OBITUARY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15064, 10 February 1911, Page 5

OBITUARY.

EARL CAWDOR. Press Association— liy Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, February 8. The death is announced of Karl Cawdor, who was First Lard oi the Admiralty in 1905, and the author of the Cawdor programmo in which the two-Power standard waa submitted as the basis of England's naval strength. Tho late Earl was 64 years of age. A younger branch of the great Gumpbell clan, the Earls of Cawdor claim an ancient lineage. They are descended from Sir John Campbell, a younger son of tho second Earl'of Argyll, who fell at Flodden Field. The more immediate founder of tho family was John Campbell, who sat in Parliament as representative fcr .Nairnshire (1777-80) and Cardiganshire (1780-96), and wis then ,created Baron Cawdor of Great Britain. Lord Cawdor's son, John Frederick Campbell, represented Carmarthen from 1813 till 1821, and was creatcd Earl of Cawdor in tho peerage of tho United Kingdom in 1827. The second earl sat as Conservative M.P. for Pembrokeshire from 1841-60. Frederick Archibald Vaughan Campbell, third Earl of Cawdor, the eldest son: of the second earl and Sarah Mary, daughter of Gcnoral the Hon. Henry Frederick Compton Cavendish, was born on February 13, 1847. He received his cducation at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. At the general election, of 1874 he followed in the footsteps cf his grandfather, and was elected Conservative member for Carmarthenshire, holding tho seat till 1885, when he was defeated in his candidature for West Carmarthenshire. Viscount Emlyn, as he then was known, could scarcely expect to win the suffrages of tho agricultural labourers, fo.- lie opposed tho idea of extending the franchise to thorn in his earliest speech in Parliament, where, however, ho spoke but little. In 1892 he vainly contested the South Division of Manchester against Sir Henry Roscoe, tho Liberal candidate. Again, when in 1893 a bye-election occurred in North Wilts by tho retirement of Mr _ Alfred Hookinson, who held the seat as a Liberal-Unionist-, Viscount Emlyn came forward as a Conservative, but Lord Edmund Fitzmaurioe, standing as a Liberal, wrested the seat from tho Government. In the same year Viscount Emlyn succeeedd, on the death of his father, to tho House of Lords. Earl Cawdor was intimately associated with the management of the Great Western railway, and for 10 years (1895 to 1905) acted as chairman of tho directors. In March, i 905, Mr Balfour created somewhat of a surprise by appointing him First Lord of the Admiralty in succession to Lord Selbourne. Tho appointment was partly duo to tho dearth of men of administrative ability within the Unionist ranks,/and partly, it was thought, to tho skill he had displayed as tho head of a great private business company. There was a demand at that time for tho business "expert." Lord Cawdor, however, had little chance to prove his capacity, as the ordinary naval delates took place on Lord Solbourne's estimates, and before tho year for which they provided was oyer Lord Cawdor was out of office with his party. Lord Cawdor was appointed an Ecclesiastical Commissioner in 1880. and Honorary Commissioner in Lunacy in 1886. Formerly ho colonel of the Third Brigade Welsh Division R.A., and an A.D.C. to the King. Possessed of great wealth, he had country seats at Stackpole Court, Pembrokeshire, and Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, as well as his Scottish home at Cawdor Castle, Nairn, N.B. Since 1896 he was Lord Lieutenant of Pembrokeshire, and he was chairman of Carmarthen Quarter Sessions and a member of the County Council. Ho was a magistrate and deputy lieutenant of the Counties of Inverness and Carmarthen. In 1868 he married Edith Georgiana, daughter of -Mr Christopher Tumor, of Stoke Roehford, Lincolnshire, and is succeeded in the title by his son, Viscount Emlyn, who was born in 1870.