Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Wemyss-Charteris-Douglas, Francis
WEMYSS-CHARTERIS-DOUGLAS, FRANCIS, tenth Earl of Wemyss and March (1818–1914), politician, the eldest son of Francis Wemyss-Charteris-Douglas, ninth Earl, by his wife, Lady Louisa Bingham, third daughter of Richard, second Earl of Lucan, was born in Edinburgh 4 August 1818. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, Eton, and Christ Church, Oxford, where John Ruskin was his contemporary. He graduated B.A. in 1841. In the same year he was returned to parliament in the conservative interest as member for East Gloucestershire, which he represented until January 1846, when he resigned his seat. In 1847 he re-entered the House of Commons, having been elected member for Haddingtonshire, for which constituency he continued to sit until he was called to the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1883. On the formation of the Earl of Aberdeen's ministry at the close of 1852 he was made a lord of the Treasury. He retired with the Peelites in 1855, when Lord Palmerston became prime minister, and did not subsequently hold office. From that time he acted independently, styling himself a liberal-conservative. In 1859 he supported the Earl of Derby's Reform Bill; later he opposed the reform proposals of Lord John Russell. On the introduction of the Franchise Bill of 1866 he joined Edward Horsman [q.v.], Robert Lowe (afterwards first Viscount Sherbrooke) [q.v.] and others in forming the ‘cave of Adullam’, and it was at his house that meetings of the ‘cave’ took place. Lord Elcho, as he was styled after the death of his grandfather in 1853, took an active part in the proceedings of the House. He introduced a Medical Practitioners Bill in 1854, and it was in great measure due to his exertions that the Act of 1858 creating the General Medical Council became law. On his proposal a committee was appointed to consider the law relating to master and servant, with the result that he carried through parliament an Act making a breach of contract on the part of a servant a civil, and no longer a criminal, offence (1867). He sat on the royal commission on Trades Unions in 1867. Elevation to the House of Lords did not diminish his interest in public affairs. The expression ‘cross-bench mind’ applied to him by Earl Granville (14 February 1884) was happily chosen, and his persistent opposition to the steady growth of state interference brought him into conflict with each administration in its turn. He was founder and, until the date of his death, chairman of the Liberty and Property Defence League, constituted in 1882 for the purpose of advocating individualism as opposed to socialism.
Lord Wemyss was extremely proficient in field sports, and was distinguished both as a painter in water-colours and as a sculptor. In 1856 he was largely instrumental in preventing the removal of the National Gallery to Kensington Gore. Throughout his career his wise counsel in matters of art and architecture was tendered to successive administrations, and by his watchfulness over the public buildings of London he rendered valuable service.
It is, however, on matters of military reform and national service that Lord Wemyss's claim to remembrance will mainly rest. His experience as a member of the Aberdeen ministry had brought home to him the deficiencies of the army. When in May 1859 the government authorized the formation of a corps of rifle volunteers, he threw himself enthusiastically into the movement and was one of those who helped to create the London Scottish regiment (originally the 15th Middlesex corps). As lieutenant-colonel of this regiment he was present at the first review in Hyde Park on 23 June 1860, when 19,000 volunteers paraded before Queen Victoria. He relinquished command of the regiment in 1879, and was made an aide-de-camp to the Queen in 1881. He was also ensign general of the Royal Society of Archers. He was a member of the royal commission of 1862 which resulted in the Volunteer Act of 1863. He presided over the meeting which inaugurated the National Rifle Association in 1859, was first chairman of the association (1859–1867), and held this office again in 1869–1870. He presented the association with the Elcho challenge shield to be competed for yearly by teams representative of England and Scotland (Ireland and Wales subsequently included), and was a regular attendant at the Wimbledon meetings of the association.
Lord Wemyss was a persistent advocate of the militia ballot. He was frankly critical of Mr. (afterwards Viscount) Cardwell's military reforms, and in 1871 printed a series of Letters on Military Organization. In 1907, when he had reached his ninetieth year, he vigorously protested in the House of Lords against the reforms of Mr. (afterwards Viscount) Haldane, and six years later in a letter to The Times (3 June 1913) he referred to the military system of the country as having been ‘fatuously destroyed several years ago’.
Lord Wemyss died in London 30 June 1914. He was twice married: first, in 1843 to Lady Anne Frederica Anson (died 1896), second daughter of Thomas William, first Earl of Lichfield; and secondly, in 1900 to Grace, daughter of Major James Blackburn, 85th regiment, and niece of Colin, Baron Blackburn [q.v.]. By his first wife he had six sons and three daughters, and he was succeeded as eleventh earl by his fourth and eldest surviving son, Hugo Richard (born 1857).
A charcoal-drawing of Lord Wemyss is in the possession of the Hon. Evan Charteris, K.C.
[The Times, 1 July 1914; A. P. Humphry and T. F. Fremantle, History of the National Rifle Association, 1859–1909, 1914.]