SALISBURY, ROBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOYNE-.CECIL, THIRD MARQUIS OF, an English statesman; born in Hatfield, Herts, England, Feb. 3, 1830; was educated at Eton and Ox ford. As Lord Robert Cecil he entered Parliament as member for Stamford in 1853. and gradually made his way till in 1866, on the formation of Lord Derby's third administration, he was appointed secretary of state for India. In 1865 he became Lord Cranborne and heir to the marquisate on the death of his elder brother. Owing to differences of opinion on the subject of the franchise he retired from the ministry, but on the death of his father in 1868 and his consequent elevation to the House of Lords he re turned to his old party associations. He resumed the secretaryship for India in the Disraeli government of 1874. He took part in the conference of Constantinople, which was expected to settle the dispute between Russia and Turkey; and at the end of that war, having become foreign minister, he insisted on the treaty which Russia had forced on Turkey being sub mitted to a congress of the powers. In
1878 he accompanied Disraeli to the con gress at Berlin, and on the death of that statesman became the recognized leader of the Conservative party. He became premier as well as foreign secretary on the fall of the Gladstone government in 1885. Gladstone succeeded again to power in the end of the same year, but in the June following was defeated on the Irish bills, when Salisbury again became pre mier and foreign secretary. His party maintained a majority by means of the adherence of the Liberal Unionists, who were represented in the cabinet by Mr. Goschen. He retired from office in 1892; was recalled on the fall of the Rosebery ministry in 1895, and again retired in 1902. He was always a friend of the United States.
The Hay-Pauncefote treaty for an Isth mian canal was the last important event in which he took an active part. He was for a long time Chancellor of Oxford University. He died Aug. 22, 1903.