Salisbury, Robert Arthur Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of

b. 1830; d. 1903

British statesman, born at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. Educated at Eton and Christ Church Oxford, he became a Conservative MP in 1853, and soon distinguished himself as a speaker. For several years he was a regular contributor to the Saturday Review, and in 1860 he began to publish articles in the Quarterly Review. In the Derby administration of 1866 he was appointed secretary for India, and showed great ability. On the death of his father in April 1868 he went to the Lords. When Disraeli came into power in 1874 Salisbury again went to the India Office; but in 1878 he went to the Foreign Office, where he soon acquired a reputation for knowledge and efficiency. Years before he had pronounced that 'In our foreign policy what we have to do is simply to perform our own part with honour, to abstain from meddling diplomacy, to uphold England's honour steadily and fearlessly, and always to be prone rather to let action go along with words than to let it lag behind them'; it was to these principles that he resolutely adhered in office. Shortly after he became foreign secretary he went with Beaconsfield to the Berlin Congress, from which they returned according to the words of the Prime Minister, bringing 'peace with honour'. On Beaconsfield's death in 1881 Salisbury became the Conservative leader, and when, four years later, Gladstone was defeated, he formed his first administration. He was beaten at the general election of 1885, but was returned to power in the following year. He held office until 1892, and then again from 1895 until his resignation on 11 July 1902, after the close of the Boer War.

Salisbury was an able prime minister and a capable foreign secretary. A born aristocrat, he was inclined to hold himself aloof from the members of his party, and was a Conservative of the pre-Disraelian type in his distrust of democracy: though he was admired, it is doubtful if he was understood by the country at large.

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