by courtiers there about Japanese ceremonies that had disappeared since 1868.[6]

Public life

From 1874 to 1886, Mitford acted as secretary to HM Office of Works, involved in the lengthy restoration of the Tower of London and in landscaping parts of Hyde Park such as "The Dell". From 1887, he was a member of the Royal Commission on Civil Services. He also sat as Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon between 1892 and 1895. Lord Randolph Churchill remarked that '[he had] come to the dullest place on earth with great compensations.'[4]

According to W. S. Gilbert, Mitford served as a consultant on Japanese culture to Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan during the development of their 1885 Savoy Opera The Mikado. A traditional Japanese song hummed by Mitford to Gilbert and Sullivan during a rehearsal was used in the opera for the march accompanying the Mikado's entrance.[7]

In 1886, Mitford inherited the substantial Gloucestershire estates of his first cousin twice removed, John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Earl of Redesdale. Resigning his public offices and selling his London residence, he elected to retire as a Gloucestershire squire. In accordance with the will he assumed by royal licence the additional surname of Freeman. However, neither he nor his descendants would use their full surname Freeman-Mitford except in formal documents.[8] Appointed a Deputy lieutenant and Justice of the peace for Gloucestershire, he became a magistrate and took up farming and horse breeding. He was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron from 1889 to 1914.[9] Mitford substantially rebuilt Batsford Park, Batsford, Gloucestershire, in the Victorian Gothic manorial style. He also installed the extensive Japanese gardens which now comprise Batsford Arboretum.[10][11]

Pre- and extra-marital fatherhood

During his time in Japan, Mitford was said to have fathered two children with a geisha.[12] Later, he may have fathered Clementine Hozier (1885–1977), in the course of an affair with his wife's sister Blanche.[13] Clementine married Winston Churchill in 1908.

Marriage and descendants

In 1874, Mitford married Lady Clementina Gertrude Helen Ogilvy (1854–1932), the daughter of David Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie, by his wife Blanche Stanley, the daughter of Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley. They had five sons and four daughters. His second, but elder surviving, son David succeeded in the barony and was the father of the Mitford sisters.[14]

Later life

Peerage

See also: Baron Redesdale

In the 1902 Coronation Honours list it was announced that Mitford would receive a barony, and the Redesdale title was revived when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale in the County of Northumberland, on 15 July 1902. He took the oath and his seat in the House of Lords a week later, on 24 July.[15]

Horticultural interests

While in the Far East, he became interested in Chinese and Japanese garden and landscape design and the flora of these countries. On his return, he created the arboretum at Batsford as a wild garden of naturalistic planting based on his Chinese and Japanese observations.[16] His 1896 book, The Bamboo Garden,[17] was the first book on the cultivation of bamboos in European temperate climates and remained the only text on the subject until the 1960s. He persuaded Edward VII to plant Japanese knotweed at Sandringham House and it later became difficult to eradicate, according to George VI.[18]

Photographic interests

Mitford joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1907 and became a Fellow in 1908.[19] He was President of the Royal Photographic Society between 1910 and 1912.[20] While staying at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, he commissioned a photograph of Edward VII in Highland dress.[19] Several portraits of Mitford may also be viewed at the National Portrait Gallery, London.[19]

H.S. Chamberlain

In his closing years, Lord Redesdale edited and wrote extensive and effusive introductions for two of Houston Stewart Chamberlain's books, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century and Immanuel Kant: A Study and Comparison with Goethe, Leonardo da Vinci, Bruno, Plato, and Descartes, both two volumes each, translated into English by John Lees, M.A., D.Litt., and published by John Lane at the Bodley Head, London, in 1910 and 1914 respectively.[21][22][23]

Death and legacy

Mitford died at his Batsford estate on 17 August 1916. He was a prominent figure of late Victorian and Edwardian era society, who was celebrated as a writer, among many other interests, and one of very few contemporary British Japanologists. The paternal grandfather of the famous Mitford sisters, he was said to have been particularly fond of his granddaughter Nancy, whose early years were spent at Batsford.[3] The Batsford estate was sold to Lord Dulverton in 1920 by his son and successor David Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, father of the aforementioned Mitford sisters.[10][11]

See also

Bibliography

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale
  • Tales of Old Japan (1871)
  • A tragedy in stone; and other papers (1882)
  • The Bamboo Garden (1896)
  • The Attaché at Peking (1900)
  • The Garter Mission to Japan (1906)
  • Memories (1915; 2 vols)
  • Further Memories (Hutchinson & Co., London, 1917 - posthumous)

Lord Redesdale also wrote an extensive Introduction to The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899), and translated, with another Introduction for Immanuel Kant (1914), both by Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

The standard author abbreviation Mitford is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[24]

Notes

  1. ^ Mosley 2003, p. 3305.
  2. ^ a b c d "Statements of Services: Mitford, Algernon Bertram". The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book. Harrison. 1881. p. 149.
  3. ^ a b Acton, Harold (1975). Nancy Mitford: A Memoir. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 2–4. ISBN 0-06-010018-4.
  4. ^ a b Cortazzi 2003, p. 23.
  5. ^ Cortazzi 2003, p. 194-195.
  6. ^ Cortazzi 2003, p. 195.
  7. ^ Gilbert, W. S. (2 May 1907). "The Mikado: Mr. Gilbert Explains a Famous Air". Morning Leader. p. 5. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  8. ^ Kidd & Williamson 2003.
  9. ^ Cortazzi 2003, p. 22–23.
  10. ^ a b White, Diz (2012). Cotswolds Memoir. Larrabee. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-9571162-3-8.
  11. ^ a b Page, William (1965). The Victoria History of the County of Gloucester. A. Constable, Limited. p. 200. ISBN 9780197227961.
  12. ^ Cortazzi 2003, p. 233–234.
  13. ^ Hardwick, Joan (1997). Clementine Churchill: The Private Life of a Public Person. London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-5552-3.
  14. ^ Mosley 2003, p. 3306.
  15. ^ "Parliament - House of Lords". The Times. No. 36829. London. 25 July 1902. p. 4.
  16. ^ "The History of Batsford". www.batsarb.co.uk. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
  17. ^ A.B. Freeman-Mitford (1896). Bamboo Garden.
  18. ^ Litchfield, David R. L. (2013). Hitler's Valkyrie: The Uncensored Biography of Unity Mitford. The History Press. p. 25. ISBN 9780750951616.
  19. ^ a b c Obituary. The Right Hon. Lord Redesdale, The Photographic Journal, November 1916, p. 250.
  20. ^ "Past Presidents". Royal Photographic Society. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 6 May 2014. Accessed 7 May 2013.
  21. ^ "The Foundations of the 19th Century, Prefaces & Index". 19 February 2007. Archived from the original on 19 February 2007. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  22. ^ Chamberlain, Houston Stewart (1911). Foundations of the nineteenth century. Adamant Media Corporation. ISBN 978-1-4021-5459-1.
  23. ^ Chamberlain, Houston Stewart (1914). Immanuel Kant: A Study and a Comparison with Goethe, Leonardo Da Vinci, Bruno, Plato and Descartes. John Lane.
  24. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Mitford.

References

  • Cortazzi, Hugh (2003). Mitford's Japan: Memories and Recollections, 1866–1906. Psychology Press. ISBN 1-903350-07-7.
  • Kidd, Charles; Williamson, David (2003). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage. St Martin's Press.
  • Morton, Robert (2017). A. B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State. Letters Home. Renaissance Books.
  • Mosley, Charles (2003). Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage. Vol. 3 (107th ed.). Burke's Peerage. ISBN 0971196621.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon
1892–1895 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baron Redesdale
2nd creation
1902–1916 		Succeeded by
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