Thomas Baring , 1st Earl of Northbrook Thomas George Baring , 1st Earl of Northbrook GCSI , PC , FRS ( 22 January 1826 – 15 November 1904 ) , was a British Liberal politician and statesman . He was Viceroy of India between 1872 and 1876 and First Lord of the Admiralty between 1880 and 1885 . Background and education . Northbrook was the eldest son of the Francis Baring , 1st Baron Northbrook , by his first wife Jane , daughter of the Hon . Sir George Grey , 1st Baronet . He was educated at Twyford School and Christ Church , Oxford , where he graduated with honours in 1846 . Political career . Northbrook then entered upon a political career , and was successively private secretary to Henry Labouchere , Sir George Grey , and Sir Charles Wood . In 1857 , he was returned to the House of Commons for Penryn and Falmouth , which constituency he continued to represent until he became a peer on the death of his father in 1866 . He served under Lord Palmerston as a Lord of the Admiralty between 1857 and 1858 , as Under - Secretary of State for War in 1861 , as Under - Secretary of State for India between 1861 and 1864 , under Palmerston and Lord Russell as Under - Secretary of State for the Home Department between 1864 and 1866 and under Russell as Secretary to the Admiralty in 1866 . When William Ewart Gladstone acceded to power in 1868 , Baring was again appointed Under - Secretary of State for War , and this office he held until February 1872 , when he was appointed Viceroy of India . In January 1876 , however , he resigned . He had recommended the conclusion of arrangements with Sher Ali which , as has since been admitted , would have prevented the Second Afghan War ; but his policy was overruled by the Duke of Argyll , then Secretary of State for India . in 1876 he was created Viscount Baring , of Lee in the County of Kent , and Earl of Northbrook , in the County of Southampton . From 1880 to 1885 Northbrook held the post of First Lord of the Admiralty in Gladstone ' s second government . During his tenure of office the state of the navy aroused much public anxiety and led to a strong agitation in favor of an extended shipbuilding programme . The agitation called forth Tennyson ' s poem " The Fleet " . In September 1884 , Northbrook was sent to Egypt as special commissioner to inquire into its finances and condition . The inquiry was largely unnecessary , all the essential facts being well known , but the mission was a device of Gladstone ' s to avoid an immediate decision on a perplexing question . Northbrook , after six weeks of inquiry in Egypt , sent in two reports , one general , advising against the withdrawal of the I British garrison , one financial . His financial proposals , if accepted , would have substituted the financial control of Britain for the international control proposed at the London Conference of June – August of the same year , but this was not carried out . When Gladstone formed his third ministry in 1886 Baring held aloof , being opposed to the Home Rule policy of the premier ; and he then ceased to take a prominent part in political life . In 1890 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire . From 1890 to 1893 he was president of the Royal Asiatic Society . Family . Lord Northbrook married Elizabeth , daughter of Henry Charles Sturt and sister of Lord Alington , in 1848 . They had two sons and one daughter . She died in June 1867 , aged 40 . Lord Northbrook remained a widower until his death at Stratton Park , Hampshire , in November 1904 , aged 78 . There is a memorial to him at All Saints , East Stratton . He was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son , Francis . His daughter married an Indian underling of Lord Northbrook named Raja Lal Mala of Delhi . Legacy in India . Tower part of a building , currently known as Ghanta Ghar Multan or Clock Tower of Multan was named ' Northbrook Tower ' located in the center of Multan city of Punjab , in Pakistan