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The Elgins 1766 - 1917, S. Checkland: Hardback: 1st Edition: Scots History

The Elgins 1766 - 1917, S. Checkland: Hardback: 1st Edition: Scots History

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The Elgins 1766 - 1917: A Tale of Aristocrats, Proconsuls and Their Wives

By Sydney Checkland.


Published by Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, 1988. First Edition. Hardback cover with dustjacket (unclipped), 303 pages. Illustration and photography throughout in both black & white and colour.


CONDITION
Overall very good condition - see photos. No names or writing. Images crisp & clear throughout.


Although it was Thomas, the seventh Earl who by his acquisition of the Greek Marbles brought unwelcome and continuing notoriety to the Elgin name, it is James, the eighth Earl, who is the hero of this book. Did Byron's furious 'Curse of Minerva hurled at Thomas for his activities in Greece that all Elgin's sons be 'without one spark of intellectual fire'-succeed only in producing perhaps the most sensitive and forward-looking British pro-consul of the Victorian age? 


James, as a colonial administrator, showed courage, determination and resource in handling difficult situations in

Jamaica, Canada, China, Japan and India. As Viceroy of India, where he died, he might have brought reform to the turbulent subcontinent. His son Victor Alexander, the ninth Earl, a Scot of modest ambition nevertheless performed creditably as Viceroy of India in the 189os and as Colonial Secretary in the Liberal government of 1906

Through the pages of the book pass seven countesses. And as base and continuum to the story of a great Scottish family stands each which Broomhall, the house brought trophies, mementos, generation relics, reports, letters, and ephemera. The book is based on the Elgin archives, which the present Earl of Elgin placed at the disposal of the author, whose extensive research took him as far afield as Canada and Japan.


(Bindery A2)

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