William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst

2021-05-11T01:48:20Z

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{{Short description|18th/19th-century British diplomat}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date= September 2015}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix = [[The Right Honourable]]
| name = The Earl Amherst
| honorific-suffix = [[Royal Guelphic Order|GCH]] [[Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council|PC]]
| image = Earl Amherst.JPG
| alt = Standing portrait of Lord Amherst, oil on canvas
| caption = Lord Amherst in the uniform of the St James's [Westminster] Loyal Volunteer Regiment. [[Arthur William Devis]], 1803.
| imagesize = 200px
| order1 = [[Governor-General of India|Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William]]
| term_start1 = 1 August 1823
| term_end1 = 13 March 1828
| monarch1 = [[George IV of the United Kingdom|George IV]]
| primeminister1 = {{Collapsible list|title=''See list''|[[Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool|The Earl of Liverpool]] |[[George Canning]] |[[F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich|The Viscount Goderich]] |[[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|The Duke of Wellington]]}}
| predecessor1 = [[John Adam (India)|John Adam]]<br>(Acting Governor-General)
| successor1 = [[William Butterworth Bayley]]<br>(Acting Governor-General)
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1773|1|14|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Bath, Somerset]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1857|3|13|1773|1|14|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Knole House]], Kent
| nationality = British
| party =
| alma_mater = [[Christ Church, Oxford]]
| spouse = {{Plainlist|
* {{Marriage |[[Sarah Amherst|Sarah Archer]] |1800|1838|end=d}}
* {{Marriage |Lady Mary Sackville |1839}}}}
}}

'''William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst''', [[Royal Guelphic Order|GCH]], [[Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council|PC]] (14 January 1773{{snd}}13 March 1857) was a British diplomat and colonial administrator. He was [[Governor-General of India]] between 1823 and 1828.

==Background and education==
Born at [[Bath, Somerset]], Amherst was the son of [[William Amherst (British Army officer)|William Amherst]] and Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Paterson. He was the grand-nephew of [[Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst]], and succeeded to his title in 1797 according to a special remainder in the [[letters patent]]. He was educated at [[Westminster School]] and [[Christ Church, Oxford]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Lundy |first=Darryl |url=http://www.thepeerage.com/p2803.htm#i28026thepeerage.com |title= Peerage.com |publisher= The Peerage}}{{Unreliable source?|failed=y |date=February 2013}}</ref>

==Ambassador extraordinary to China==
[[File:Sir Thomas Lawrence - Lord Amherst - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|Lord Amherst wearing the [[Robes of the British peerage|parliamentary robes]] of a baron.<br> Portrait by [[Thomas Lawrence]], 1821.]]
In 1816 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the court of China's [[Qing dynasty]], with a view of establishing more satisfactory commercial relations between China and Great Britain. On arriving at [[Hai River|Pei Ho]] (Baihe, today's Haihe), he was given to understand that he could only be admitted to the [[Jiaqing Emperor]]'s presence on condition of performing the [[kowtow]]. To this, Amherst, following the advice of [[Sir George Staunton, 2nd Baronet|Sir George Thomas Staunton]], who accompanied him as second commissioner, refused to consent, as [[George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney|Macartney]] had done in 1793, unless the admission was made that his sovereign was entitled to the same show of reverence from a [[mandarin (bureaucrat)|mandarin]] of his rank. In consequence of this, he was refused entry into [[Beijing|Peking]] (Beijing), and the object of his mission was frustrated.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

His ship, the [[HMS Alceste (1806)|''Alceste'']], after a cruise along the coast of [[Korea]] and to the [[Ryukyu Islands]] on proceeding homewards, was totally wrecked on a submerged rock in [[Gaspar Strait]]. Amherst and part of his shipwrecked companions escaped in the ship's boats to [[Jakarta|Batavia]], whence relief was sent to the rest. The ship in which he returned to England in 1817 touched at [[St Helena]] and, as a consequence, he had several interviews with the emperor [[Napoleon]] (see Ellis's ''Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China'', 1817; McLeod's Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. ''Alceste'', 1817).{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} There is undocumented speculation that in one of the interviews, Napoleon said, "China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep. For when she wakes, she will shake the world."<ref>Reported as "unverified" except for publication in ''The Mind of Napoleon'', ed. and trans. J. Christopher Herold (1955), p. 249. ''Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations'' (1989), [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Respectfully_Quoted/2Tu3bScwKKAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Mind+of+Napoleon,+ed.+and+trans.+J.+Christopher+Herold&pg=PA43&printsec=frontcover p. 43].</ref>

==Governor-General in India==
Amherst was [[Governor-General of India]] from August 1823 to February 1828. The principal events of his government were annexation of [[Assam]] leading to the [[first Burmese war]] of 1824, resulting in the cession of [[Rakhine State|Arakan]] and [[Tanintharyi Region|Tenasserim]] to the [[British Empire]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}<ref>Karl Marx, "War in Burma—The Russian Question—Curious Diplomatic Correspondence" contained in the ''Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 12'' (International Publishers: New York, 1979) p. 202.</ref>

Amherst's appointment came on the heels of the removal of Governor-General [[Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings|Lord Hastings]] in 1823. Hastings had clashed with London over the issue of lowering the field pay of officers in the Bengal Army, a measure that he was able to avoid through successive wars against [[Gurkha War|Nepal]] and the [[Third Anglo-Maratha War|Marathan Confederacy]]. However, his refusal in the early 1820s during peacetime to lower field pay, resulted in the appointment of Amherst, who was expected to carry out the demands from London.

However, Amherst was an inexperienced governor who was, at least in the early days of his tenure in Calcutta, influenced heavily by senior military officers in Bengal such as [[Edward Paget|Sir Edward Paget]]. He inherited a territorial dispute from [[John Adam (India)|John Adam]], the acting Governor-General prior to his arrival, which involved the Anglo-Burmese border on the Naaf River and this spilled over into violence on 24 September 1823. Unwilling to lose face in a time of Burmese territorial aggression, Amherst ordered the troops in.

The war was to last two years, with a price tag of 13 million pounds, contributing to an economic crisis in India. It was only due to the efforts of powerful friends such as [[George Canning]] and the [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Duke of Wellington]] that Amherst was not recalled in disgrace at the end of the war.

The war significantly changed Amherst's stance on Burma, and he now adamantly refused to annexe Lower Burma, but he did not succeed in repairing his reputation entirely, and he was replaced in 1828. He was created '''Earl Amherst''', of Arracan in the [[East Indies]], and '''Viscount Holmesdale''', in the County of Kent, in 1826. On his return to England he lived in retirement till his death in March 1857.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

==Family==
Lord Amherst married twice, and remarkably, both his wives were dowager countesses of Plymouth. His first wife was [[Sarah Amherst|Sarah, Dowager Countess of Plymouth]] (1762–1838), daughter of [[Andrew Archer, 2nd Baron Archer]] and widow of [[Other Windsor, 5th Earl of Plymouth]] (died 1799). She was more than ten years older than him, and the mother of several children. They were married in 1800 and were blessed with two sons as well as a daughter [[Sarah Elizabeth Hay-Williams|Lady Sarah Elizabeth Pitt Amherst]]. Sarah died in May 1838, aged 76, after about 38 years of marriage. [[Lady Amherst's pheasant]] was named after Sarah; it was at her instigation that the species was introduced from Asia to Bedfordshire. The genus ''[[Amherstia]]'', a Burmese flowering tree, is also named after her.

In 1839, a year after the death of his first wife, Lord Amherst, aged 66, married the widowed daughter-in-law of his first wife. This was Mary, Dowager Countess of Plymouth (1792–1864), elder daughter and co-heiress of [[John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset]], and widow of his stepson [[Other Windsor, 6th Earl of Plymouth]] (1789–1833). Although this was an unusual marriage, it was not forbidden by either Church law or civil law. His second wife had no children, from either of her marriages.

Lord Amherst died in March 1857, aged 84 at [[Knole House]] in [[Kent]], the seat of the Dukes of Dorset, a property which his second wife had inherited. He was survived by his second wife, Lady Amherst, heiress of [[Knole House|Knole]], who died in July 1864, aged 71.<ref>{{cite web |last=Lundy |first=Darryl |url=http://www.thepeerage.com/p2803.htm#i28026 |title=p. 2803 § 28026 |publisher= The Peerage}}{{Unreliable source?|failed=y |date=February 2013}}</ref> Lord Amherst was succeeded in his titles by his second and only surviving son, [[William Amherst, 2nd Earl Amherst|William]].

==See also==
* [[Barrackpore mutiny of 1824]]

==Notes==
{{More footnotes|date=May 2020}}
{{Reflist|2}}

==References==
{{DNB Poster|Amherst, William Pitt|William Pitt Amherst}}
*{{Cite ODNB|id=445|title=Amherst, William Pitt}}
*A. Thackeray and R. Evans, Amherst ([[Rulers of India series]]), 1894.
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Amherst, William Pitt Amherst, Earl|volume=1|page=852}}
* Webster, Anthony. (1998) ''Gentlemen Capitalists: British Imperialism in Southeast Asia'', Tauris Academic Studies, New York, {{ISBN|1-86064-171-7}}.

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
*{{UK National Archives ID}}

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{{succession box| before=[[Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst|Jeffrey Amherst]] | title=[[Earl Amherst|Baron Amherst]]| years=1797–1857| after=[[William Amherst, 2nd Earl Amherst|William Pitt Amherst]]}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Amherst, William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl}}
[[Category:1773 births]]
[[Category:1857 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to China]]
[[Category:British people of the First Anglo-Burmese War]]
[[Category:Diplomatic peers]]
[[Category:Earls in the Peerage of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Governors-General of India]]
[[Category:People educated at Westminster School, London]]
[[Category:People from Sevenoaks]]
[[Category:People from Bath, Somerset]]
[[Category:Peers of the United Kingdom created by George IV]]

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William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst