Sir George Otto Trevelyan

TREVELYAN, SIR GEORGE OTTO, O.M. 19ii (1838 1928), English historian, was born on July 20, 1838, at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, the son of Sir C. E. Trevelyan and his wife Hannah More Macaulay. He had a brilliant career at Harrow, which he entered in 1851, and at Trinity College, Cam bridge. In 1862 he went to India as his father's private secre tary, and while there wrote two humorous books, The Dawk Bungalow, and The Competition Wallah, and in 1865 his first serious work, Cawnpore. In 1864 he was again in London, and the following year was returned as Liberal M.P. for Tynemouth. From 1868 to 1887 he represented the Hawick Burghs, and from 1887 until his retirement in 1897, the Bridgeton division of Glas gow. In 1868 he had become a civil lord of the Admiralty, but resigned two years later. He then completed his Life of his uncle Lord Macaulay, which was immediately recognised as a master piece of biography. He was for two years (188o-82) secretary to the Admiralty, and then became for a year chief secretary for Ireland, after the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish. The strain of this position told severely on his health, and he returned in 1884, and was given the office of the duchy of Lancaster, with a seat in the cabinet. He was credited with a large share in the authorship of the measure extending household suffrage to the counties (1885). He was secretary for Scotland in the first Home Rule parliament, but resigned with Chamberlain two months later.

With Chamberlain he joined the Round Table Conference on the Irish question at Harcourt's house. Finding, however, that Liberal Unionism could not stand alone, he took office under Gladstone in 1892 as secretary for Scotland, a post which he held also in Lord Rosebery's government. His many honours were crowned in 1911 with the Order of Merit.

His

Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay (1876) still holds its place as a biography of the first importance, and a new edition was issued in 1923. His next work was The Early History of Charles James Fox (1880). The second volume which he intended to write, was put aside in favour of his history of The American Revolution. This history led to a long and interesting corre spondence with Roosevelt, to whom he sent a copy in 1904, some of Roosevelt's letters being published later in Scribner's Magazine.

He married in September, 1869, Caroline, daughter of R. N. Philips. He died on Aug. 16, 1928, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Charles Philips Trevelyan, M.P. (b. 1870) who was minister for education in Ramsay MacDonald's two administrations, in 1924 and 1928. His second son, Robert Calverley Trevelyan, is the author of admirable translations from the Greek drama, and of original verse. His third son was George Macaulay Trevelyan (q.v.).