MR. GLADSTONE'S CABINET.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2524, 4 February 1869, Page 3

MR. GLADSTONE'S CABINET.

The following sketches, from Men of the Time, are in continuation of those already published, and conclude the notices of the more prominent men of Mr Gladstone's Cabinet:—, ,> 1 the postmasteihiUxkiul, The Right Hon; Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquis of Haiftihgton, eldest son of the Duke of Devonshire, born July 23, 1833, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where lie graduated B;A. in 1854. In March, 1857, he was returned to the House of Commons as one of the members for North Lancashire in the Liberal interest; in March, >1863, was appointed aLord of the Admiralty, and in-April in.the same year Under-Secre-tary for War, On the re-construction of Lord Russell's second administration iu Feb., 1866, the Marquis of , Hartington became Secretary for War, and retired with Ins colleagues in July of that year.

PRESIDENT OF TIIE COUNCIL. The Right Hon. George Frederick Samuel Robinson, Earl De Grey and Ripon, was born in London, Oct. 24, 1827, his father, the late Earl of Ripon, being at that time Prime Minister, In 1852, Lord Goderich (for stich was his title by courtesy) was returned for Kingston-on-Hull, in the Liberal interest, and having been shortly afterwards unseated on petition, in April, 1853, was elected for Huddersfield; That borough lie continued to represent till the dissolution' of 1857, when he was elected for the West- Riding of Yorkshire, for which lie sat until his accession to the peerage, Lord Goderich, who married, in 1851, the eldest daughter of Capt. Henry Vyner, and granddaughter of the fi st Earl de Grey, is a Deputy-Lieutenant and Magistrate for the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire, and for Lincolnshire. He succeeded to the earldom of Ripon on his father's death, Jan. 28, 1859, and to that of De Grey on his uncle's death, Nov. 14. In 1859 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for the War Di-partment, and was transferred to the India Office as UnderSecretary of State, in consequence of Lord Herbert's removal to the House of Lords, in Jan., 1861, returning a few months afterwards to the former post. His lordship was appointed Secretary of State for War on the death of the Right Hon. Sir G. C. Lewis, Bart., M.P,,and sworn a member of the Privy Council in April, 1863 ; became Secretary of State for India in 1866, retiring on the dissolution of the Russell administration in July of that year.

PRESIDENT OF THE I'OOR-LAW HOARD. George Joachim Goschen, a London merchant, of German extraction, horn in 1831, was educated at Rugby, under Drs Tait and Goulburn, and at Oriel College, Oxford, where, however, he did not graduate, owingto certain scruples of conscience which he felt against the oathb enforced. He has written largely on financial questions, and is known as the author of a work on " The Theory of Foreign Exchanges." He was returned in the Liberal interest for the City of London, in May, 1863, on the death of Mr W. Wood, and has taken an active part in the movement for throwing open the universities to dissenters, and the abolition of religious tests. Mr Goschen, who was reelected for the City of London, at the head of the poll, at the general election in July, 1865, was made Vice-president of the Board of Trade, Nov. 20, 1865, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Jan. 26, 1866, retiring with the Russell ministry in June of that year, COMMISSIONER OF WORKS.

Austen Henry Layard, M.P., D.C.L, son of Henry P. J. Layard, Esq., and grandson of the late i)r Layard. Dean of Bristol, born in Paris, March, 5,1817, is descended from a family of French Protestants driven from their country by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Having commenced the study of the law, which he soon relinquished for more congenial pursuits, he, in 1839, set out with a friend on a course of travel, visited various points in northern Europe, and proceeded through Albania and Roumelia, to Constantinople, where, at one period, he acted as a correspondent of a London newspaper, and afterwards travelled through various parts of Asia, and learned the Arabic and Persian languages. In his wanderings he made it a special point to explore those spots* believed to have been the sites of ancient cities, and when at Mosul, near the mound of Nimroud, he was impelled with an irresistible desire to examine carefully the spot to which history and tradition point as the " birthplace of the wisdom of the West." On hearing that M, Botta, a Frenchman, had been carrying out excavations at the cost of his government, and had found a great number of curious marbles, Mr Layard longed for the opportunity of making simlar discoveries. Returning to Constantinople, he laid his views before Sir Stratford Canning, who, in 1845, generously offered to share the cost of excavations at Nimroud, and in the autumn Mr Layard set off for Mosul, and began his labours on a spot previously undisturbed. Here he ultimately succeeded in exhuming some of the numerous, wonderful specimens of Assyrian art which enrich the British Museum. The Government and the authorities of the British Museum, however, for a time failed to appreciate the value of Mr Layard's researches. He was appointed attache to the Embassy at Constantinople, April 5,1849, and Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Lord Russell's first administration for a few weeks in' 1852 ; Lord Derby, on his accession to power in Feb. of that year, having offered to retain him in that office until the return of Lord Stanley to England, and then to give him a diplomatic appointment. This offer Mr Layard, after taking the advice of Lord Russell, declined. In the Coalition Cabinet, under Lord Aberdeen, which, as they were of a nature to remove him from the field of eastern politics he declined. In 1863 he was presented with the freedom of the city of London, in consideration of his discoveries amongst the ruins of Nineveh, and went to Constantinople with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; but, disagreeing with his chief, returned in the course of the year to England. In the House of Commons he became the advocate of a more decided course of action on the Eastern question, and delivered several energetic and impressive Bpeeches on that important subject. In 1854 he again proceeded to the East, was a spectator of the important events then taking place in the Crimea, witnessed the battle of the Alma from the maintop of the Agamemnon, and remained in the Crimea till after the battle of Inkernmnn, making himself acquainted with its actual condition. He was one of the most urgent among the members of the House of Commons in demanding the committee of inquiry into the state of the army j and he took a leading part in the investigation, to which he contributed his evidence. On the formation of Lord Palmerston's first administration in 1855, he was again offered a post; but, as it was unconnected with the foreign policy of the country, lie declined it, became one of the leaders of the Administrative Reform Association, and brought before the House of Commons, in June, 1855, a motion embodying their views, which was rejected by a large majority, lie spent some time iu India during the rebellion of 1857-8, endeavouring to ascertain its cause. Ho was returned one of the members in the Liberal interest for Aylesbury in July, 1852 j was defeated at the general election in March, 1857 ; was an unsuccessful candidate at York in April, 1859, was returned one of the members for Bouthwark in Dec., 18G0, and still retains this seat. In 1848-9 he published " Nineveh and its remainsand in 1853, a second part of the work. His " Monuments of Nineveh " appeared in 1849-53, and an abridged edition of "Nineveh and its Remains" in 1851. Mr Layard, elected Lord Rector of Aberdeen University in 1855 and 1856, became UnderSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Lord Palmerston's second administration, in July, 1861, and retired on the fall of Lord Russell's second administration in July, 1866. He was appointed a trustee of the British Museum in Feb., 1866.

*f i ( A'ilb [}| {{' f "Sir Robert Porrett Collier^Q>o.-,-son of the late John Collier,Eß(j,;(metnbet for Plymouth from the passing of the Keform-JBill till 1841), born in 1817, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, was eallci}, to, the "bur at the Inner Temple m 1843, and' joined, the Western circuit, of which lie.isoneof the acknowledged leaders, receiving a patent of precedence in '1864. lie held the recordership of Penzance for some years,,was an unsuccessful candidate for Launceston in 1841, and has sat for Plymouth in the Liberal interest since 18G2. ,'in, 1853 lie .introduced a bill for transferring the testamentary, jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts to a (jivij the main, provisions of which were adopted in the Act by which the present Probate Court was subsequently established, lie proposed and carried a resolution in far vour of limited liability in partnerships, which became the basis of subsequent legislation on this subject. Mr Coleridge was made Solicitor-General in Oct,, 1863, on the promotion of Sir R. Palmer to the attorneygeneralship, and retired with the Russell administration in July, 1866. He has written treatises on the "Law of Railways" and " The Law of Mines." 1

TUB SOLICITOR-GENERAti, John Duke Coleridge, eldest son of the Right Hon. Sir John Taylor Coleridge, born in 1821, educated at Eton; was Scholar of Balliol College, and afterwards Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He was called to the bar in 1847, was made Q.C. in 1861, and Recorder of Falmouth. &c., in 1865, He contested Exeter in the Liberal interest in July, 1864, and though defeated on that occasion, was returned for that city at the gene-, ral election in July,' 1865,

CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCIIT OF LANCASTER,

The Right Hon. Frederick Temple Blackwood, Lord Dufferin, K.C.8., K.P., only son of the late lord, by Selina, daughter of the, late Thomas Sheridan, Esq., now Countess Gifford, born in June, 1826, and educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, succeeded to his father's title, July 21,1841, and was for some years a lord in waiting on the Queen under the Liberal administration. He went, accompanied by a friend, from Oxford to Ireland, at the time of the famine in 1846-7, and published an account on his return. In 1859 he made a yacht voyage to Iceland, and a narrative, under the title of "Letters from High Latitudes," was published in 1860. He - was sent the same year to the East by Lord Palmerston as British Commissioner in Syria, for the purpose of prosecuting inquiries into the massacre of the Christians there, in which capacity he acted with great firmness, and was madeaK,C.B, for his services. He is Lord-Lieutenant of co. Down, and was Under-Secretary for India ia 1846.