, 1901
1882–1910 As Viscount Wolmer, he was assistant private secretary to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Hugh Childers, from 1882 to 1885, when he was elected
Liberal Member of Parliament for
Petersfield. Like his father, he became a
Liberal Unionist in 1886 when
William Ewart Gladstone proposed
Irish Home Rule. He retained his seat till 1892, when he was elected for
Edinburgh West. Despite succeeding to the Earldom on his father's death, on 13 May 1895 he attempted to sit as before in the Commons, arguing that, although he was now a Peer, he had not requested a
writ of summons to the Lords. After some debate, on 21 May the Commons moved a
by-election writ. After the
1895 general election, Selborne, now sitting in the Lords, was appointed
Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies by his father-in-law
Lord Salisbury, where he became junior to the
Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain. During the difficult period before the outbreak of the
Second Boer War he progressed rapidly. and made
First Lord of the Admiralty under Salisbury, with a seat in the cabinet, an office he retained when
Arthur Balfour became Prime Minister in 1902. In 1905 he succeeded
Lord Milner as
High Commissioner for Southern Africa and governor of the
Transvaal and
Orange River colonies. He assumed office at
Pretoria in May of that year. He had gone out with the intention of guiding the destinies of
South Africa during a period when the ex-
Boer republics would be in a transitional state between crown colony government and self-government, and
letters patent were issued granting the Transvaal representative institutions. He ceased to be governor of the Orange River Colony on its assumption of
Responsible government in June 1907, but retained his other posts until May 1910, retiring on the eve of the establishment of the
Union of South Africa. Apart from his political career Selborne served as Master of the
Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1910 and 1933, as his father had done before him, in 1875. In 1916, he was elected a member of the
Society for Psychical Research. He was also Warden (chairman of the governors) of
Winchester College between 1920 and 1925 and High Steward of
Winchester between 1929 and 1942. In 1939, after the failure of the
Munich Agreement and
appeasement in general to halt
Nazi Germany's expansionism in
Continental Europe, he wrote a letter to
The Daily Telegraph advocating for
Winston Churchill to be admitted into the
National Government Cabinet. He was made a
Knight Companion of the Garter in 1909. ==Family==