Talk:Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1st Baronet

message: I don't have a lot of time to do fact-checking and the like right now, but something some folks might want to read up on for inclusion -- Trevelyan (a real rat bastard, though that's probably not exactly scholarly to say) was big on Malthusian ideals, saw it as population control. Might be an interesting point for the article. --Blacken 03:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A little late but I've taken the liberty of changing the title and I'll admit I was utterly shocked when I first read of his role in the disaster.  Robert Kee's magnificent book, 'Ireland – A Television History' is scholarly and doesn't mince words saying Trevelyan's cost effective response to criticism was to start praying loudly. JRPG (talk) 08:21, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Trevelyan's role in the UK Potato Famine

message: This article is partly drawn from the D.N.B. and partly from revisionist sources.  It is half laudatory and half condemnatory.  Through no fault of the people who have put it together, it is virtually incoherent and needs to be completely rewritten.Bigturtle (talk) 13:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Famine and overall biography

message: This article badly needs to be rewritten. Maybe using some more recent sources would help? There's a wealth of material out there on Trevelyan's policies, actions and opinions during the famine, none of which is cited here.
:The lead paragraph should make it clear that he bore a great deal of personal responsibility for the deaths of a million people.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:9:7E00:9F4:D423:5B23:8FD0:EACD (talk) 01:42, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have access to the sources you mention, please go ahead and rewrite the article using them. I've shortened his entry in the Trevelyan disambig page in line with MOS:DAB. Qwfp (talk) 21:26, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newer Sources? 

message: The 1980 book by Robert Kee was written to accompany the RTE/BBC series on Ireland and has been praise for impartiality by Catholic & UK sources.  I found Chapter 5 a profound shock.  The book is still recommended reading. ISBN-10: 0349120811  ISBN-13: 978-0349120812
Obituary: Robert Kee
I don't use YouTube much but the famine chapter is included.
JRPG (talk) 08:32, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good free/cheap source for potato famine 

message: In a bid to provide reading assistance, I hereby furnish a link to the text of a letter of Charles Edward Trevelyan to Thomas Spring-Rice, Lord Mounteagle:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060502032402/http://multitext.ucc.ie:80/d/Letter_of_Charles_Edward_Trevelyan_to_Thomas_Spring-Rice_Lord_Mounteagle
Perhaps there exists some other letter, in which Trevelyan says quite other things than those written here, and if not, one can of course simply make them up! - Remedial Reading Assistant (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 04:19, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: ah one could, but this imaginary letter would need references. A good find! Edmund Patrick –  confer 07:00, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: "Letter of Charles Edward Trevelyan to Thomas Spring-Rice, Lord Mounteagle"

message: The attempt to maintain neutrality in the introduction by providing a positive and negative quote is not a very professional way of achieving that goal. The two quotes don't even contradict one another. Trevelyan can be responsible both for much of the consequences of the Irish potato famine, *and* the reform of the British civil service. It would surely be better if both things are mentioned in the opening paragraph as both are important legacies. The fact that he did good and bad things is not the same as saying that he 'divides opinion'.
I have thus gone ahead and slightly re-written the introduction. I think it will need a little improvement, historians may quibble about words like 'instrumental'. LastDodo (talk) 12:28, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead is terrible. The quotations should both be removed. And we certainly don't need "Trevelyan never expressed remorse for his comments..." in the lead. Srnec (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree, though some words / phrases may need to be reconsidered (e.g. deliberately dragged his feet) the lead of any article is there to give a factual, brief introduction to and any major events / beliefs that defined the subject. I will also take a look next week. Yours Edmund Patrick –  confer 08:43, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

text: I agree with editors who do not believe such quotes are appropriate in the Lead. Summarize the facts - leave such character quotes to the body of the article.Parkwells (talk) 18:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I concur with above. Mediatech492 (talk) 18:38, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

text: I also agree with the above. The quotations and introductory section of the article feel totally out of place. This article needs serious improvement in regards to neutrality. Rsemmes92 (talk) 19:56, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction not very Encyclopedia like 

message: QUOTE: The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people" END OF QUOTE.
The character mentioned about is consistent with the social behaviour connected to feudal languages. 
There is another curious information that is seen in a book on Malabar of South Asia. The quote is a comparison between Irish land and Malabar land (actually the whole of SouthAsia has this problem in the languages). 
QUOTE from Malabar and its folks by: T. K. Gopal Panikkar with an introduction by the REV. F. W. KELLETT, M. A, (of the Madras Christian College)
Ireland and Irish history present similar and not less striking points of resemblance to Malabar and its history. Ireland is essentially a priest-ridden country. Its people, the great bulk of them, are immersed in the darkest depths of ignorance and superstition. With the exception of the Protestant county of Ulster, Ireland is a Roman Catholic country dominated by Roman Catholic priests who hold in their hands the keys of all social and political powers. 
It is, said that even parliamentary elections are surreptitiously controlled by the mystic influence which they wield over the souls of a people given over to the worst forms of superstition; and this was put forward as one of the main grounds against the late Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule Schemes during their progress through Parliament. The superstitious Irish are terrorized into obedience to the will of these priests, who actually stand at the gates of the unlettered and slavish electors calling down the wrath of Heaven upon those who dared to disobey their superhuman mandates. Thus even Irish Politics are under the control of these Roman Catholic priests. Such is the power which the priestly classes wield over the minds and deeds of the Irish people. 
The Irish Land Question is another instance of history repeating itself in an alien clime. The land in Ireland is owned by large proprietors who tease and oppress their tenants to the uttermost. Evictions are sadly too numerous ; and the lamentations of the poor Grubstreet author in the Deserted Village about a century and a quarter ago, really though not ostensibly directed against Irish landlordism, are too true even in our own day. Hack -renting has been one of the main features of the Irish Land Question. The Irish tenants have all along been a down-trodden class and the problem of the Irish land has always remained a knotty and intricate one baffling the political skill of England’s greatest statesmen. All the various Land Acts passed from time to time for the amelioration of the condition of the landholding classes in the country have proved of little or no avail; and a workable and satisfactory scheme yet remains to be devised. The Irish tenant is often fleeced to more than the annual yield of the land in the shape of rent. 
Suffice it to say, that the Irish tenants are under the oppressive control of their landlords. 
As an inevitable consequence of the atrocities to which the Irish landholders are subjected at the hands of the landed aristocracy we see repeated instances of plebeian uprisings in vindication of humanity and justice. The Irish are a bold and reckless class to whose unquenchable thirst of revenge are due the various outbreaks that have from time to time tarnished the pages of their national history. Precious lives have often been sacrificed at the sacred altar of social and political wrongs. People have been locked up within the prison walls for breaches of the peace; and the country has had to be constantly brought into subjection by the Coercion Acts which Parliament had to enforce against these dangerous ebullitions of fanaticism. These Coercion Acts, though aimed at in the direction of Order and Reform, have always remained, in the estimation of many a politician, a standing blot upon the fair fame and prestige of Britain’s sway over Ireland. In all these various outbreaks the Land Question has figured prominently as one of the essential and pre-disposing causes. 
In these aspects of its social life, Malabar stands level with the “tortured” land of Erin. With regard to the sacerdotal supremacy detailed above it may be surmised that Malabar is equally a priest-ridden country even from its origin. The traditional history of the land is put forward justification of the plea that it belongs in exclusive monopoly 
 END OF QUOTE.
An analysis of this issue has been done in this book.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:204:D303:A395:C01:F8A7:F34E:5F7F (talk) 11:20, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feudal language content in Celtic languages 

message: Sir Charles and the Brits, in general, have the blood of 1M Irish on their hands but “it is the victor who writes the history and counts the dead”. 2603:6000:B843:4FFC:910D:4783:FA6B:4EBF (talk) 22:08, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soft peddling Sir Charles role in the Potato Famine 

message: Recent news about Trevelyan family and slavery has meant people are including the info on his page and calling him a slaveholder. As far I can see from the compensation records it was the generation before like his father Rev. George Trevelyan who received the money for having held slaves. Some of the edits say he was a slaveholder but there is no record for that and plus the fact his wife was the daughter of an abolitionist. This is not to say he didn't benefit financially when his father died but he seems his the majority of his wealth derived from a uncle who had no children. More research is needed on this and whether his uncle also had slaves. 
See The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery database for more. 
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146636918/#relationships Heloeheod34 (talk) 23:51, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slavery role / ancestors 

message: After recounting Trevelyan's role in the British Government's inaction in response to the Famine, the article on the Famine states that "On 27 December 1846, Trevelyan ordered every available steamer to Ireland to assist in relief, and on 14 January 1847, Pigot received orders to also distribute supplies from the British Relief Association and treat them identically to government aid. In addition, some naval officers under Pigot oversaw the logistics of relief operations further inland from Cork. In February 1847, Trevelyan ordered Royal Navy surgeons dispatched in order to provide medical care for those suffering from illnesses that accompanied starvation, distribute medicines that were in short supply on the island, and assist in proper, sanitary burials for those already deceased. These efforts, although significant, were insufficient at preventing mass mortality from famine and disease."
It seems incongruous to have this quote in the general article on the Famine, yet not refer to these actions in the specific article on Trevelyan. Normally one would expect an article on something specific to contain more info than an article that covers a broader subject.
I know that this is a highly emotive subject, and I am not trying to exonerate Trevelyan in any way for his decisions in respect of food aid and the terrible consequences that stemmed from it. I also cannot vouch for the accuracy of the quote. I just wanted to point out the incongruity. I was also curious as to whether Trevelyan's attitude changed at the end of 1846, at about the time when the British government did what it should have done at the beginning: intervened with direct relief. Theeurocrat (talk) 08:59, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trevelyan's role in the Famine 

message: It is utterly bizarre to describe the heavy Poor Law taxation under Trevelyan as "laissez-faire" - especially as the Poor Law Tax was only introduced in 1838 (the system of state schools in Ireland was introduced after 1831), under Trevelyan in the late 1840s the tax massively increased with areas not dependent on the potato being forced to bail out areas that were (thus dragging down Ireland in general). Those who describe a policy of tax-and-spend as "laissez-faire" do not know what the term "laissez-faire" means. 2A02:C7C:E183:AC00:40C6:A84E:A83D:9A72 (talk) 20:53, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Trevelyan seems to have had typical Victorian attitudes towards the poor -- which often included strict moralistic and other criteria separating the "deserving" and "undeserving poor", the idea that all or almost all forms of charity or "relief" had a "pauperizing" effect of creating dependency, the maxim that the condition of the best-off man on "relief" always had to be worse than the condition of the worst-off employed man, or otherwise workers would resign their jobs en masse to live on handouts, etc.  Many people's idea of government economic intervention on behalf of the poor was pretty much the bare minimum that would keep large numbers of people from starving, so it was "laissez-faire" in that sense (even if poor rates were relatively high in some local parishes).  You can see it in Dickens -- Betty Higden's fanatical determination to stay out the workhouse at all costs in Our Mutual Friend, the attitudes of Mr. Gradgrind in Hard Times (novel) etc.   And of course in Ireland, the government's efforts were not even enough to keep large numbers of people from starving... AnonMoos (talk) 07:52, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  NOT laissez-faire.