# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Sackville-West, Lionel Sackville

​SACKVILLE-WEST, Sir LIONEL SACKVILLE, second Baron Sackville of Knole (1827–1908), diplomatist, born at Bourn Hall, Cambridgeshire, on 19 July 1827, was fifth son of George John West, fifth Earl de la Warr, by his marriage with Lady Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of John Frederick Sackville, third duke of Dorset, and Baroness Buckhurst by creation in 1864. His elder brother Mortimer (1820–1888) was created Baron Sackville in 1876. Privately educated at home, Lionel served as assistant precis writer to the fourth earl of Aberdeen when secretary of state for foreign affairs in 1845, and after further employment in the foreign office was appointed attache to the British legation at Lisbon in July 1847. He was transferred successively to Naples (1848), Stuttgart (1852), Berlin (1853), was promoted to be secretary of legation at Turin 1858, and was transferred to Madrid in 1864. In November 1867 he became secretary of embassy at Berlin, and in June 1868 was transferred to Paris in the same capacity with the titular rank of minister plenipotentiary. He served under Lord Lyons [q. v.] throughout the exciting incidents of the Franco-German war, following him to Tours when the capital was invested by the German forces, and returning with him to Paris on the conclusion of peace. He was left in charge of the British embassy during the first weeks of the Commune, when the ambassador had accompanied the French ministry to Versailles. In September 1872 he was promoted to be British envoy at Buenos Ayres, but remained in charge of the embassy at Paris until 7 November and did not arrive at his new post until September 1873. In January 1878 he was transferred to Madrid, where he served for over three years, acting as the plenipotentiary of Great Britain and also of Denmark in the conference which was held in 1880 to define the rights of protection exercised by foreign legations and consulates in Morocco. In June 1881, shortly after the assassination of President Garfield, he was appointed to succeed Sir Edward Thornton [q. v. Suppl. II] as British envoy at Washington, and then entered upon the most eventful and, as it turned out, the final stage of his diplomatic career. The feeling in the United States towards Great Britain had improved since the settlement of outstanding questions provided for by the Treaty of Washington, in 1871, and the reception given to West was cordial. But he soon found that the influence in congress and in the press of the Irish Fenian party formed a serious bar to the satisfactory settlement of important questions. The measures taken by the British government for the protection of life and property in Ireland after the 'Phoenix Park murders' of 1882 caused intense excitement among sympathisers with the Fenian movement in the United States. The publication in the American press of incitements to murder and violence, and the arrests in the United Kingdom ​ of Irishmen, naturalised citizens of the United States, on a suspicion of crime, involved West in disagreeable correspondence between the two governments, and when some of those who had taken part in the Phoenix Park murders were traced and convicted, there were veiled threats against the British minister's life at the time of their execution. A trip in the president's yacht was deemed a wise precaution.
The discussion of various questions connected with Canada, especially the seizure by United States cruisers of Canadian vessels engaged in the pelagic seal fishery, and the measures taken by the Canadian government to protect their fishing rights in territorial waters against incursions by United States fishermen, occupied much of West's attention in succeeding years. In June 1885 he was made K.C.M.G. In 1887 he was called upon to discuss in conference with the United States secretary of state and the German minister the questions which had arisen in regard to the status of the Samoan Archipelago, but the negotiations did not result in an agreement, and the matter was left to be settled at Berlin in 1889. In October 1887 the English government decided to send out Mr. Joseph Chamberlain on a special mission for the purpose of negotiating jointly with West and Sir Charles Tupper (the Canadian high commissioner in England) a treaty for the settlement of the questions connected with the fishery rights in the seas adjacent to British North America and Newfoundland. A treaty was concluded on 15 Feb. 1888, but it failed to obtain confirmation by the United States Senate. It was however accompanied by a provisional arrangement for a modus vivendi under which United States fishing vessels were admitted for two years to fishing privileges in the waters of Canada and Newfoundland on payment of a moderate licence fee; thus the risk of serious friction was for the time removed.
During the seven years of his residence at Washington, West, who combined unfailing good temper and unaffected geniality of manner and disposition with a singular power of reserve and laconic speech, had enjoyed unqualified popularity, and had maintained excellent personal relations with the members of the United States government. Yet in the autumn of 1 888 his mission was brought to an abrupt and unexpected close. In September of that year, six weeks before the presidential election, he received a letter from California purporting to be written by a British subject naturalised in the United States, expressing doubts whether the writer should vote for the re-election of President Cleveland on account of the hostile policy which the democratic president appeared to be bent on pursuing towards Canada, and asking for advice. West unguardedly answered that any political party which openly favoured Great Britain at that moment would lose in popularity, and that the democratic party in power were no doubt fully alive to that fact, but that he had no reason to doubt that President Cleveland if re-elected would maintain a spirit of conciliation. West was the victim of a political trick. The letter sent to him was an imposture, and on 22 Oct. his reply was published in the 'New York Tribune,' an organ of the republican party, for the purpose of discrediting the democratic president with the Irish party. For a foreign representative to advise a United States citizen as to his vote was obviously a technical breach of international conventions. At first the United States government showed no disposition to treat the matter otherwise than as one admitting of explanations and expressions of regret, which West freely tendered. The popular excitement, however, increased as the date of the election approached ; copies of West's letter were distributed broadcast for the purpose of influencing votes against President Cleveland, and unfortunately West admitted the reporters of the 'New York Herald' and 'New York Tribune' to interviews. West disclaimed the statements attributed to him in the newspapers, but the United States government held them, in the absence of a published repudiation, to justify the immediate delivery to West of his passports. His mission consequently terminated on 30 Oct. 1888. Lord Salisbury, then foreign secretary, protested against the United States government's action in a note to the United States minister in London. 'There was nothing in Lord Sackville's conduct' (wrote Lord Salisbury) 'to justify so striking a departure from the circumspect and deliberate procedure by which in such cases it is the usage of friendly states to mark their consideration for each other.' To this the American secretary of state replied in a long despatch of justification, which, whatever may be thought of the technical arguments adduced, fails to remove the impression that West's abrupt dismissal was in reality an electoral device, adopted in the unavailing hope of averting the imminent defeat of the party in power. ​Benjamin Harrison, the republican candidate, was elected.
West on the death (16 Oct. 1888) of his elder brother Mortimer, first Baron Sackville, had succeeded to the title by special remainder a fortnight previous to his departure from the United States, and had inherited the historic property of Knole Park near Sevenoaks, where he passed the rest of his life. He retired from the diplomatic service on pension in April 1889, was made G.C.M.G. in September following, and lived at Knole till his death there on 3 Sept. 1908. There is at Knole an excellent portrait of him in pastel by Mr. Philip Laszlo.
Lord Sackville was not married. While an attaché at Stuttgart in 1852 he had formed an attachment for a Spanish lady, whom he met during a visit to Paris, and who subsequently left the stage to five with him, but with whom, as she was a strict catholic and already married to a husband who survived her, he was unable to contract any legal union. He had by her two sons and three daughters. The daughters joined him at Washington, their mother having died some years previously, in 1871, and were received there and in English society as his family. The two sons were established on an estate in Natal. The younger, Ernest Henri Jean Baptiste Sackville-West, claimed on his father's death to be the legitimate heir to the peerage and estates, but his action, after long delays in collecting evidence on either side, was finally dismissed by the probate division of the high court in February 1910. The title and entailed property consequently descended to Lord Sackville's nephew, Lionel Edward (eldest son of Lieutenant-colonel the Hon. William Edward Sackville-West), who had married Lord Sackville's eldest daughter.
[The Times, 4 Sept. 1908; Lord Sackville's mission, 1895; Lord Augustus Loftus, Diplomatic Reminiscences, 2 ser. i. 374; papers laid before Parliament; Foreign Office List, 1909, p. 404.]
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