Up for auction the "1st Marquess of Ripon" George Robinson Clipped SignatureMounted . This item is certified authentic by Todd Mueller Autographs and comes with
their Certificate of Authenticity.
ES-5558E
George
Frederick Samuel Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon, KG, GCSI, CIE, VD, PC (24
October 1827 – 9 July 1909), styled Viscount Goderich from
1833 to 1859 and known as The Earl of Ripon in 1859 and
as The Earl de Grey and Ripon from 1859 to 1871, was a British
politician who served in every Liberal cabinet from
1861 until the year before his death, which took place forty-eight years later
in 1909. Ripon was born at 10 Downing Street, London, the second son of Prime Minister F. J.
Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich (who was created Earl of Ripon
in 1833), by his wife Lady Sarah Hobart, daughter of Robert
Hobart, 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire. He was educated privately,
attending neither school nor college.
He was awarded the honorary degree of DCL by Oxford University in 1870. Ripon served on Sir Henry
Ellis' British special mission to the Brussels Conference on the affairs of Italy during
1848–1849.[1] Although his father had been a Tory,
Ripon was first a Whig and
later a Liberal. He entered the House of Commons as
member for Hull in
1852. Both he and his party colleague, James Clay, (Hull was a two-seat
constituency) were unseated in 1853 by petition over claims of widespread
corruption in their election, of which they were exonerated of any knowledge. He
was returned for Huddersfield later
in 1853[5] and the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1857. In 1859 he succeeded
his father as second Earl of Ripon, taking his seat in the House of Lords, and later that year succeeded his uncle in the
more senior title of Earl de Grey, becoming known as the Earl de Grey and
Ripon. He was Under-Secretary of State
for War under Lord
Palmerston between 1859 and 1861 and 1861 and 1863 and
briefly Under-Secretary of State
for India in 1861. In 1863 he was made a Privy
Counsellor and Secretary of State for War under
Palmerston, with a seat in the cabinet. He retained this office when Lord Russell became
prime minister on Palmerston's death in 1865, and then served under Russell
as Secretary of State for
India between February and June 1866. In Gladstone's first
administration he was Lord President of the
Council (1868–1873). During this period he acted as chairman of
the joint commission for drawing up the Treaty of Washington with
the United States over
the Alabama Claims. For this,
in 1871 he was created Marquess of Ripon, in the County of York. He had already
been made a Knight of the Garter in
1869.[9] In 1878 he served as President of
the first day of the Co-operative Congress.