Rt. Hon. Sir Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice, GCMG GCVO PC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Spring-Rice

Sir Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice GCMG GCVO PC (27 February 1859 – 14 February 1918) was a British diplomat who served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1912 to 1918. He is best known as the writer of the lyrics of the patriotic hymn, "I Vow to Thee, My Country". He was also a close friend of US President Theodore Roosevelt, and served as best man at his second wedding.

Early life and family

Spring-Rice was born into an aristocratic and well-connected family. He was the son of the diplomat, Hon. Charles William Thomas Spring-Rice, second son of the prominent Whig politician and former cabinet minister Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon. Spring-Rice's maternal grandfather was the politician, William Marshall, and he was a cousin of Frederick Spring. He was the great-grandson of Edmund Pery, 1st Earl of Limerick and John Marshall. Spring-Rice's father died when he was eleven, and he was brought up at his mother's family's house at Watermillock on the shore of Ullswater. He was often ill as a child and later suffered from Graves' disease.

He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, under the direction of Benjamin Jowett. Whilst at university, he rowed for his college and achieved a double first. He was a contemporary and close friend of George Curzon, John Strachey and Edward Grey. After completing university, Spring-Rice travelled in Europe, where he improved his French, at the time the language of diplomacy. Uncertain about which career to pursue, he took an examination for the Foreign Office and was accepted. Although brought up as an Englishman, Spring-Rice maintained a close affinity with Ireland, and he later wrote a poem about his dual Rice (Irish) and Spring (English) roots.

Spring-Rice had four sisters and four brothers, two of whom predeceased him. Stephen Spring Rice died in 1902 and Gerald Spring- Rice was killed whilst serving as an officer on the Western Front in 1916.

Marriage and issue

In 1904, Spring-Rice married Florence Caroline Lascelles, the daughter of Sir Frank Cavendish Lascelles and a cousin of the Duke of Devonshire. He had two children with Florence:

Mary Elizabeth Spring-Rice (1906–1994), married Sir Oswald Raynor Arthur in 1935.

Anthony Theodore Brandon Spring-Rice (1908–1954), died unmarried.

Career

Spring-Rice began his career as a clerk in the Foreign Office in 1882. In 1886, he was appointed Assistant Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary, the Liberal politician Lord Rosebery. Spring-Rice was known to be a supporter of the Liberal Party and was sympathetic to the Irish Home Rule movement so he was relieved of his post when the Conservatives came to power later that year. Spring-Rice subsequently made the unusual move to the diplomatic service, where he remained for the rest of his life, starting with his first posting to Washington in 1887.

During the 1890s, he was posted to the Far East. Spring-Rice was instrumental in laying the foundations of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which he saw as vital if Russian expansion in the region was to be challenged. Spring-Rice went on to become the British chargé d'affaires in Tehran (1900), Commissioner of Public Debt in Cairo (1901) and Chargé d'Affaires in St. Petersburg (1903). In November 1901, he had been promoted to the rank of Secretary of Embassy. He later served in Persia (1906) and Sweden (1908) before his appointment as ambassador to the United States (1912).

Within two years of Spring-Rice's posting to Washington, D.C., the First World War had broken out in Europe, and his principal concern became working towards ending American neutrality, which was achieved with the US's entry into the conflict in 1917.

In 1916, he constantly sought a reprieve for Roger Casement, citing the danger of protests from Irish America, but he also advised political and religious leaders of Casement's "perversion" and the existence of the Black Diaries. In February 1918, he was abruptly recalled to London in a one-line telegram, and he died in Ottawa shortly afterward, where he is buried in Beechwood Cemetery.

In The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris described Spring-Rice as "a born diplomat [who] invariably picked out and cultivated the most important person in any place". He was well respected in London's diplomatic circles. Further, "he was one of [President] Theodore Roosevelt's most ardent and loyal admirers" and acted as Roosevelt's best man in Roosevelt's wedding to Edith Carow. Roosevelt became the godfather of Spring-Rice's son in 1908. Spring-Rice memorably remarked about Roosevelt: "You must always remember that the president is about six". The two men continued to write to each other until Spring-Rice's death, and their close relationship undoubtedly added to the latter's diplomatic clout in the US. In 1915 Lord Balfour, the former PM was sent on a vital mission to convince Congress of Britain's friendship. In a series of meetings, the ambassador and Consul-General, Sir Courtney Bennett were marginalised. They agreed to support the Commercial Agreement following JP Morgan's appointment as dealer and, the subsequent Commission to arrange supplies for the war effort. But throughout the war he remained sceptical of the relationship; clashing with Conservatives he remained an internationalist as concerned about the fate of Russians. Spring-Rice kept the feeble commission alive, while chaotic credit arrangements bi-passed the body set up by parliament to effectuate co-ordination. The global significance of the wartime credit risks was the longer term transfer of power to Wall Street bankers away from London. Spring-Rice protested daily that Gold runs would seriously undermine British bank facility, but was largely ignored. Best man at JP Morgan's wedding he was perceptibly close to controlling minds of the Commission to be an impartial diplomat.

However, Spring-Rice's success in turning the earlier close links to the US administration to a relationship of use to his government is debatable. By the end of his appointment, Spring-Rice had earned the enmity of his government after becoming paranoid, seeing German spies everywhere, and also because of his immense dislike of any British visitors to Washington that were not under the control of his embassy. Furthermore, Spring-Rice's personal connections to many notable Republican politicians was well known so some members of the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson were dubious about trusting him. Spring-Rice found William Jennings Bryan, the Secretary of State, hard to take seriously and disliked having to deal with Edward M. House, Wilson's confidential adviser, who held no official post in the US government. Even so, after his death the British government publicly recognised Spring-Rice's extraordinary contribution to the war effort. His untiring attempts to get the United States to join the Allies were evident as well as his success in frustrating the work of the German ambassador, Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff. A very public spat with Lord Northcliffe caused his recall in February 1918.

In a speech in the House of Commons in 1919, Lord Robert Cecil said:

"No ambassador has ever had to discharge duties of greater delicacy or of more far reaching importance than fell to his lot. Nor has any ambassador ever fulfilled his task with more unwearied vigilance, conspicuous ability and ultimate success."

Writings

Spring-Rice was a poet throughout his adult life. In 1918, he rewrote the words of his most notable poem, Urbs Dei (The City of God) or The Two Fatherlands, to become the text for the hymn I Vow to Thee My Country. The hymn was first performed in 1925, after Spring-Rice's death and has since become a widely recognised British anthem. He was a close friend of Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol, a British journalist and later diplomat, and Ronald Munro Ferguson, 1st Viscount Novar, with whom he corresponded for many years. His closest political friend and associate was the Irish nationalist, John Dillon; his unwavering sense of duty attempted to overcome his sister's very public espousal of nationalist causes and friendships within the hierarchy of Sinn Fein. The personal moral overtones and private contradictions failed to dent an overwhelming sense of obligation to the British Empire. Howver it may have informed his uneasy relationship with the Balfour Mission.

A fluent speaker of Persian, Spring-Rice was responsible for translating numerous Persian poems into English. Spring-Rice's letters and poems were collected together by his daughter, Lady Arthur, and many are now held by The National Archives. Further papers, relating to his diplomatic postings, and diaries of his travels in Japan, are held by the Churchill Archives Centre.

Honours and legacy

Spring-Rice was invested as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1906 and a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 1908. In 1906 he was made a Grand Cordon of Order of the Medjidie. He was made a member of the Privy Council in 1913. Spring-Rice was going to be offered a peerage upon his return to the United Kingdom, but died before the honour could be proposed.

In his will he left money to Balliol College to found the Cecil Spring-Rice Memorial Fund which funds the learning of languages by students who intend to join the diplomatic service. Before his death, Spring-Rice gave substantial funds for repairs to be carried out on St Peter and St Paul's Church, Lavenham, the ancestral church of the Spring family. Memorials to Spring-Rice exist on Ullswater and in Ottawa.

Commemorations

The memorial in Ottawa at his graveside was unveiled by Cecil Spring-Rice's granddaughter, Caroline Kenny, in July 2013 having been organised by the British Consul, Ashley Prime, with support from the Freeman of the City of London (North America). Mount Spring-Rice in British Columbia was named after Spring-Rice in 1918 by surveyor Arthur Wheeler.