Auckland, WILLIAM EDEN, LORD

Auckland, WILLIAM EDEN, LORD, statesman and diplomatist, third son of Sir Robert Eden, Bart., of West Auckland, Durham, was born in 1744, educated at Eton and Oxford, and called to the bar in 1768. In 1772 he was appointed Undersecretary of State, and afterwards filled the offices of Lord of Trade, commissioner to treat with the American insurgents, chief secretary to the Irish viceroy, minister-plenipotentiary to France (concluding a commercial treaty with that country, 1786), ambassador to Spain, ambassador to Holland, and postmaster-general. In 1788 he was raised to the Irish, in 1793 to the British, peerage as Baron Auckland. He died May 28, 1814. Besides Principles of the Penal Law (1771), we have his Journal and Correspondence (4 vols. 1860-62).—His son, GEORGE EDEN, EARL OF AUCKLAND, was born in 1784, and in 1814 succeeded as Lord Auckland. A steadfast supporter of Reform, he held two or three offices, and in 1835 was appointed governor-general of India. As such, in 1838, he plunged into the unhappy Afghan war, whose successful beginning procured him his earldom. Superseded in 1841, he returned to England, and died Jan. 1, 1849. See Life by Trotter (1895).