Charles Clive Bigham, 2nd Viscount Mersey, (18 August 1872 – 20 November 1956) was a British peer and Liberal politician.

Biography

The son of

John Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey John Charles Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey, (3 August 1840 – 3 September 1929) was a British jurist and politician. After early success as a lawyer and a less successful spell as a politician, he was appointed a judge and worked in commercial l ...

, Bigham was educated at

Cheam School Cheam School is a mixed preparatory school located in Headley, in the civil parish of Ashford Hill with Headley in Hampshire. Originally a boys school, Cheam was founded in 1645 by George Aldrich. History The school started in Cheam, Surre ...

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

(where he was a

King's Scholar A King's Scholar, abbreviated KS in the United Kingdom, is the recipient of a scholarship from a foundation created by, or under the auspices of, a British monarch. The scholarships are awarded at certain Public school (United Kingdom), public ...

) and Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the

Grenadier Guards The Grenadier Guards (GREN GDS) is the most senior infantry regiment of the British Army, being at the top of the Infantry Order of Precedence. It can trace its lineage back to 1656 when Lord Wentworth's Regiment was raised in Bruges to protect ...

in 1892. Finding soldiering uncongenial, he joined the reserves and travelled to the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Russia, China, and the Balkans, holding appointments as honorary

attaché In diplomacy, an attaché () is a person who is assigned ("to be attached") to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Although a loanword from French, in English the word is not modified ac ...

to various British embassies along the way. In 1897 he became special correspondent to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' during the Greco-Turkish War, following the

Ottoman Army The Military of the Ottoman Empire () was the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire. It was founded in 1299 and dissolved in 1922. Army The Military of the Ottoman Empire can be divided in five main periods. The foundation era covers the years ...

. At the end of the war he was appointed honorary

to the British embassy at Constantinople at the request of Sir Philip Currie, in order to act as British representative on the International Repatriation Commission for displaced Greek peasants in Thessaly. In 1899, he was transferred to the Peking embassy, and joined the Russian Army on campaign in Manchuria during the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...

. In 1900, he served as intelligence office to Admiral Sir Edward Seymour during the abortive Seymour Expedition, for which he was

mentioned in dispatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face of t ...

. For his service in China he was appointed CMG. He contested Windsor for the Liberals in the 1906 general election, but narrowly lost. He was Deputy Speaker of the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

from 1933 and served as Liberal Chief Whip in the

from 1944 to 1949. In 1946 he was sworn of the Privy Council. Mersey died on 20 November 1956 and was succeeded in his peerages by his son Edward Clive Bigham, 3rd Viscount Mersey.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mersey, Clive Bigham, 2nd Viscount Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Liberal Party (UK) hereditary peers 1872 births 1956 deaths Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Grenadier Guards officers British diplomats Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Liberal Party (UK) parliamentary candidates British writers