Edward Thornton (diplomat)

Sir Edward Thornton KCB (13 July 1817 – 26 January 1906) was a prominent British diplomat, who held posts in Latin America, Turkey, Russia, and served for fourteen years as Minister to the United States.

Thornton was born in London, the son of Sir Edward Thornton, also a diplomat, who for many years held the post of British Minister to Portugal.

Thornton was educated at King's College London, and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He entered the diplomatic service as attaché to the mission at Turin in 1842, filled the same position in Mexico in 1845, and was made Secretary of Legation in that Capital in 1853. Thornton did much to forward the conclusion of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. In 1852, he was appointed Secretary of Legation at Buenos Aires, and chargé d'affaires to Uruguay in 1854. He was appointed Minister to the Argentine Republic in 1859, and to Brazil in 1865.

In November 1859, Thornton ordered the Royal Navy to attack the Paraguyan war steamer Tacuari, which future president Francisco Solano López was on, to pressure his father President Carlos López to release a British citizen from prison. This was one of several incidents that damaged Paraguayan relations with Britain. Thornton would later apologise for the action to repair relations, and promised Britain had no intention of interfering with Paraguayan jurisdiction. His actions were used in a House of Commons debate on a clash with Brazil, with William "Seymour" Vesey-FitzGerald calling him "a gentleman who knows how to conciliate... that it is not his duty to "read lessons" to foreign Governments" as an attack on Brazilian consul William Dougal Christie, while opposing MP Layard pointed to Thornton as proof that Britain did not take a "high hand" with Latin American states. At the time, there was a belief that Latin American states were troublesome and a cause of strife.

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