GOSCHEN, GEORGE JOACHIM GOSCHEN

This article appears in Volume V12, Page 264 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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GOSCHEN, GEORGE JOACHIM GOSCHEN , 1st VISCOUNT (1831-1907), British statesman, son of William Henry Goschen, a London merchant of German extraction, was born in London on the loth of August 1831. He was educated at Rugby under Dr Tait, and at Oriel College, Oxford, where he took a first-class in classics. He entered his father's firm of FrUhling & Goschen, of Austin Friars, in 1853, and three years later became a director of the Bank of England. His entry into public lifetook place in 1863, when he was returned without opposition as member for the city of London in the Liberal

interest

INTEREST

, and this was followed by his re-election, at the head of the poll, in the general election of 1865. In November of the same year he was appointed vice-president of the Board of Trade and paymaster-general, and in January 1866 he was made chancellor of the duchy of

Lancaster

, with a seat in the cabinet. When Mr Gladstone became prime minister in December 1868, Mr Goschen joined the cabinet as president of the Poor Law Board, and continued to hold that office until March 1871, when he succeeded Mr Childers as first lord of the admiralty. In 1874 he was elected lord

rector

RECTOR (Lat. for " ruler," " guide," &c., from regere, " rule ")

of the university of Aberdeen. Being sent to Cairo in 1876 as delegate for the British holders of Egyptian bonds, in order to arrange for the conversion of the debt, he succeeded in effecting an agreement with the Khedive.
In 1878 his views upon the county franchise question pre-vented him from voting uniformly with his party, and he in-formed his constituents in the city that he would not stand again at the forthcoming general election. In 188o he was elected for Ripon, and continued to represent that constituency until the general election of 1885, when he was returned for the Eastern Division of Edinburgh. Being opposed to the extension of the franchise, he was unable to join Mr Gladstone's government in 188o; declining the post of viceroy of India, he accepted that of

special

SPECIAL

ambassador

AMBASSADOR (also EMBASSADOR, the form sometimes still used in America; from the Fr. ambassadeur, with which compare Ital. ambasciatore and Span. embajador, all variants of the Med. Lat. ambassiator, ambassiator, ambasator, &c., derived from Med. Lat. amba

to the Porte, and was successful in settling the Montenegrin and Greek frontier questions in 188o and 1881. He was made an ecclesiastical commissioner in 1882, and when Sir Henry Brand was raised to the peerage in 1884, the speakership of the

House

of Commons was offered to him, but declined. During the parliament of 188o1885 he frequently found himself unable to concur with his party, especially as regards the extension of the franchise and questions of foreign policy; and when Mr Gladstone adopted the policy of Home Rule for Ireland, Mr Goschen followed Lord Hartington (after-wards duke of Devonshire) and became one of the most active of the Liberal Unionists. His vigorous and eloquent opposition to Mr Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 brought him into greater public prominence than ever, but he failed to retain his seat for Edinburgh at the election in July of that year. On the resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill in December 1886, Mr Goschen, though a Liberal Unionist, accepted Lord Salisbury's invitation to join his ministry, and became chancellor of the exchequer. Being defeated at Liverpool, 26th of January 1887, by seven votes, he was elected for St George's, Hanover Square, on the 9th of February. His chancellorship of the exchequer during the ministry of 1886 to 1892 was rendered memorable by his successful conversion of the National Debt in 1888 (see NATIONAL DEBT). With that financial operation, under which the new 2i% Consols became known as " Goschens," his name will long be connected. Aberdeen University again conferred upon him the honour of the lord rectorship in 1888, and he received a similar honour from the University of Edinburgh in 189o. In the Unionist opposition of 1893 to 1895 Mr Goschen again took a vigorous part, his speeches both in and out of the House of Commons being remarkable for their eloquence and debating power. From 1895 to 1900 Mr Goschen was first lord of the admiralty, and in that office he earned the highest reputation for his businesslike grasp of detail and his statesmanlike outlook on the naval policy of the country. He retired in 1900, and was raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Goschen of Hawkhurst, Kent. Though retired from active politics he continued to take a great

interest

INTEREST

in public affairs; and when Mr Chamber-lain started his tariff reform

movement

MOVEMENT

in 1903, Lord Goschen was one of the weightiest champions of free trade on the Unionist side. He died on the 7th of February 1907, being succeeded in the title by his son George Joachim (b. 1866), who was Conservative M.P. for East Grinstead from 1895 to 1900, and married a daughter of the 1st

earl

EARL

of Cranbrook.
In educational subjects Goschen had always taken the greatest interest, his best known, but by no means his only, contribution to popular culture being his participation in the University
Extension

Movement

MOVEMENT

; and his first efforts in parliament were devoted to advocating the abolition of religious tests and the admission of Dissenters to the universities. His published works indicate how ably he combined the wise study of economics with a practical instinct for business-like progress, without neglecting the more ideal aspects of human life. In addition to his well-known work on The Theory of the Foreign Exchanges, he published several financial and political pamphlets and addresses on educational and social subjects, among them being that on Cultivation of the Imagination, Liverpool, 1877, and that on Intellectual Interest, Aberdeen, 1888. He also wrote The Life and Times of Georg Joachim Goschen, publisher and printer of

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

(1903). (H. CH.)
GOS-HAWK, i.e. goose-hawk, the Astur palumbarius of ornithologists, and the largest of the short-winged hawks used in falconry. Its English name, however, has possibly been transferred to this species from one of the long-winged hawks or true falcons, since there is no tradition of the gos-hawk, now so called, having ever been used in Europe to take geese or other large and powerful birds. The genus Astur may be readily distinguished from Falco by the smooth edges of its beak, its short wings (not reaching beyond about the middle of the tail), and its long legs and toesthough these last are stout and comparatively shorter than in the

sparrow

SPARROW (0. Eng. spearwa; Icel. sporr; O.H.G. Sparo)

-hawks (Accipiter). In plumage the gos-hawk has a general resemblance to the peregrine falcon, and it undergoes a corresponding change as it advances from youth to maturitythe young being longitudinally streaked beneath, while the adults are transversely barred. The irides, however, are always yellow, or in old birds orange, while those of the falcons are dark brown. The sexes differ greatly in size. There can be little doubt that the gos-hawk, nowadays very rare in Britain, was once common in England, and even towards the end of the 18th century Thornton obtained a nestling in Scotland, while Irish gos-hawks were of old highly celebrated. Being strictly a woodland-bird, its disappearance may be safely connected with the disappearance of the ancient forests in Great Britain, though its destructiveness to poultry and pigeons has doubtless contributed to its present scarcity. In many parts of the continent of Europe it still abounds. It ranges eastward to China and is much valued in India. In North America it is represented by a very nearly allied species, A. atricapillus, chiefly distinguished by the closer barring of the breast. Three or four examples corresponding with this form have been obtained in Britain. A good many other species of Astur (some of them passing into Accipiter) are found in various parts of the world, but the only one that need here be mentioned is the A. novae-hollandiae of Australia, which is remarkable for its dimorphismone form possessing the normal dark-coloured plumage of the genus and the other being perfectly white, with crimson irides. Some writers hold these two forms to be distinct species and call the dark-coloured one A. cinereus or A. raii. (A. N.)

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