Drummond Wolff

Sir Henry Drummond Charles Wolff (12 October 1830 – 11 October 1908), known as Henry Drummond Wolff, was an English diplomat and Conservative Party politician, who started as a clerk in the Foreign Office.

Background

Wolff was born in Malta, the son of Joseph Wolff and Lady Georgiana Mary Walpole, daughter of Horatio Walpole, 2nd Earl of Orford. His father was a missionary who had converted from Judaism to Catholicism and then Anglicanism, and his mother was the niece of Prime Minister Robert Walpole.

Wolff was educated at Rugby School.

Political and diplomatic career

Wolff sat in parliament for Christchurch from 1874 to 1880 and for Portsmouth from 1880 to 1885. Whilst MP for Christchurch he lived in Boscombe, where he developed the Boscombe Spa estate, and he played an active role in the public life of Bournemouth. In 1870 he presented Bournemouth Rowing Club with a four-oared racing boat. He was one of the group known as the Fourth Party.

In 1885 he went on a special mission to Constantinople and Egypt in connection with the Eastern Question, and as a result various awkward difficulties, hinging on the Sultan's suzerainty, were addressed. Wolff negotiated a settlement whereby Britain and Turkey would each appoint a commissioner to Egypt to help the khedive's government conduct reforms of the army and the government. Wolff then assumed the role of British high commissioner in Egypt from 1885 to 1887. He was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Teheran in 1888, a post he held until 1891, and was then Ambassador to Madrid from 1892 to 1900. While serving in Spain, he would assist Ambassador Taylor, of the United States, in out maneuvering Foreign Minister O'Donnell.

Wolff was a notable raconteur and aided the Conservative Party by helping to found the Primrose League. He was appointed a Order of St Michael and St George, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1862 for various services abroad. He was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in 1878 and made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1889.

As the British Minister of Iran, he assisted Antoine Kitabgi Khan, the Director General of Persian Customs, in the negotiations that led Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, Nasir al-Din Shah to grant a concession of full monopoly over Iran's tobacco industry to Major G. F. Talbot (20 March 1890). This concession resulted in the Tobacco Protest of 1891 and is generally considered to mark the beginning of social unrest and clear Islamic clerical influence leading up to the Persian Constitutional Revolution in 1905.

In 1901, as Kitabgi Khan was looking in Europe for capitalists who might be interested in investing in oil prospection in Iran, Wolff introduced him to Englishman William Knox D'Arcy, who had made a fortune in gold mines in Australia. On 28 May 1901, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah granted D'Arcy the first oil concession in Iran that later gave birth to BP, British Petroleum. The deed of concession stipulated that Wolff would have 10% of the profits resulting from the venture.Davoudi Leonardo, "Petroleum and the British Empire: From the D'Arcy Concession to the First World War. PhD Thesis, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, 2017.

Personal life

Wolff's only daughter, Lucas Cleeve, was a novelist. Her son Algernon Kingscote was a notable tennis player. Wolff's grandson Henry Maxence Cavendish Drummond Wolff was briefly the Conservative Member of Parliament for Basingstoke (UK Parliament constituency), Basingstoke.

He died at Brighton, one day before his 78th birthday.

In popular culture

Wolff was portrayed by Charles Lloyd-Pack in the 1974 Thames TV mini-series ''Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill''.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Henry Drummond
1830 births
1908 deaths
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
UK MPs 1874–1880
UK MPs 1880–1885
People from Boscombe
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
British people of German-Jewish descent
Jewish British politicians
Ambassadors of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to Spain