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Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale GCVO, KCB (24 February 1837-17 August 1916), of Batsford Park, Gloucestershire, and Birdhope Craig, Northumberland, was a British diplomat, collector and writer. Nicknamed "Barty", he is also famous as the paternal grandfather of the Mitford sisters.

Mitford was the son of Henry Reveley Mitford and the great-grandson of William Mitford, and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. While his paternal ancestors were gentry, his mother Jemima was the daughter of the well-connected Earl of Ashburnham. His parents separated in 1840.

He entered the Foreign Office in 1858, and was appointed third secretary of Embassy in St Petersburg. After service in the Diplomatic Corps in Peking, Mitford went to Japan as second secretary to the British Legation. There he met Ernest Satow and wrote Tales of Old Japan (1871) - a book credited with making such classical Japanese tales as that of the Forty-seven Ronin first known to a wide Western public. He resigned in 1873. In 1906 he accompanied the Prince of Wales (later George V) on a visit to Japan to present the emperor with the Order of the Garter, and was asked about Japanese ceremonies that had since disappeared.

From 1874 to 1886 Mitford acted as secretary to HM Office of Works, involved in the restoration of the Tower of London and landscaping parts of Hyde Park such as 'The Dell'. From 1887 he was a member of the Royal Commission on Civil Services. He also sat as Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon between 1892 and 1895. In 1886 Mitford inherited the substantial estates of his first cousin twice removed, John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Earl of Redesdale. In accordance with the will he assumed by Royal license the additional surname of Freeman. He substantially rebuilt Batsford House in Gloucestershire in the Victorian Gothic style. In 1902 the Redesdale title was revived when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale in the County of Northumberland.

Lord Redesdale married in 1874 Lady Clementina Gertrude Helen, the daughter of David Graham Drummond Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie and his wife Blanche, the daughter of Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley. They had five sons and four daughters, but sadly their eldest son Clement was killed in 1915 in the First World War. He died in August 1916, aged 79, and was succeeded in the barony by his second but eldest surviving son David, who was the father of the famous Mitford sisters. Lady Redesdale died in 1932.

See also

• Hugh Cortazzi, Mitford's Japan : Memories and Recollections, 1866-1906, Format: Paperback, Published: January 2003, ISBN 1-903350-07-7
• Anglo-Japanese relations.

Bibliography

• Tales of Old Japan (1871)
• The Bamboo Garden (1896)
• The Attaché at Peking (1900)
• The Garter Mission to Japan (1906)
• Memoirs (1915; 2 vols)
• Further Memories (1917)

Lord Redesdale also wrote an extensive Introduction to Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, and translated, with another Introduction for Immanuel Kant, both by Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

External links

• Works by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale at Project Gutenberg

References

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page
• www.thepeerage.com
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

• 1837 births
• 1916 deaths
• Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
• British diplomats
• British people in Japan
• Collectors of fairy tales
• Companions of the Order of the Bath