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DILKE, SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 272 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DILKE, See also:SIR See also:CHARLES See also:WENTWORTH , See also:Bart. (1810-1869), See also:English politician, son of Charles Wentworth Dilke, proprietor and editor of The See also:Athenaeum, was See also:born in See also:London on the 18th of See also:February 181o, and was educated at See also:Westminster school and Trinity See also:Hall, See also:Cambridge. He studied See also:law, and in 1834 took his degree of LL.B., but did not practise. He assisted his See also:father in his See also:literary See also:work, and was for some years chairman of the See also:council of the Society of Arts, besides taking a prominent See also:part in the affairs of the Royal Horticultural Society and other bodies. He was one of the most zealous promoters of the See also:Great See also:Exhibition (1851), and a member of the executive See also:committee. At the See also:close of the exhibition he was honoured by See also:foreign sovereigns, and the See also:queen offered him See also:knighthood, which, however, he did not accept; he also declined a large remuneration offered by the royal See also:commission. In 1853 Dilke was one of the English commissioners at the New See also:York See also:Industrial Exhibition, and prepared a See also:report on it. He again declined to receive any See also:money See also:reward for his services. He was appointed one of the five royal commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1862; and soon after the See also:death of the See also:prince See also:consort he was created a See also:baronet. In 1865 he entered See also:parliament as member for See also:Wallingford. In 1869 he was sent to See also:Russia as representative of See also:England at the horticultural exhibition held at St See also:Petersburg. His See also:health, however, had been for some See also:time failing, and he died suddenly in that See also:city, on the loth of May 1869.

A selection from his writings, Papers of a Critic (2 vols., 1875), contains a See also:

biographical See also:sketch by his son. His son, SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, BART. (1843— ), became a prominent Liberal politician, as M.P. for See also:Chelsea (1868-1886), under-secretary for foreign affairs (188o-1882), and See also:president of the See also:local See also:government See also:board .0882-1885); and he was then marked out as one of the best-informed and ablest of the advanced Radicals. He was chairman of the royal commission on the See also:housing of the working classes in 1884-1885. But his sensational See also:appearance as co-See also:respondent in a See also:divorce See also:case of a peculiarly unpleasant See also:character in 1885 See also:cast a See also:cloud over his career. He was defeated in Chelsea in 1886, and did not return to parliament till 1892, when he was elected for the See also:Forest of See also:Dean; and though his knowledge of foreign affairs and his See also:powers as a critic and writer on military and See also:naval questions were admittedly of the highest See also:order, his See also:official position in public See also:life could not again be recovered. His military writings are The See also:British See also:Army (1888); Army Reform (1898) and, with Mr See also:Spenser See also:Wilkinson, Imperial See also:Defence (1892). On colonial questions he wrote with equal authority. His Greater See also:Britain (2 vols., 1866-1867) reached a See also:fourth edition in 1868, and was followed by Problems of Greater Britain (2 vols., 1890) and The British See also:Empire (1899). He was twice married, his second wife ,(nee See also:Emilia Frances Strong), the widow of See also:Mark See also:Pattison, being an accomplished See also:art critic and See also:collector. She died in 1904. The most important of her books were the studies on See also:French Painters of the Eighteenth See also:Century (1899) and three subsequent volumes on the architects and sculptors, See also:furniture and decoration, engravers and draughtsmen of the same See also:period, the last of which appeared in 1902.

A See also:

posthumous See also:volume, The See also:Book of the Spiritual Life (1905), contains a memoir of her by Sir Charles Dilke.

End of Article: DILKE, SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH

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