Edward Stanhope

Edward Stanhope, MP PC (24 September 1840 – 21 December 1893) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.

The second son of Philip Henry Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, Stanhope was born in London. He studied at Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford. He studied law, being called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1865. In 1874 he was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative, and soon rose to a position of prominence within the party. In 1875 he became Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, and in 1878 moved up to Under-Secretary at the India Office, where he was a key assistant to India Secretary Lord Cranbrook.

After the Tories' fall from power in 1880, Stanhope supported Commons leader Stafford Northcote against younger Tories led by Lord Randolph Churchill in internal Conservative party squabbling. When the Conservatives returned to the power, Stanhope became Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, with a seat in the cabinet, and almost immediately thereafter President of the Board of Trade. He moved up to major cabinet office in Salisbury's second government, serving first as Colonial Secretary (1886–1887) and then as Secretary for War (1887–1892) following a cabinet reshuffle in January 1887.

As War Secretary, Stanhope fought for reform against the reactionary high officers — most notably the Duke of Cambridge, the Commander in Chief, and Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Adjutant-General. In spite of his own inexperience in military affairs and this formidable opposition, Stanhope achieved a fair amount, although it was his Liberal successor, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who managed to push Cambridge into retirement.

In December 1893, Stanhope died suddenly of a heart attack.

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