published in
Vanity Fair in 1874. Wolff sat in parliament for
Christchurch from 1874 to 1880 and for
Portsmouth from 1880 to 1885. While MP for Christchurch he lived in
Boscombe, where he developed the
Boscombe Spa estate, and he played an active role in the public life of
Bournemouth. In 1870 he presented
Bournemouth Rowing Club with a four-oared racing boat. He was one of the group known as the
Fourth Party. In 1885 he went on a special mission to
Constantinople and
Egypt in connection with the
Eastern Question, and as a result various awkward difficulties, hinging on the
Sultan's
suzerainty, were addressed. Wolff negotiated a settlement whereby Britain and Turkey would each appoint a commissioner to Egypt to help the
khedive's government conduct reforms of the army and the government. Wolff then assumed the role of British
high commissioner in Egypt from 1885 to 1887. He was appointed
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Teheran in 1888, a post he held until 1891, and was then
Ambassador to Madrid from 1892 to 1900. While serving in
Spain, he would assist Ambassador
Taylor, of the
United States, in out maneuvering
Foreign Minister O'Donnell. Wolff was a notable raconteur and aided the Conservative Party by helping to found the
Primrose League. and made a Knight Grand Cross of the
Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1889. As the British Minister of Iran, he assisted Antoine
Kitabgi Khan, the Director General of Persian Customs, in the negotiations that led
Nasir al-Din Shah to grant a concession of full monopoly over Iran's tobacco industry to Major G. F. Talbot (20 March 1890). This concession resulted in the
Tobacco Protest of 1891 and is generally considered to mark the beginning of social unrest and clear Islamic clerical influence leading up to the
Persian Constitutional Revolution in 1905. In 1901, as Kitabgi Khan was looking in Europe for capitalists who might be interested in investing in oil prospection in Iran, Wolff introduced him to Englishman
William Knox D'Arcy, who had made a fortune in gold mines in Australia. On 28 May 1901,
Mozaffar ad-Din Shah granted D'Arcy the first oil concession in Iran that later gave birth to
British Petroleum. The deed of concession stipulated that Wolff would have 10% of the profits resulting from the venture. ==Personal life==