RARE "2nd Baronet" Sir George Trevelyan Hand Written Note For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "2nd Baronet" Sir George Trevelyan Hand Written Note.

ES-9068

Sir George Otto Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, OM, PC, FBA (20 July 1838 – 17 August 1928) was a British

statesman and author. In a ministerial career stretching almost 30 years, he

was most notably twice Secretary for Scotland under William Ewart Gladstone and the Earl of Rosebery. He broke

with Gladstone over the 1886 Irish Home Rule Bill, but after

modifications were made to the bill he re-joined the Liberal Party shortly

afterwards. Also a writer and historian, Trevelyan published The Life and

Letters of Lord Macaulay, his maternal uncle, in

1876. Trevelyan was born in Rothley

Temple, Leicestershire, the only son of Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1st Baronet,

and Hannah, daughter of Zachary Macaulay and sister of the historian Lord Macaulay. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was

President of the Cambridge Union Society, and earned second

place in the first class of the Classical

Tripos in 1861. That same year he wrote his Horace at the

University of Athens, a topical drama in verse, parts of which are said to

have offended William Whewell and lost Trevelyan a

fellowship. He was a Cambridge Apostle. In 1862 Trevelyan went out as a

civil servant to India, where he spent several years. In 1865 he was elected Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Tynemouth and

North Shields. At the general election of 1868 he was returned for

the Hawick Burghs, which he

continued to represent until 1886. When the first Gladstone ministry was formed in December

1868, Trevelyan was appointed Civil Lord of the Admiralty,

but resigned in July 1870 on a point of conscience connected with the

government Education Bill. He advocated a sweeping reform of the army,

including the abolition of the purchase of commissions, and both in and out of

parliament he was the foremost supporter for many years of the extension of the

county franchise. In the session of 1874 he brought forward his Household

Franchise (Counties) Bill, which was lost on the second reading – it was not

till ten years later that the agricultural labourer was enfranchised. Among

other causes which he warmly supported were women's suffrage, a thorough reform

of metropolitan local government, and the drastic reform or abolition of the House of

Lords. He was also in favour of the direct veto and other temperance

legislation. In 1880 Trevelyan was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the

Admiralty under Gladstone. He held this office until May 1882, when,

after the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, he became Chief Secretary for Ireland and sworn of the Privy Council. From

November 1884 to June 1885 he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

with a seat in the cabinet. In February 1886 he became Secretary for Scotland and

Vice-President of the Scottish Education Department in Gladstone's third

administration, but resigned in March over Irish Home Rule. The same year he

succeeded his father in the baronetcy. At the general election of 1886

Trevelyan lost his seat for Hawick. As a

representative of the Liberal Unionist Party he took part in the

Round Table Conference, and, being satisfied with the changes made by Gladstone

in his Home Rule scheme, he formally rejoined the Liberal Party. In August 1887

he re-entered the House of Commons as member for Glasgow Bridgeton. From

1892 to 1895 he was again Secretary for Scotland and Vice-President of the

Scottish Education Department He resigned his seat in parliament in early 1897

and retired into private life. In 1911 he was appointed a member of the Order of

Merit.