# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Mowatt, Francis

​MOWATT, Sir FRANCIS (1837–1919), civil servant, the only son of Francis Mowatt, M.P. for Falmouth (1847–1852) and for Cambridge (1854–1857), by his wife, Sarah Sophia, daughter of Captain Barnes, of Romford, Essex, of the East India Company's marine service, was born in New South Wales 27 April 1837. He went to Harrow in September 1851 and left at Easter 1853, going afterwards to Winchester. He entered at St. John's College, Oxford, in March 1855, but left the next year on being appointed to a clerkship in the Treasury (May 1856). The whole of Mowatt's active life was passed in this department, in which he served for forty-seven years. He was appointed assistant secretary in 1888, and was permanent secretary, in succession to Lord Welby, from 1894 to 1903. The latter post can never be a popular one; but a keen sense of humour, a genial cynicism, unfailing good temper, and a sagacious appreciation of what was feasible, enabled him to accomplish much useful work. At no time, probably, had Treasury control been asserted and carried into effect with so little friction as during Mowatt's tenure of the office; and he undoubtedly raised the reputation of his department for promptness and efficiency.
In January 1900, at the opening of the parliamentary session, a somewhat ill-considered attack on the constitutional position of the Treasury was made by Lord Salisbury, then prime minister and foreign secretary. Referring to the preparations made by the government in view of the South African War, he observed that the British constitution as then worked was not a good fighting machine, and that the Treasury in particular exercised a power of control over the other departments which was not for the public benefit. As he expressly stated that he made no complaint against the chancellor of the exchequer of the time (Sir Michael Hicks Beach, afterwards Earl St. Aldwyn), Mowatt was led to infer that Lord Salisbury must have intended to censure the permanent staff of the department; he therefore intimated his readiness to resign his post. Lord Salisbury thereupon made the following explanation in the House of Lords (1 February 1900): ‘There is now conveyed to me a letter from a most excellent public servant, Sir Francis Mowatt, who seems to think that, because I did not blame the chancellor of the exchequer, I must have meant to blame him. Nothing was further from my mind. I was blaming a system which has been the result of causes which have lasted for a considerable time, and which affect no individuals whatever; and in speaking of the action of the chancellor of the exchequer I include the action of those who are acting under him in his own office. The impression of Sir Francis Mowatt is entirely unfounded, and though my personal acquaintance is not very great, from everything I have heard the public service does not contain a more admirable minister of the public welfare than himself.’
Mowatt's services were frequently required for royal commissions and committees. One of the most important of the latter was appointed early in the South African War to consider the deficiencies which had already become apparent in the supply of military equipment and stores. The committee, of which Mowatt was chairman, reported in March 1900, and laid down for the future a definite scale of reserves for guns, ammunition, clothing, and general stores. These became known as the ‘Mowatt reserves’, and the scales then adopted continued in force down to the outbreak of the European War. His political opinions were those of the old school of liberals. He was a strong free trader; and the vehemence with which he took part in the fiscal controversies of the year 1903 was understood at the time to be regarded by his political chiefs as rather inopportune.
Mowatt was made C.B. in 1884, K.C.B. in 1893, and G.C.B. in 1901, and he was sworn of the Privy Council in 1906. He was a member of the royal commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and for the Patriotic Fund. After his retirement from the Treasury he became an alderman of the London County Council, and a member of the senate of the university of London, and of the council of the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He was also a director of the Great Northern Railway (in which capacity he attended the International Railway Congress at Washington in 1906), and of the Indo-European Telegraph Company. He resided for some years at Patcham, near Brighton, and was a regular follower of the South Down hunt. Later on he moved to London, and died there 20 November 1919.
He married in 1863 Lucy (died 1896), daughter of Andreas Frerichs, of Thirlestane Hall, Cheltenham, and widow of Count Stenbock, of Kolk, Estonia, by whom he had a family of three sons and three daughters. He had four sisters, Mrs. Francis Douglas Grey, Mrs. James Gleig, Mrs. Vernon Lushington, and Mrs. William Latham.
[Personal knowledge. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1904.]
G. H. M.