ABERDEEN, GEORGE GORDON, 4TH EARL OF 1860) , British statesman, was born in Edinburgh on Jan. 28, 1784, the son of George Gordon, Lord Haddo. At the age of 11, when he was left an orphan, he went to reside with Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville; and three years later he was permitted by Scots law to select William Pitt and Dundas as his curators, or guardians. At Harrow and at St. John's college, Cambridge, he proved himself a gifted classical scholar, though modern his tory shared his interest ; and his education was completed by an extended tour of Europe which took him to the Far East. On the death of his grandfather in 1801 he succeeded to the peerage, and four years later he married Catherine Hamilton, daughter of Lord Abercorn.
His connection with Pitt and Dundas, and his native ability, favoured him for a political career, and in 1812 he travelled as ambassador extraordinary to Austria, where he signed the Treaty of Topaz in 1813. He remained on the Continent as one of the most active British representatives throughout the negotiations which led to the Treaty of Paris ; then he returned to England, and for some years lived in comparative retirement. The year 1815 saw his marriage to Harriet, Lady Hamilton, his first wife having died three years before.
In Jan. 1828 he joined the cabinet of the duke of Wellington, and in the following June he became secretary of state for foreign affairs. Resigning in 1830 with Wellington, he did not again take office until the short administration of 1834 and 1835, when he was colonial secretary to Sir Robert Peel; but in 1841 he joined the latter's cabinet as foreign secretary and commenced the most fruitful and successful period of his public life. He now acquired more power than he had ever possessed with Wellington, to whom he had felt himself subordinate; and this new authority he devoted first to establishing friendly relations with France. Public opinion in both countries exhibited hostility, so that the marriage of Isa bella II. of Spain and the imprisonment of Pritchard in Tahiti might have led to a quarrel; but Aberdeen was fortunate in hav ing the confidence of Guizot, and it was largely through their efforts that a satisfactory understanding was maintained. He was equally successful in avoiding a rupture with the United States, which might easily have resulted from the question involving the boundary between that country and Canada. The north-east fron tier was first settled amicably by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, but in 1844 the new democratic administration in the States claimed from Britain the whole of the Pacific coast as far as Russian Alaska. To this demand Peel's Government refused to yield, and Aberdeen crowned his successful term at the Foreign Office with the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which fixed the boundary along the forty-ninth degree of latitude.
In 1845 he supported Peel in a proposal to suspend the duty on foreign corn, and left office with him in July 1846. After Peel's death in 1850, Aberdeen was recognized as leader of the Peelites, and in 1852, at the head of a coalition ministry of his own party and the Whigs, he became first lord of the Treasury. Although united on free trade and on questions of domestic reform gener ally, a cabinet including Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, in addition to Aberdeen, was certain to differ on foreign policy; and contemporaries realized that the task of the prime minister was one of unusual difficulty. "In the present cabinet," wrote Charles Greville, in his Memoirs, "are five or six men of equal or nearly equal, pretensions . . . every one of these five or six considering himself abler and more important than their premier." Nevertheless, the first year of this administration was successful, and it was due to Aberdeen's steady support that Gladstone's great budget of 1853 was accepted by the cabinet; but the weak ness of Aberdeen and of the cabinet soon became apparent in the negotiations which preceded the Crimean War. That the prime minister wished to maintain the peace is unquestionable, but whether he acted wisely to this end is more obscure. His foreign policy was essentially one of peace and non-intervention; but his character is perhaps best described by a writer who says "his strength was not equal to his goodness:" The Vienna note, by which the four powers sought to find terms which were agreeable to both Russia and Turkey, was largely the result of Aberdeen's endeavours ; and when Turkey refused to accept the proposed agreement, Aberdeen would not have offered her British support had not the publication of a secret Russian document in Berlin thrown doubt upon the Tsar's intentions. Even then he sought to preserve the peace by present ing a new note early in Dec. 1853 to the two countries; but when he wished to insist upon Turkey's acceptance of these terms, Lord John Russell refused to support him. Rather than risk a break up of the cabinet, Aberdeen consented to a compromise of which advantage was taken by those who desired war; and Turkey was thus enabled to force England with her into the disastrous struggle. The stories of misery and mismanagement from the seat of war deprived the Government of public favour. Russell resigned; and in Jan. 1855, he was followed by Aberdeen, who interpreted a motion by J. A. Roebuck as one of no confidence. He died in London, on Dec. 14th, 1860, and was buried in the family vault at Stanmore. He left four children by his second wife, who died in Aug. 1833 ; the eldest son, George John James, succeeded as 5th earl; his youngest son, Arthur Hamilton, was created Baron Stanmore in 1893. Aberdeen wrote An Inquiry into the of Beauty in Grecian Architecture, which was published in Lon don, 1822. A bust of him by Matthew Noble is in Westminster Abbey, and his portrait was painted by Sir T. Lawrence.
See Sir T. Martin, Life of the Prince Consort (1875-80) ; A. W. Kinglake, Invasion of the Crimea (1877-88) ; Spencer Walpole, History of England (1878-86), C. C. F. Greville, Memoirs, edited by H. Reeve (1888) ; Spencer Walpole, Life of Lord John Russell (1889) ; Lord Stanmore, The Earl of Aberdeen (1893) ; J. Morley, Life of Gladstone (19°3).