The Honourable C. Vivian
(1834-1893)
10 August 1861
Volume 4, page 339, sitting number 5427.
[Identified as the ‘Hon. C. Vivian’ in the Silvy daybooks, this is probably the Honourable Hussey Crespigny Vivian. The National Portrait Gallery has another, fully identified portrait of him, which is clearly the same man.]
Born on 19 June 1834, the Hon. Hussey Crespigny Vivian was the eldest son of Charles Hussey Vivian, 2nd Baron Vivian of Glynn and Truro. His mother, who died when he was two years old, was Arabella Scott, daughter of the Reverend John Middleton Scott and Lady Arabella Barbara Brabazon.
Following his education at Eton and at the Royal Military College in Woolwich, he joined the Foreign Office in 1851. Five years later he accompanied Lord Clarendon’s special mission to Paris. In 1873 he became the Consul-General in Alexandria.
On 8 June 1876 he married Louisa Alice Duff, only daughter of Robert George Duff of Wellington Lodge, Ryde. Their marriage produced six children.
He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1878. From 1879 to 1881 he was the minister to Bern. From 1881 to 1884 he held the office of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Denmark. From 1884 to 1892 he was the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Belgium. On 24 April 1886 he succeeded to his title and estates. That same year he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG). He was the ambassador to Italy from 1892 to 1893. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor (PC) in 1893.
Lord Vivian died, aged 59, on 21 October 1893.
‘We regret to state that Lord Vivian, British Ambassador to the Italian capital, died in Rome at seven o’clock this morning, after a short illness from pneumonia. […] Lord Vivian entered the Foreign Office in his seventeenth year, that is in 1841 [sic]. In 1856 he was attached to Lord Clarendon’s special mission to Paris, and when the late Marquis of Breadalbane went to Berlin in 1861, Lord Vivian went as his private secretary. Afterwards he was Acting Agent and Consul-General at Alexandria, holding a similar post in Moldavia and Walachia from 1874 to 1876, and returning to Egypt that year. From 1879 to 1881 he was Minister at Berne, whence he was transferred to Copenhagen. In 1884 he was appointed to the Brussels Legation. In 1891 he was our ambassador at St Petersburg, but in a few months he was appointed to succeed Lord Dufferin at Rome’ (Pall Mall Gazette, 21 October 1893).
‘In the death of Lord Vivian our diplomatic service loses a wise and faithful servant. The deceased lord has been discharging the onerous duties of English Ambassador at foreign Courts since 1856, always with credit to himself and honour to his country. His career in Brussels, which dated from 1884 till last year, when he went to Rome, though apparently placid, was continually affected by a dangerous undercurrent which, under injudicious management, might have resulted seriously, but through it all Lord Vivian rose equal to the occasion, and that by stern regard for duty and honesty’ (Ulster Echo, 21 October 1893) .
[From an album compiled by Lady Augusta Frances Hoare, wife of Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare, 5th Baronet.]