Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet

This article is about the English statesman Sir John Barrow. For other uses, see John Barrow (disambiguation).
Sir
John Barrow
Bt FRS FRGS
Born John Barrow
(1764-06-19)19 June 1764
Ulverston, Lancashire,[1] England, Great Britain
Died 23 November 1848(1848-11-23) (aged 84)
London, England, UK
Nationality English
Occupation statesman, writer
Spouse(s) Anna Maria Truter

Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet, FRS, FRGS (19 June 1764 – 23 November 1848) was an English statesman and writer.

Early life

Barrow was born the only child of Roger Barrow, a tanner in the village of Dragley Beck, in the parish of Ulverston, Lancashire.[1] He was schooled at Town Bank School, Ulverston, but left at age 13 to found a Sunday school for the poor.

In 1765, Barrow was employed as superintending clerk of an iron foundry at Liverpool. At only 16, he went on a whaling expedition to Greenland. By his twenties, he was teaching mathematics, in which he had always excelled, at a private school in Greenwich.[2][3]

China

Barrow taught mathematics to the son of Sir George Leonard Staunton; through Staunton's interest, he was attached on the first British embassy to China from 1792–94 as comptroller of the household to Lord Macartney. He soon acquired a good knowledge of the Chinese language, on which he subsequently contributed articles to the Quarterly Review; and the account of the embassy published by Sir George Staunton records many of Barrow's valuable contributions to literature and science connected with China.[2]

Barrow ceased to be officially connected with Chinese affairs after the return of the embassy in 1794, but he always took much interest in them, and on critical occasions was frequently consulted by the British government.[2]

South Africa

The Castle at Cape Town in about 1800, painted by John Barrow

In 1797, Barrow accompanied Lord Macartney as private secretary in his important and delicate mission to settle the government of the newly acquired colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Barrow was entrusted with the task of reconciling the Boer settlers and the native Black population and of reporting on the country in the interior. In the course of the trip, he visited all parts of the colony; when he returned, he was appointed auditor-general of public accounts. He then decided to settle in South Africa, married, and bought a house in 1800 in Cape Town. However, the surrender of the colony at the peace of Amiens (1802) upset this plan.

During his travels through South Africa, Barrow compiled copious notes and sketches of the countryside that he was traversing. The outcome of his journeys was a map which, despite its numerous errors, was the first published modern map of the southern parts of the Cape Colony.[4] William John Burchell (1781–1863) was particularly scathing: "As to the miserable thing called a map, which has been prefixed to Mr. Barrow’s quarto, I perfectly agree with Professor Lichtenstein, that it is so defective that it can seldom be found of any use."

Career in the Admiralty

Sir John Barrow, 1st Bt, by John Jackson

Barrow returned to Britain in 1804 and was appointed Second Secretary to the Admiralty by Viscount Melville, a post which he held for forty years[2] (apart from a short period in 1806-07 when there was a Whig government in power).[5]

Lord Grey took office as Prime Minister in 1830, and Barrow was especially requested to remain in his post, starting the principle that senior civil servants stay in office on change of government and serve in a non-partisan manner. Indeed, it was during his occupancy of the post that it was renamed Permanent Secretary.

Barrow enjoyed the esteem and confidence of all the eleven chief lords who successively presided at the Admiralty board during that period, and more especially of King William IV while lord high admiral, who honoured him with tokens of his personal regard.[2]

In his position at the Admiralty, Barrow was a great promoter of Arctic voyages of discovery, including those of John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ross and John Franklin. The Barrow Strait in the Canadian Arctic as well as Point Barrow and the city of Barrow in Alaska are named after him. He is reputed to have been the initial proposer of St Helena as the new place of exile for Napoleon Bonaparte following the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Barrow was a fellow of the Royal Society and received the degree of LL.D from the University of Edinburgh in 1821. A baronetcy was conferred on him by Sir Robert Peel in 1835.[6] He was also a member of the Raleigh Club, a forerunner of the Royal Geographical Society.[2]

Retirement

Barrow retired from public life in 1845 and devoted himself to writing a history of the modern Arctic voyages of discovery (1846), as well as his autobiography, published in 1847.[2] He died suddenly on 23 November 1848.[2] The Sir John Barrow monument was built in his honour on Hoad Hill overlooking his home town of Ulverston, though locally it is more commonly called Hoad Monument.[7] Mount Barrow and Barrow Island in Australia are believed to have been named for him.[8]

Private life

Barrow married Anna Maria Truter (1777–1857) in South Africa on 26 August 1799.[9] A botanical artist from the Cape, she bore him four sons and two daughters, one of whom, Johanna, married Robert Batty.[10] His son George succeeded him.

Bibliography

Besides 95 articles in the Quarterly Review,[3] Barrow published among other works:[2]

He was also the author of several valuable contributions to the seventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Other reading

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Prior to 1st April 1974 Ulverston was in Lancashire
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Anonymous 1911.
  3. 1 2 "Sir John Barrow 1764-1848". Ulverston Town Council. Retrieved 31 July 2016.
  4. ↑ Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa vol 2 (1970)
  5. ↑ Fergus Fleming. Barrow's Boys (Kindle Edition). Kindle Location 242-252
  6. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 19241. p. 284. 17 February 1835.
  7. ↑ "The Sir John Barrow Monument". Ulverston Town Council. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  8. ↑ Prettyman, Ernest. "Index to Tasmanian Place Names". Tasmanian Archives Online. Retrieved 2 October 2015.
  9. ↑ "Rootsweb: South-Africa-L Re: Truter". Archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
  10. ↑ South African Botanical Art - Marion Arnold (Fernwood Press 2001)
  11. ↑ Bibliopolis
  12. ↑ IPNI.  Barrow.
Attribution

Further reading

Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
New Creation		 Baronet
(of Ulverstone)
1835–1848 		Succeeded by
Sir George Barrow, 2nd Baronet
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