# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Gorst, John Eldon

​GORST, Sir JOHN ELDON (1835–1916), lawyer and politician, was born at Preston 24 May 1835. He was the second son of Edward Chaddock Gorst, who took the name of Lowndes on succeeding to some family property in 1853. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of John Douthwaite Nesham, of Houghton-le-Spring, Durham. Gorst was educated at Preston grammar school and matriculated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1858, He was third wrangler in 1857 and in the same year was elected a fellow of his college (1857–1860). He became an honorary fellow in 1890. He chose the bar as his profession, but after a few months of legal study took a mastership at Rossall School in order to be near his father, who was seriously ill. Mr. Lowndes died in 1859, and Gorst, instead of returning to London, determined to try his fortune in the Colonies. During a three months’ voyage in a sailing ship to New Zealand, he became engaged to Miss Mary Elizabeth Moore, daughter of the Rev. Lorenzo Moore, of Christchurch, New Zealand. They were married in Australia in 1860, and arrived in the North Island of New Zealand in the summer of that year.
Almost immediately Gorst became involved in New Zealand politics. The British government was then engaged in a land dispute with the Maoris of the Waikato district, and since these were of the party which followed the Maori king, a nationalist rebellion was imminent. Gorst made friends among the native chiefs, and also won the confidence of the British and Colonial authorities. Some letters which he wrote to the New Zealander, deprecating the use of force to crush a weaker race, made a considerable impression in the colony, and he was shortly afterwards used as an intermediary between the government and the recalcitrant chiefs. In 1861 he was appointed inspector of native and missionary schools in Waikato, a position which he was expected to combine with that of semi-official intelligence officer. In the following year the governor, Sir George Grey [q.v.], who was experimenting with reformed institutions in the hope of averting a serious conflict, made Gorst his civil commissioner for the Waikato district. He held the position for a year, towards the end of which he edited a newspaper, the Pitroihoi Mokemoke, which was intended to counteract Maori propaganda. The new methods of government failed, the journal excited the active hostility of the Maoris, and in March 1863, shortly before the outbreak of rebellion on a large scale, the rebels raided the printing office and carried off the press and type. Gorst was ordered to withdraw, and he and his family narrowly escaped with their lives.
His appetite for adventure satisfied, ​Gorst returned to England, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1865. He stood unsuccessfully as conservative candidate for Hastings in the same year. In 1866 he was returned for the borough of Cambridge, and during the next two years attracted the notice of Mr. Disraeli as an active and independent member. After losing his seat in 1868 he was asked to undertake the reorganization of the conservative party machinery on a popular basis. He devoted the next five years to this work, without salary, and the conservative victory of 1874 was largely attributable to his efforts. He expected office in the conservative administration of that year, but was disappointed, and his relations with the party leaders, with the exception of Disraeli, were henceforth somewhat strained. He re-entered parliament in 1875 as member for Chatham, and took silk in the same year. During the next few years he consolidated his reputation as a lawyer of note.
In the parliament of 1880 Gorst found a congenial associate in Lord Randolph Churchill who, like himself, was of democratic sympathies and naturally restive under official leadership. Originally united by the endeavour to use the Bradlaugh incident to embarrass Mr. Gladstone’s government, Churchill and Gorst, with their allies, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff [q.v.] and Mr. Arthur (afterwards Earl of) Balfour, soon became, as the ‘fourth party’, the most effective section of the opposition. Gorst was a resourceful and persistent critic of the government, and his efforts and those of the ‘party’, met with a certain measure of encouragement from Lord Beaconsfield. His alliance with Lord Randolph Churchill, though chequered by differences over the Coercion Bill of 1881 and over the leadership of the conservative party, lasted for four years. As vice-chairman of the National Union of Conservative Associations he was a useful lieutenant in Churchill’s fight for the party machine. When, however, control of the Union was secured in 1884, Lord Randolph made terms with Lord Salisbury without consulting Gorst, and the breach thus caused was widened by a public difference of opinion over the Franchise Bill of the same year.
On taking office in 1885, Lord Randolph Churchill obtained for Gorst the post of solicitor-general, which carried with it a knighthood. The same post was offered to him on the reconstruction of the government in the next year, but only till such time as a suitable judgeship should fall vacant. He declined the office on these terms, and was appointed under-secretary of state for India (1886). In 1890 he acted as British plenipotentiary at a labour conference in Berlin. From 1891 to 1892 he was financial secretary to the Treasury, and in 1895 he became the last vice-president of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education. Though disappointed that he had not reached higher office, Gorst was genuinely interested in education, and his zeal for social reform increased with age. He retired in 1902 with a pension of £1,200 a year, retaining his seat in the House. Mr. Chamberlain’s fiscal campaign led to his final breach with the conservative party. He declared himself a free trader, and at the 1906 election was rejected by Cambridge University, which he had represented since 1892. Shortly after the election he resigned his trusteeship of the Primrose League, of which he had been one of the original founders.
The rest of Gorst’s public life was devoted to speaking and writing on education, and on health, particularly the health of children. His book, The Children of the Nation (1906), was dedicated to the labour members of the House of Commons. In 1909 he relinquished his pension and was adopted as liberal candidate for Preston. His defeat in 1910 marked the end of his public career. That it was less successful than might have been expected from his energy and ability was probably due to the fact that he could not attach himself whole-heartedly to any political party. Gorst died in London 4 April 1916, and was buried at Castle Combe, Wiltshire. His first wife, by whom he had two sons and six daughters, died in 1914; he married in 1915 Ethel, daughter of Edward Johnson. His eldest son, Sir John Eldon Gorst, K.C.B. [q.v.], was British agent and consul-general in Egypt from 1907 to his death in 1911.
[The Times, 5 April 1916; Sir John E. Gorst, New Zealand Revisited, 1908; Harold E. Gorst(son), The Fourth Party, 1906; private information.]
M. C.