RIPON, GEORGE FREDERICK SAMUEL ROBIN SON, 1ST MARQUESS OF (1827-1909), British statesman, only son of the earl of Ripon and his wife Lady Sarah, daughter of Robert Hobart, 4th earl of Buckinghamshire, was born in London on Sept. 24, 1827.
Ripon began his political life as attaché to a special mission to Brussels in 1849. In 1851 he married Henrietta Vyner (d. 1907), and their eldest son, afterwards known as Earl de Grey, was born in 1852. Under his courtesy title of Viscount Goderich he was returned to the House of Commons for Hull in 1852 as an ad vanced Liberal. In 1853 he was elected for Huddersfield, and in 1857 for the West Riding of Yorkshire. In Jan. 1859 he suc ceeded to his father's title, and in November of the same year to that of his uncle, Earl de Grey. A few months after entering the Upper House he was appointed under-secretary for war, and in Feb. 1861 under-secretary for India. Upon the death of Sir George Cornewall Lewis in April 1863 he became secretary for war, with a seat in the cabinet. In 1866 he was appointed secre tary of State for India. On the formation of the Gladstone admin istration in Dec. 1868, Lord Ripon was appointed lord president of the council, and held that office until within a few months of the fall of the Government in 1873, when he resigned on purely private grounds. In 1871 Lord Ripon was appointed chairman of the High Joint-Commission on the Alabama claims, which ar ranged the Treaty of Washington. In recognition of his services
he was elevated to a marquessate (1871). In 1874 he became a convert to Roman Catholicism.
On the return of Gladstone to power in 188o Lord Ripon was appointed viceroy of India, the appointment exciting a storm of controversy, the marquess being the first Roman Catholic to hold the viceregal office. He went out to reverse the Afghan policy of Lord Lytton, and Kandahar was given up, the whole of Afghanis tan being secured to Abdur Rahman. The new viceroy extended the rights of the natives, and in certain directions curtailed the privileges of Europeans. For the Ilbert bill of 1883—so named after its author Sir Courtenay Ilbert, see INDIA : History.
In 1886 he became first lord of the admiralty in the third Glad stone ministry; and on the return of the Liberals to power in 1892 he was appointed colonial secretary, which post he continued to hold until the resignation of the Government in 1895. He was included in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet at the close of 1905 as lord privy seal, an office which he retained in 1908 when Asquith formed his new ministry, but which he resigned later in the same year. He died at his seat, Studley Royal, near Ripon, on July 9, 1909, when his only son, Earl de Grey, treasurer of the queen's household since 1901, became the 2nd marquess.