# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Monson, Edmund John

​MONSON, Sir EDMUND JOHN, first baronet (1834–1909), diplomatist, born at Chart Lodge, Seal, near Sevenoaks, on 6 Oct. 1834, was third son of William John Monson, sixth Baron Monson, by his wife Eliza, youngest daughter of Edmund Larken. Educated first at a private school in the Isle of Wight, and then at Eton, he entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. with a first-class degree in law and modern history in 1855. Elected a fellow of All Souls College in 1858, and proceeding M.A. in the same year, he acted as examiner in modern languages for the Taylorian scholarship in 1868. He entered the diplomatic service in 1856, and on passing an examination was appointed attaché at Paris in July of that year. After a few months in Florence in 1858 he was retransferred to Paris, and thence to Washington, where for nearly five years he acted as private secretary to Lord Lyons [q. v.]. During that period Lyons was occupied with the critical questions which resulted from the outbreak of the American civil war. In 1863 Monson was removed to Hanover, and thence after a few months to Brussels. In 1865 he quitted the diplomatic service and sought election to parliament as member for Reigate in the liberal interest, but was unsuccessful, and remained unemployed till May 1869, when he became consul in the This appointment was intended as a stepping-stone to renewed diplomats employment, for which he was eminently fitted both by disposition and by training. In 1871 when the independent position to Hungary by the dual constitution was found to render the presence of a British agent at the Hungarian capital desirable. Monson was selected for the newly created post of consul-general at Buda-Pesth, the diplomatic nature of the appointment being subsequently emphasised by the additional rank of second secretary to the embassy at Vienna. In February 1876, when it grew evident that Servia and Montenegro were in danger of being driven into active hostilities against Turkey in aid of the insurgents in Servia and Herzagovina, it was deemed prudent to have a British representative at the Hontenegrin capital, and Monson was sent on a special mission to Cettigne. He remained there, though suffering severely in health, during the war of the Servians and Montenegrins with the Turks which broke out in following, through the subsequent medition by Great Britain for the purpose of procuring an armistice, and the deliberations of the conference at Constantinople. The declaration of war by Russia against Turkey, in April 1877, rendered his presence at Cettigne no longer necessary, and he returned to Buda-Pesth, being made C.B. in January 1878. In June 1879 he was appointed minister resident in Uruguay, and five years later was promoted to the rank of envoy at Buenos Ayres. At the close of 1884 he was transferred to Copenhagen, and in February 1888 to Athens, becoming in 1886 K.C.M.G. Before he left Denmark, the Danish and United States governments bore testimony to their 'entire confidence' in his learning, ability, and impartiality by selecting him as arbitrator on the claims of the American firm of Butterfield & Co. against the Danish government on account of the treatment of two of their vessels by the Danish authorities of the island of St. Thomas in 1854 and 1855. This case had been a subject of diplomatic controversy for over thirty years. It was settled in the Danish government's favour by Monson's award, delivered in January 1900. In 1898 ha was transferred to Brussels and was made G.C.M.G. Next year he was promoted to be ambassador at Vienna and was sworn a privy councillor. After three years' residence at the Austrian capital be was transferred to Paris in October 1896, having a few months ​previously been made G.C.B. In his new post he was called upon to deal with numerous embarrassing disputes arising out of conflicting colonial claims and interests. The themes included the rights of fishery enjoyed by the French in the waters and on the coast of Newfoundland, the exercise of jurisdiction in the New Hebrides, and questions of boundary and spheres of influence in East and West Africa. Monson, calm and judicial by temperament, and grave and courteous in manner, avoided unnecessary irritation, and was personally much liked by the French ministers and officials with whom he was brought in contact. In June 1898 he signed a convention for the delimitation of the possessions and spheres of influence of the two countries in the region of the Niger. Later in the same year Lord Kitchener in his progress up the Nile, after the final defeat of the Dervishes at Omdurman, discovered that a French exploring party from the Congo under Captain Marchand had established themselves on the bank of the river at Fashoda and there hoisted the tricolor, which Captain Marchand refused to lower except on instructions from home. An acute controversy ensued, which at one time seemed likely to lead to very serious results. More moderate counsels, however, prevailed. Captain Marchand's party was withdrawn, and in March 1899 a declaration was signed in London defining the respective spheres of influence of the two countries in central Africa, which disposed of this subject of dispute. Monson's management of his share in the discussions was unexceptionable. But in December 1898, while the question was still awaiting final solution, he caused no little commotion by a speech delivered at the annual meeting of the British chamber of commerce in Paris, in which, after some frank comments on the novel methods recently practised in diplomacy, he expressed his conviction that neither in France nor in Great Britain was there any deep-rooted feeling of animosity against the other country, and made an earnest appeal to those in France who 'were directly or indirectly responsible for the national policy to abstain from the continuance of a policy of pin-pricks which, while it could only procure some ephemeral gratification to a short-lived ministry, must inevitably perpetuate across the Channel an irritation which a high-spirited nation must eventually feel to be intolerable.' It was naturally supposed by many that this utterance was the result of some instructions from home, but it may safely be asserted that to the British cabinet it came as unexpectedly as to the public at large. It had, however, no evil effects. The allusion to the brief duration of French ministries was made the subject of interpellation and attack in the French chamber of deputies, and it was a striking tribute to Monson's popularity that his defence was warmly and successfully undertaken by the French government, and that the incident in no degree affected his position. He remained at Paris till the end of 1904, and had the satisfaction of seeing a general settlement of the principal questions at issue between the two countries affected by the agreements signed in London in the spring of that year (8 April 1904). He had received the honorary degree of D.C.L. of Oxford University in 1898 and that of LL.D. of Cambridge in 1905, acted in 1900 as one of the British commissioners for the Paris exhibition of 1900, was made G.C.V.O. in 1903, and was created a baronet on his retirement (23 Feb. 1905), being granted also by King Edward VII as a personal favour the use of the 'Thatched House Lodge' in Richmond Park. He also received from the French government the grand cross of the legion of honour. After much ill-health he died in London on 28 Oct. 1909, and was buried in the family mausoleum adjoining South Carlton church near Lincoln.
Monson married in 1881 Eleanor Catherine Mary, daughter of Major Munro, who had held the office of British consul-general at Monte Video, and had by her three sons.
A portrait by the Hungarian artist, Beremy, was subscribed for by Monson's colleagues at Paris, but the painter became bankrupt and the picture disappeared.
[The Times, 30 Oct. 1909; Foreign Office List, 1910, p. 417; papers laid before Parliament.]
S.