monarch predecessor successor death_date birth_place party profession birth_date order term_start image article_title term_end name alma_mater
abbas ii lord cromer the viscount kitchener 12 july 1911 new zealand liberal party lawyer , diplomat 25 june 1861 consul-general in egypt 16 may 1907 portrait of eldon gorst.jpg eldon gorst
 12 july 1911 sir eldon gorst trinity college , cambridge
eldon gorst

sir eldon gorst kcb -lrb- 1861 -- 1911 -rrb- was consul-general in egypt from 1907-1911 .
he was the son of sir john eldon gorst , solicitor general for england and wales and vice-president of the committee of the council on education .
born in new zealand but reared in london , gorst attended eton college and trinity college , cambridge .
in 1885 he became both a barrister and a member of the british diplomatic corps , going to egypt the following year as controller of direct taxes , becoming undersecretary for finance -lrb- 1892 -rrb- , adviser to the interior ministry -lrb- 1894 -rrb- , and financial adviser -lrb- 1898 -rrb- .
in 1904 he returned to london where , as undersecretary of state , he effectively represented lord cromer in the foreign office .
after the liberal party came to power , the british government sent gorst to replace cromer with instructions to give egyptians greater responsibility to manage their internal affairs .
as british agent and consul general in egypt , gorst quickly improved the agency 's relationship with khedive abbas hilmi ii , brought more egyptians into responsible government positions , and weakened the egyptian national party .
however , his efforts to rein in the burgeoning corps of anglo-egyptian officials offended many old egypt hands .
the appointment of boutros ghali as prime minister , popularly ascribed to gorst , angered the nationalists and many other egyptians , leading to press attacks and eventually to boutros ghali 's assassination .
the revival of the press law in 1909 alienated europeans as well as egyptians and proved unenforceable .
gorst 's attempt to extend the suez canal company 's concession in 1909-1910 to raise additional funds for development in egypt and the sudan was disliked by all egyptians ; when he put the issue to the egyptian general assembly , vehement opposition from the nationalist press led to its rejection .
this rejection , together with the murder of boutros ghali , caused gorst to abandon his lenient policy in favor of a harsher one , using the exceptional laws and various penal measures to stifle the nationalists .
he had almost restored british control when he became stricken with cancer and went back to england to die .
an unprepossessing and egotistical man , disliked by the older british colonial administrators in egypt and distrusted by the egyptians as sphinxlike , gorst was never accorded the respect that his intelligence and strong will warranted , although he received the grand cordons of the osmanieh and mejidiye orders and was a knight commander of sts .
michael and george .
his autobiographical notes and diaries are at st antony 's college , oxford and other papers are in the possession of his grandson , paul lyeley .
eldon gorst was also the lover for two years in the 1880s of -lrb- christina anne -rrb- jessica sykes , née cavendish-bentinck , whose son sir mark sykes , 6th bt. , later married 1903 eldon 's younger sister edith .
