Hugh Elliot
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The Right Honourable Hugh Elliot PC |
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 |
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| Governor of the Leeward Islands | |
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In office 1809–1814 |
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| Governor of Madras | |
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In office 1814–1820 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
6 April 1752 Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Died | 1 December 1830 (aged 78) Somerset Street, London |
| Resting place | Westminster Abbey, London |
| Spouse(s) | Charlotte Louisa von Kraut (1778–1783) Margaret Jones (−1819) |
| Parents |
Sir Gilbert Elliot, 3rd Baronet, of Minto Agnes Dalrymple-Murray-Kynymound |
| Profession | Diplomat |
Hugh Elliot (6 April 1752 – 1 December 1830) was a British diplomat and then a colonial governor.
Hugh Elliot was born on 6 April 1752, the second son of Sir Gilbert Elliot, and the younger brother of Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto. Hugh and Gilbert were educated together, first by private tutor, and later between 1764 and 1766 in Paris, where they were mentored by Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume and where Hugh struck up a friendship with Count Mirabeau. In 1768, at the age of 16, Hugh entered Christ Church, University of Oxford, but left after only two years to complete his military education at Metz.
After that, at the still young age of 18, Hugh Elliot took a commission in the Russian army as an officer, and fought in the campaign against the Turks in the Balkans. According to family papers, at one point Elliot was forced to swim in the Danube holding on to the tail of a horse ridden by a Cossack.
At 21, largely through his father's influence, he took up a diplomatic post as the British Minister Plenipotentiary to the Duchy of Bavaria. Four years later, he was named as the British ambassador to Frederick the Great in Prussia. He developed a reputation as a great social wit, but worked hard to defeat the entreaties of American diplomats during the American Revolutionary War (including, allegedly, at one point stealing the American dispatch box and copying its contents).
In Berlin he married his first wife, Charlotte von Kraut, but when she committed adultery he challenged her lover to a duel. He himself was wounded in the duel, but received a written apology from his protagonist. The scandal was to later haunt him during his career, and is most often cited as the reason why, despite an exceptional career in the diplomatic service, he never received the customary knighthood.
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