AGED STATESMAN DEAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20028, 18 August 1928, Page 11

AGED STATESMAN DEAD.

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN.

COLLEAGUE OF GLADSTONE.

BIOGRAPHER OF MACAULAY.

Australian Press Association—United Service (Received August 17, 8.15 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 17. The death has occurred of Sir Georgo Otto Trevelyan, aged 90. lie was a nephew of Lord Macaulay.

Sir George Otto Trevelyan, the poli- j tician and author, was born on July 20, 1838, in Leicestershire. His father was Sir Charles Trevelyan, Bt., and his mother, a sister of Lord Macaulay, of whom ho later wrote tho well-known, delightful biography. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and was second in the Classical ■Tripos. In 1861 he wrote "Horace _at the University of Athens," a topical drama in verse, which is said to have offended Whewell and lost Trevelyan a scholarship. Going to India in 1862 he spent soino years there in the civil service, one result being "Letters of a Competition Wallah" and "Cawnpore," an account of ;he mutiny days. He entered Parliament as a Liberal in 1865, and was appointed Civil Lord of the Admiralty in December, 1868. but resigned in 1870 over the Education Bill. He was a man of very advanced views, and advocated drastic army reforms, including abolition of the purchase of commissions and fought for the extension of the county franchise. In 1874 he brought in a bill which was defeated and the agricultural labourer did not get the vote *" till 1884. He also championed suffrage, the direct veto and other temperance legislation, and was in favour of the reform or abolition of the House of Lords In 1880 he became Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiraltv. and in May, 1882, after the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, Chief Secretary for Ireland. After a year as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and a month as Secretary for Scotland he resigned in March. 1886. owing to his disapproval of some of Gladstone's Home Ilulo proposals and lost his scat. In the same year he succeeded to the baronetcy. He took part as a in the Round Table Conference and. being satisfied with the changes made by Gladstone in the Homo Pule Bill, refined the Liberal Party. In August, 1887, he was re-elected to Parliament, and from 1892 to 1895 was Secretary for Scotland, but earlv in 1897 he retired into private life. After his retirement he made his markas an historian with his "History of the' American Revolution" (3 vols. 1905). He was also the author of the "Early History of Charles James Fox,' of a witty production entitled "Ladies in Parliament," "Interludes in Prose and Verse" and "George 111. and Charles Fox." In 1911 he received the Order of Merit. In 1869 he had married Caroline Philips whose father was M.P. for Bury. Their eldest son is Mr. Charles Philips Irevelyan, formerly a Liberal and now a Labour M.P., and their second son, Mr. George Macaulay Trevelyan, who has written a notable life of Garibaldi. Few statesmen have been called upon to face a grimmer ordeal than that which once befell Sir George. No sooner was news received in London of the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish in Phoenix Park than Sir George gallantly volunteered to go to Ireland in the dead Secretary's stead. He went, of course', knowing that he carried his life in his hands, and oil his very first visit to the Secretary's Lodge in Phoenix Park pushed aside a window curtain and beneath its folds found Lord Frederick's bloodstained coat, which had lain there since the body was brought into the room after the murder.