996 Sydney Buxton

Constituency : Peterborough  1883-5,  Poplar  1886-1914

Sydney  took  over  from  George  Whalley  the  younger  after  the  latter's  resignation.

Sydney  was  the  son  of  Charles  Buxton, MP  for  a  number  of  constituencies  up  to  1871.  He  was  educated  at  Clifton  College  and  Cambridge. He  was  on  the  London  School  Board  between  1876  and  1882. He  was  a  radical  and  in  1880  published  the  pamphlet  Handbook  to  the  Political  Questions  of  the  Day. He  stood  for  Boston  in  1880.

Sydney  was  defeated  in  1885  but  returned  for  Poplar  in  1886. In  1889  he  cut  short  a  holiday  in  Ireland  to  deal  with  the  Dockers'  strike  in  his  constituency.

From  1892  to  1895  Sydney  was  Under  Secretary  of  state  for  the  Colonies. In  1905  he  joined  the  Cabinet  as  Postmaster-General. In  1910  he  was  promoted  to  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade. In  1912  he  asked  Lord  Loreburn  to  appoint  the  commission  of  inquiry  into  the  Titanic.

Sydney  was  generally  in  favour  of  female  suffrage  but  condemned  the  violent  tactics  of  the  suffragettes.

At  the  beginning  of  1914  Sydney  was  appointed  Governor-General  of  South  Africa  and  shortly  afterwards  ennobled  as  Viscount  Buxton. A  popular  revolt  at  the  beginning  of  the  First  World  War  seemed  to  threaten  his  safety  but  Prime  Minister  Botha  put  it  down  and  committted  the  country  to  Britain.  The  two  men  worked  effectively  together  during  the  war  including  conducting  the  invasion  of  South  West  Africa. He  stood  down  in  1920  when  he  was  upgraded  to  an  Earl   but  retained  an  interest  in  the  colony's  affairs  serving  as  president  of  the  African  Society  from  1920  to  1933.

In  his  later  years  Sydney  had  part  of  a  leg  amputated  as  a  result  of  a  knee  injury  sustained  earlier  in  life.

Sydney  was  a  keen  angler.

He  died  in  1934  aged  80.