Evelyn Ashley

Anthony Evelyn Melbourne Ashley ( born July 24, 1836 in London, † November 15, 1907 in Country House Broadlands in Romsey, Hampshire ) was a British writer and politician.

Origin and life

Ashley, the younger son of Lord Shaftesbury and brother of Anthony Ashley -Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury, attended school in Harrow and studied at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1858. In 1863 he became solicitor in London, and from 1863 to 1874, he served as treasurer of the county courts of Dorset. In 1874 he applied unsuccessfully for a seat in Parliament for the Isle of Wight, but was still elected in May of the year for Poole and belonged to the House of Commons since 1880 for Wight. He joined the Liberal Party, was founded in April 1880 parliamentary secretary of the Commercial Office and in the May 1882 parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office. In 1891 he was appointed Privy Councillor.

For long-time Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, he had a close relationship and for a time was his private secretary. Mid-19th century Palmerston sold him his country seat Broadlands near Romsey in Southampton. As a writer Ashley published a major biography of Palmerston ( Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, London 1876, 2 vols ).

Family and descendants

Ashley married in 1866 Sybella Farquhar. After her death in 1886 he married Lady Alice Cole, the daughter of William Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen. From the first marriage came his son Wilfrid (1867-1939), who belonged from 1924 to 1929 the British government as Minister of Transport and was raised in 1932 as Baron Mount Temple to the peerage. Lord Mount Temple married in 1901 Amalia Mary Maud Cassel, a daughter of the banker Ernest Cassel, and had with her daughters Edwina and Ruth.