# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/McNeill, John (1795-1883)

​McNEILL, Sir JOHN (1795–1883), diplomatist, born at Colonsay in 1795, was third of the six sons of John McNeill of Colonsay and his wife, Hester MacNeill of Dunmore, and brother of Duncan McNeill, lord Colonsay [q. v.] He studied medicine at Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. at the age of nineteen. On 6 Sept. 1816 he was appointed assistant-surgeon on the East India Company's Bombay establishment; became surgeon 1 May 1824; and retired from the medical service 4 June 1836. He was attached to the field force under Colonel East in Cutch and Okamundel in 1818-19; was afterwards deputy medical storekeeper at the presidency; and from 1824 to 1835 was attached to the East India Company's legation in Persia, at first in medical charge, and latterly as political assistant to the envoy, in which post he displayed great ability. On 30 June 1835 he was appointed secretary of the special embassy sent to Teheran under Henry (afterwards Sir Henry) Ellis, to congratulate Mohammed Shah on his accession to the Persian throne. The charge of the mission was transferred at the same time from the East India Company to the foreign office. McNeill received permission to wear the Persian decoration of the Sun and Lion of the first class, and on his return home in the spring of 1836 published a startling pamphlet, 'Progress and Present Positions of Russia in the East,' London, 1836, in which he sketched the history, and urged the dangers of Russian aggression in Asia.
On 9 Feb. 1836 he was appointed minister plenipotentiary, and on 25 May following envoy and minister plenipotentiary to the shah. The arguments of McNeill and his predecessor in the interests of peace with Afghanistan were overruled by the Persian war party, and at the end of the summer of 1836 Mohammed Shah set out to chastise the Turcomans, but with the ultimate object of attacking Herat. No progress was made that year, and the Persian troops returned to Teheran, to renew operations in the spring. McNeill, who appears at first to have thought that the shah had justice on his side, repeated his efforts in the cause of peace, in which he was ostensibly supported by the Russian envoy, Count Simonich. The shah, however, set out again the next summer, and in November 1837 commenced the siege of Herat, which lasted ten months. On 6 April 1838 McNeill joined the Persian camp, and in interviews with the shah and with the Afghans shut up in Herat did all he could to bring about a reasonable understanding. His efforts were met with evasion and latent hostility, manifest in the seizure by the Persians of a courier bearing British official despatches to Teheran. After remonstrances, McNeill quitted the Persian camp on 7 June 1838. The Russian envoy, who had appeared among the besiegers' tents about the same time as his British colleague, then renewed his aggressive counsels, and within a fortnight an attack, planned, it was said, by Simonich himself, was made on Herat, the Persian columns assaulted at five points, and would have carried the day but for the pluck and energy of Eldred Pottinger, a young officer of the Bombay artillery, who was with the besieged garrison. The Afghans, however, were much disheartened, until the appearance in August of Colonel Stoddart with threats of British interference unless the siege were raised. On 9 Sept. 1838 Stoddart was able to report to McNeill that 'the Shah had mounted his horse and ridden away,' and the memorable siege of Herat came to an end. The natural sequence was the British attempt to consolidate power in Afghanistan and the first Afghan war.
Difficulties with which McNeill was more closely connected ensued in Persia. The British government demanded the cession of places like Ghurian, &c., which the Persians had seized, and reparation for the violence offered to the British courier. The shah, in ill-temper at his failure, deferred compliance. McNeill sent an ultimatum, and having received no satisfactory reply at the end of the time appointed, ordered the British drill-instructors lent to the Persian army to proceed to Baghdad and withdraw with the legation to Erzeroum (Arzroum). A special envoy was sent from Persia to London to make representations against McNeill, and efforts were made to interest the cabinets of Europe on behalf of Persia. The Persian envoy obtained an interview with the foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, who in July 1839 furnished him with a fuller statement of the demands of Great Britain. Approval of McNeill's conduct was signified by his being created a G.C.B. (civil division). Further ​delays ensued; but eventually the stipulated engagements were not only accepted but fulfilled by Persia. In 1841 a new mission under McNeill was cordially received in Teheran; and on 11 Oct. that year a treaty of commerce was concluded between Great Britain and Persia (see Ann. Reg. 1841). On 15 Aug. 1842 McNeill was relieved at Teheran by Colonel (afterwards Sir) Justin Shiel, and returned home. His correspondence during the period of 1836–9 was published as a blue book, entitled 'Foreign Office Correspondence relating to Persia and Afghanistan,' 1839 (cf. Quart. Rev. lx. 162–78).
In 1845 McNeill was appointed chairman of the board of supervision entrusted with the working of the new Scottish Poor Law Act of 1845, a post he occupied for thirty-three years. During the potato famine, which was nearly as disastrous in the Western highlands as in Ireland, he conducted a special inquiry into the condition of the Western highlands and islands, during which he personally inspected twenty-seven of the most distressed parishes. His report to the board of supervision will be found in 'Accounts and Papers,' 1851, xxvi. 829 et seq. (cf. ib. xc. 162 et seq.) At the outbreak of the war with Russia, McNeill published revised editions in French and English of his pamphlet on the 'Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East,' with supplementary chapters dealing with the progress of events since 1836, and insisting on the importance to England and to Christendom of the autonomy of Turkey and Persia. At the beginning of 1855, when the Crimean disasters had roused public indignation, McNeill and Colonel (afterwards Sir) Alexander Murray Tulloch, an officer of great administrative experience at the war office, were sent to the Crimea with instructions to report on the whole arrangements and management of the commissariat department and the method of keeping accounts, and also the causes of the delays in unshipping and distributing clothing and other stores sent to Balaklava.
The commissioners started at once for the seat of war. They took no shorthand writer with them, as the remuneration sanctioned by the treasury was insufficient to secure a qualified person (McNeill in Tulloch's Crimean Commission, ed. 1880, p. 72). In the face of many difficulties they collected much valuable information; they pointed out impartially that the delays in the distribution of stores at Balaklava were due to the want of a road from the base to the camp, but that no labour could be spared for the construction of such a road; and they prepared statistical tables illustrative of the sickness and mortality in the army. Their final report was signed in London in January 1856, and at once laid before parliament. It forms vol. xx., with appendices, of 'Accounts and Papers,' 1856. Some of the remarks in the report were resented in military quarters, and a board of general officers was directed to assemble at Chelsea, as Lord Panmure stated, 'to allow the officers adverted to in the report to have an opportunity of defending themselves.' The board exonerated the Crimean general and departmental staff from blame [see under Airby, Richard, Lord Airby], and the verdict was accepted by the public as a just one. McNeill kept entirely aloof from the inquiry. In a vigorously written preface to the posthumous edition of Sir A. M. Tulloch's 'Crimean Commission,' written a quarter of a century later, and shortly before his own death, McNeill explained some of the difficulties with which he and his colleague had to contend, and administered a not unmerited rebuke to the 'levity,' which long after, 'in the face of the appalling statistics of disease and mortality annexed to that honest and able review, and the indisputable facts it set forth,' would refer 'the fatal privations so heroically endured by the troops to so ludicrously inadequate a cause as a deficiency of pressed hay from England' (McNeill, Preface to Tulloch; cf. Kinglake, 6th ed. vol. vii. chap, v.) The Chelsea report was sent in in the summer of 1856; in the spring of 1857 the Crimean commissioners were still unrewarded. When Questioned on the subject in parliament on 2 March 1857 Palmerston replied that 'the crown had done all that it could properly be advised to do,' but the house forthwith passed a resolution praying the throne to confer some special honours on McNeill and Tulloch. Shortly afterwards McNeill was made a privy councillor and Tulloch a K.C.B. The university of Oxford created McNeill a D.C.L., and the university of Edinburgh chose him as honorary chairman of the amalgamated societies of the university the same year. His inaugural address to the latter, on some evils of secrecy in competitive examinations for public appointments, was afterwards published in pamphlet form (Edinburgh, 1861).
McNeill retained the chairmanship of the board of supervision until 1868. He was a F.R.S.Edinburgh, and was the last survivor of the original members of the Royal Asiatic Society, with which he was associated for over sixty years. He died at Cannes, 17 May 1883, at the age of eighty-eight. McNeill married, first, in 1814, Innes, fourth daughter of George Robinson of Clermiston, Midlothian—she died in 1816; secondly, in 1823, Eliza, third ​daughter of John Wilson—she died in 1868; thirdly, in 1871, the Lady Emma Augusta Campbell, daughter of John, seventh duke of Argyll. He left issue.
A bust by Sir John Steell is in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
[Anderson's Scottish Nation, vol. III.; Dod's Knightage, 1882; Alison's Europe, vi. 570, vii. 155; Papers relating to Persia in Accounts and Papers, 1835, 1839, 1841, 1846; Quart. Rev. vol. lx.; Kaye's Afghan War, London, 1852, vol. i.; Sir J. Goldsmid in art. 'Persia' in Encycl. Brit. 9th ed.; Parl. Papers, Accounts and Papers, 1851, vol. xxvi.; Quart. Rev. vol. xc, cviii. 569; Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea, 6th ed. vol. vii. passim; Sir A. M. Tulloch's Crimean Commission, ed. 1880, with Preface by McNeill; Crimean Reports in Parl. Papers, 1856–8; Parl. Debates, 1857, cxliv. 2214, 2546; McNeill's Pamphlets; Illustr. London News, 27 Nov. 1883 (will, personalty in England and Scotland 58,000l.)]
H. M. C.