British diplomat and colonial governor (1752–1830)
This article is about the British diplomat born in 1752. For the present-day British diplomat, see Hugh Elliott (diplomat). For others named Hugh Elliot or Elliott, see Hugh Elliott.
After that, at the still young age of 18, Hugh Elliot took a commission in the Russian army as an officer, and fought in the campaign against the Turks in the Balkans. According to family papers, at one point Elliot was forced to swim in the Danube holding on to the tail of a horse ridden by a Cossack.
Diplomatic career
At 21, largely through his father's influence, he took up a diplomatic post as the British Minister Plenipotentiary to the Duchy of Bavaria. Four years later, he was named as the British ambassador to Frederick the Great in Prussia. He developed a reputation as a great social wit, but worked hard to defeat the entreaties of American diplomats during the American Revolutionary War (including, allegedly, at one point stealing the American dispatch box and copying its contents).
In Berlin he married his first wife, Charlotte von Kraut, but when she committed adultery he challenged her lover to a duel. He himself was wounded in the duel, but received a written apology from his protagonist. The scandal was to later haunt him during his career, and is most often cited as the reason why, despite an exceptional career in the diplomatic service, he never received the customary knighthood.
Elliot then served in Copenhagen 1782–1791, during which time his reputation soared as he was credited for stopping war between Sweden and Denmark, and for helping Gustav III reintroduce absolutism in Sweden. Shortly after arriving at Copenhagen, he heard reports of the continued infidelity of his wife, who had remained in Berlin with their daughter. He decided that he would not allow their child to stay with her mother, and managed to personally carry out an abduction of her from Berlin, and bring her back to Copenhagen with him.[2]
In 1792, Elliot was named as British ambassador to the Electorate of Saxony in Dresden. Shortly prior to that he married his second wife, Margaret Jones, who was 20 years his junior.
In 1803 Elliot was sent to Naples which was then the capital of the Kingdom of Naples, where he survived in tempestuous circumstances until his recall in 1806. After his recall, the family endured a period of considerable financial hardship when no postings were found for the diplomat for a period of three years but upon the death of Lord Lavington, Elliot was appointed to serve as Governor of the Leeward Islands in the British West Indies from 1809 to 1814.
It has been asserted in several publications that the ill-fated vessel Lady Elliot (and, afterwards, Lady Elliot Island in Queensland), had been named after Margaret Elliot,[8] but the ship was more likely named after Anna Maria Elliot, the wife of Hugh Elliot's brother, Gilbert, who was Governor-General of India between 1807 and 1813 and also 1st Earl of Minto. Hugh was not knighted or heir to any title of British nobility, and Margaret therefore had no title. Anna Maria (later Lady Elliot) was the daughter of Sir George Amyand, 1st Baronet.[9]
Death and legacy
Elliot died at his home in Somerset Street, London on 1 December 1830, shortly after retiring to bed, and was buried, with his brother, at Westminster Abbey[1]
^Chr. B. Reventlow (ed.), En Dansk Statsmands Hjem omkring Aar 1800, volume 1, Copenhagen, 1902, p. 80-81. The letters of countess Sophie Reventlow in Danish.
^The Quarterly Oriental Magazine, Review & Register , December 1825 issue records among deaths "At Calcutta on the 1st of January at the house of Richard Hunter, esq. in Chowringhee, Hugh Maximilian Elliot, esq. fourth son of the Right Honorable Hugh Elliot, late Governor of Fort William"
^Hayden, Albert A. "Thomas Frederick Elliot (1808–1880)". Thomas Frederick Elliot. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 5 December 2020. This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, (MUP), 1966{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
