Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmond
GILBERT ELLIOT-MURRAY-KYNYNMOND, 2nd earl of Minto (1782-1859), eldest son of the 1st earl, was ambassador to Berlin from 1832 to 1834, first lord of the admiralty from 1835 to 1841 and lord privy seal from 1846 to 1852. His influence in the Whig party was partly due to the fact that his daughter, Frances, was the wife of Lord John Russell.
His son William Hugh, the 3rd earl (1814-1891), was the father of the 4th earl, GILBERT JOHN ELLIOT-MURRAY-KYNYN- MOND (1845- ), who joined the Scots Guards in 1867. In 1874, in the capacity of a newspaper correspondent, he witnessed the operations of the Carlists in Spain; he took service with the Turkish army in the war with Russia in 1877 and served under Lord Roberts in the second Afghan War (1878-79), having narrowly escaped accompanying Sir Louis Cavagnari Kabul. He acted as private secretary to Lord Roberts during his mission to the Cape in 1881; as military secretary to Lord Lansdowne during his governor-generalship of Canada from 1883 to 1885; and as chief of the staff to General Middleton in the Riel Rebellion in Canada (1885). Having succeeded to the earldom in 1891 he was appointed governor-general of Canada in 1898. His term of office (1898-1904) was distinguished by a visit of the prince and princess of Wales to the colonies. In 1905, on the resignation of Lord Curzon, Lord Minto was appointed viceroy and governor-general of India, retiring in 1910.
The 4th earl's brother, the Hon. Arthur Ralph Douglas Elliot (b. 1846) , editor of the Edinburgh Review, was a member of parliament from 1880 to 1892 and again from 1898 to 1906, and from 1903 to 1906 he was financial secretary to the treasury. Sir Francis Edmund Hugh Elliot (b. 1831), a grandson of the 2nd earl, became British minister at Athens in 1903.
See Hon. G. F. S. Elliot, The Border Elliots and the Family of Minto (Edinburgh, 1897); the article India; History; also the Life and Letters of the first Earl of Minto, 1751-1806 (1874) and Lord Minto in India, 1807-1814 (1880), both edited by the countess of Minto; and Sir J. F. Stephen, The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir E. Impey (1885).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
