Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne

Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845-1927), was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he became one of Benjamin Jowett’s favourite pupils. In 1869 he married the daughter of the 1st Duke of Abercorn. As a member of the Liberal party he was a lord of the treasury (1869—1872), undersecretary of state for war (1872—1874), and under-secretary of state for India (1880); in 1883 he was appointed Governor-General of Canada, and from 1888 to 1893 he was Viceroy of India. He joined the Liberal Unionist party when Gladstone proposed home rule for Ireland, and on returning to England became one of its most influential leaders. He was Secretary of State for War from 1895 to 1900, and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1900 to 1905, becoming leader of the Unionist party in the House of Lords on Lord Salisbury’s death. His tenure as Foreign Secretary was notable for the end of Britain's policy of "Glorious Isolation", seeing the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902 and the conclusion of the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904. He continued as Unionist leader in the Lords until 1910. He entered Asquith's coalition government in 1915 as a Minister without Portfolio, but was not included in Lloyd George's War Cabinet the next year. In 1917, he published a letter, called the Lansdowne Letter calling for the Allies to negotiate with the Germans, which was not well-received. Thereafter, he retired from public life, dying in 1927

Text originally from 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.