Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
NameWilliam EDEN 1st Lord Auckland , 13268
Birth1745
Death1814
Notes for William EDEN 1st Lord Auckland
William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland PC (Ire), FRS (3 April 1745 – 28 May 1814) was a British statesman and diplomat. The subantarctic Auckland Islands group to the south of New Zealand, discovered in 1806, were named after him.

Background and education

A member of the influential Eden family, Auckland was a younger son of Sir Robert Eden, 3rd Baronet, of Windlestone Hall, County Durham, and Mary, daughter of William Davison. His brothers included Sir Robert Eden, 1st Baronet, of Maryland, Governor of Maryland, and Morton Eden, 1st Baron Henley. He was educated at Durham School, Eton and Christ Church, Oxford,[1] and was called to the bar, Middle Temple, in 1768.

Political career

In 1771 Auckland published Principles of Penal Law, and soon became a recognized authority on commercial and economic questions. In 1772 he took up an appointment as Under-Secretary of State for the North, a post he held until 1778. He was Member of Parliament for Woodstock from 1774 to 1784 and served as a Lord of Trade from 1776 to 1782. In 1778 he carried an Act for the improvement of the treatment of prisoners, and accompanied the Earl of Carlisle as a commissioner to North America on an unsuccessful mission to bring and end to the American War of Independence. On his return in 1779 he published his widely read Four Letters to the Earl of Carlisle. In 1780 Auckland became Chief Secretary for Ireland, which he remained until 1782, and was admitted to the Irish Privy Council in 1780. He represented Dungannon in the Irish House of Commons between 1781 and 1783 and was Joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland between 1783 and 1784. While in Ireland he established the National Bank.

Between 1784 and 1793 Auckland was Member of Parliament for Heytesbury. He was sworn of the British Privy Council in 1784 and served Envoy to France from 1785 to 1787 (on a mission dealing with commerce) and was Ambassador to Spain between 1787 and 1789 and Ambassador to the Netherlands between 1789 and 1793. In 1789 he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Auckland and in 1793 he was further honoured when he was made Baron Auckland, of West Auckland in the County of Durham, in the Peerage of Great Britain. He was later Joint Postmaster General from 1798 to 1804 and served under Lord Grenville as President of the Board of Trade in the Ministry of All the Talents between 1806 and 1807.

Family

Lord Auckland married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot, 3rd Baronet, and sister of Gilbert Eliott, 1st Earl of Minto, in 1776. They had six sons and eight daughters. Their eldest son the Hon. William Eden was Member of Parliament for Woodstock but committed suicide in 1810. His daughter Elizabeth Eden married Francis Osborne, 1st Baron Godolphin. Emily Eden his seventh daughter was a successful poet and novelist. Eleanor Agnes, the eldest daughter, became the subject of intense public interest in 1797 when it was rumoured that she was about to marry William Pitt the Younger, the Prime Minister; when the matter became public however Pitt denied absolutely that he had proposed to Eleanor, much to her father's fury.[2] In 1799 she married Robert Hobart, 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire. Lord Auckland died in May 1814 and was succeeded by his second but eldest surviving son, George, who was created Earl of Auckland in 1839. Lady Auckland died in May 1818.
Last Modified 1 Dec 2013Created 4 Mar 2023 using Reunion for Macintosh