Hugh Egerton
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Hugh Edward Egerton (19 April 1855 – 21 May 1927) was a British historian.


Life

He was the second son of
Edward Christopher Egerton Edward Christopher Egerton (27 July 1816 – 27 August 1869) was a British Conservative politician from the Egerton family. Background Egerton was the son of Wilbraham Egerton and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Christopher Sykes, 2nd Baronet. Will ...
, Member of Parliament for and , and his wife Lady Mary Frances Pierrepont, daughter of
Charles Pierrepont, 2nd Earl Manvers Charles Herbert Pierrepont, 2nd Earl Manvers (11 August 1778 – 27 October 1860) was an English nobleman and naval officer, the second son of Charles Pierrepont, 1st Earl Manvers. Naval career Pierrepont entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman ...
. He was educated at
Rugby School Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. Up ...
and matriculated in 1873
Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corpus Christi College (formally, Corpus Christi College in the University of Oxford; informally abbreviated as Corpus or CCC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1517, it is the 12th ...
, where he gained a First Class degree in '' literae humaniores'' in 1876, graduating B.A. and M.A. in 1881. In 1880 he was
called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
at the
Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...
and worked on the North Wales and Chester Circuit.‘Mr. H. E. Egerton’, ''The Times'' (23 May 1927), p. 19. In 1885 Egerton was appointed assistant private secretary to
Edward Stanhope Edward Stanhope PC (24 September 1840 – 21 December 1893) was a British Conservative Party politician who was Secretary of State for War from 1887 to 1892. Background and education Born in London, Stanhope was the second son of Philip Stanh ...
, who became
Secretary of State for the Colonies The secretary of state for the colonies or colonial secretary was the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, British Cabinet government minister, minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various British Empire, colonial dependencies. Histor ...
in 1886. Stanhope appointed Egerton to the managing committee of the Emigrants Information Office and one of its tasks was to write a handbook on Britain's colonies, to which Egerton contributed. In 1905 Egerton became the first Beit Professor of Colonial History at Oxford, a position which he held until 1920. He was also appointed a Fellow of
All Souls College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...
, in 1905.


Works

In 1900 Egerton published a biography of
Stamford Raffles Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...
and he edited a collection of Sir William Molesworth's speeches in 1903. He contributed to ''
The Cambridge Modern History ''The Cambridge Modern History'' is a comprehensive modern history of the world, beginning with the 15th century Age of Discovery, published by the Cambridge University Press in England and also in the United States. The first series, planned b ...
''. Other works were: *''A short history of British colonial policy'' (1897). It became a standard work and reached a sixth edition by 1920. It was the first comprehensive survey of British colonial history in relation to the political ideas that had shaped it. *''The origin and growth of greater Britain; an introduction to Sir C. P. Lucas's Historical geography'' (1903). *''Federations and unions within the British Empire'' (1911). *(editor), ''The Royal Commission on the Losses and Services of American Loyalists, 1783-1785'' (1915). *''British foreign policy in Europe to the end of the 19th century; a rough outline'' (1917). *''British colonial policy in the XXth century'' (1922). *''The causes and character of the American revolution'' (1923) In the pamphlet ''Is the British Empire the Result of Wholesale Robbery'', Egerton said the answer was no, arguing that it was "false" to suggest that "our empire took its rise in violence." He argued that the British engaged in "peaceful occupation of, apparently, vacant lands" and that trouble arose from nearby aboriginals. He defended British Empire on the basis of a
civilizing mission The civilizing mission ( es, misión civilizadora; pt, Missão civilizadora; french: Mission civilisatrice) is a political rationale for military intervention and for colonization purporting to facilitate the Westernization of indigenous pe ...
, arguing that the British had no choice but to bring Asians and Africans into contact with European civilization for the betterment of the natives.


Family

In 1886 Egerton married Margaret Trotter, sister of Coutts Trotter. They had one son and two daughters.
Lucas Malet Lucas Malet was the pseudonym of Mary St Leger Kingsley (4 June 1852 — 27 October 1931), a Victorian novelist. Of her novels, ''The Wages of Sin'' (1891) and ''The History of Sir Richard Calmady'' (1901) were especially popular. Malet scholar T ...
was a family friend, and stayed with the Egertons at Mountfield Court in
Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
in 1899. Mountfield Court had been left with a lifetime to his mother by his father, who died in 1869: she died in 1905. It then passed to his elder brother Charles Augustus Egerton (1846–1912), a barrister.


Notes


Further reading

*Richard Symonds, ''Oxford and Empire: The Last Lost Cause?'' (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1986). {{DEFAULTSORT:Egerton, Hugh 1855 births 1927 deaths People educated at Rugby School Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Beit Professors of Commonwealth History Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford British historians