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Admiral Sir Charles Elliot (15 August 1801 – 9 September 1875) was a British Royal Navy officer, diplomat, and colonial administrator. He became the first Administrator of Hong Kong in 1841 while serving as both Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China. He was a key founder in the establishment of Hong Kong as a British colony.Endacott 2005, p. 1
Born in Dresden, Saxony, Elliot joined the Royal Navy in 1815 and served as a midshipman in the bombardment of Algiers against Barbary pirates the following year. After serving in the East Indies Station for four years, he joined the Home Fleet in 1820. He joined the West Africa Squadron and became a lieutenant in 1822. After serving in the West Indies Station, he was promoted to captain in 1828. He met Clara Windsor in Haiti and they married in 1828.
After retiring from active naval service, Elliot followed a career in the Foreign Office. From 1830 to 1833, he was Protector of Slaves in British Guiana. In 1834, he went to China as Master Attendant to the staff of Chief Superintendent Lord Napier. He became Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent from 1836 to 1841. From 1842 to 1846, Elliot was chargé d'affaires and consul general in the Republic of Texas. He served as Governor of Bermuda (1846–54), Governor of Trinidad (1854–56), and Governor of Saint Helena (1863–70). He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1856.
On 26 March 1815, Elliot joined the Royal Navy as a first-class volunteer on board HMS Leviathan, which served in the Mediterranean Station.O'Byrne, William Richard (1849). "Elliot, Charles". For more on Elliot, Charles see: , A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray. p. 332. In July 1816, he became a midshipman on board HMS Minden, in which he served in the bombardment of Algiers against Barbary corsairs in August 1816.Endacott 2005, p. 2 He then served in the East Indies Station for four years under Sir Richard King. In 1820, he joined the cutter Starling under Lieutenant-Commander John Reeve in the Home Fleet, and HMS Queen Charlotte under James Whitshed.
Lord Goderich Secretary feels himself bound to acknowledge that His Majesty's Government are indebted to him Elliot, not only for a zealous and efficient execution of the duties of his office, but for communications of peculiar value and importance sent from the Colony during the last twelve months, and for essential services rendered at a critical period since his arrival in this country ... Elliot has contributed far beyond what the functions of his particular office required of him.
In March 1839, Lin Zexu in Canton demanded European merchants surrender their opium. When they refused, he quarantined them and surrounded their factories. Captain Elliot arrived with 20,283 chests of British opium, valued at £2,000,000. Merchants, believing Elliot would safeguard it, were appalled when he surrendered it to Lin. Elliot claimed he acted for the quarantined British community. After confiscating the opium, Lin ordered all merchants involved in the trade to leave China. Elliot and the merchants complied when the situation was very tense, and Lin subsequently destroyed the opium by dumping it into Canton Bay. In order to make the obstinate merchants comply with the order, Elliot promised the merchants British government compensation when he had no authority to do so. The joke among the happy opium merchants was that Queen Victoria was now the biggest buyer of their opium. Thus the Parliament later disagreed, believing China should pay any reparations. Frustrated by the lack of compensation, William Jardine, who had left Canton before Lin's arrival, began planning to force compensation from China through warfare, aiming to sway public and government opinion in Britain.
During the First Opium War, he was on board the East India Company steamer Nemesis during most of the battles. In January 1841, he negotiated terms with Chinese Imperial Commissioner Qishan in the Convention of Chuenpi. Elliot declared via a circular, among other terms, the cession of Hong Kong Island to the United Kingdom. The Chinese Repository. Volume 10. Canton. 1841. pp. 63–64. However, Palmerston recalled Elliot and, accusing him of disobedience and treating his instructions as "waste paper", dismissed him. Henry Pottinger was appointed to replace him as plenipotentiary in May 1841.Le Pichon, Alain, ed. (2006). China Trade and Empire. Oxford University Press. pp. 39–40. . On 29 July, HMS Phlegeton arrived in Hong Kong with dispatches informing Elliot of the news.Eitel, E. J. (1895). Europe in China: The History of Hongkong from the Beginning to the Year 1882. London: Luzac & Company. p. 177. Pottinger arrived in Macao on 10 August, and announced two days later that Elliot's arrangements with Hong Kong would remain in place.Norton-Kyshe, James William (1898). The History of the Laws and Courts of Hongkong. Volume 1. London: T. Fisher Unwin. p. 10. On 24 August, Elliot left Macao with his family for England. As he embarked on the Atlanta, a Portuguese fort fired a 13-gun salute.
Historian George Endacott wrote, "Elliot's policy of conciliation, leniency, and moderate war aims was unpopular all round, and aroused some resentment among the naval and military officers of the expedition."Endacott 2005, p. 8 Responding to the accusation that "It has been particularly objected to me that I have cared too much for the Chinese", Elliot wrote to Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen on 25 June 1842:
But I submit that it has been caring more for lasting British honour and substantial British interests, to protect friendly and helpful people, and to return the confidence of the great trading population of the Southern Provinces, with which it is our chief purpose to cultivate more intimate, social and commercial relations.Hoe & Roebuck 1999, p. 225
Elliot served as Governor of Bermuda from 1846 to 1854. He supported the implementation of the mark system by penal reformer Alexander Maconochie in the Bermuda Prison ship.Hilary Carey (2019). Empire of Hell: Religion and the Campaign to End Convict Transportation in the British Empire, 1788–1875. Cambridge University Press. p. 271. . He later served as Governor of Trinidad from 1854 to 1856 and Governor of Saint Helena from 1863 to 1870. In St. Helena, Elliot supported botanist Joseph Hooker's plan to culture the Cinchona plant on mountainous parts of the island. A gardener was sent from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Cinchona plantations soon sprang up near Diana's Peak.Melliss, John Charles (1875). St. Helena: A Physical, Historical, and Topographical Description of the Island. London: L. Reeve & Co. p. 35.
In the retired list, he was promoted to rear-admiral on 2 May 1855, vice-admiral on 15 January 1862, and admiral on 12 September 1865.Laughton, J. K.; Lambert, Andrew, rev. "Elliot, Sir Charles (1801–1875)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004 ed.). Oxford University Press. . Accessed 1 August 2018. In Sir Henry Taylor's play, Edwin the Fair (1842), the character Earl Athulf was based on Elliot. Taylor also mentioned Elliot in his poem, "Heroism in the Shade" (1845).Hoe & Roebuck 1999, p. 204 Elliot was made a Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1856. He died in retirement at Withycombe Raleigh, Exmouth, Devon, England, on 9 September 1875.Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, General Register Office, United Kingdom. He is buried in the churchyard of St John in the Wilderness, Exmouth. The weathered headstone inscription to his grave reads in worn lead lettering: "To the memory of / Adm Sir Charles Elliot KCB / Born 15th August 1801 / Died 9th September 1875 / The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God". This is the only known memorial to him anywhere in the world.Hoe & Roebuck 1999, p. xix
Elliot's wife accompanied him to Guiana from 1830 to 1833, and to China from 1834 to 1841 as well as to all of his subsequent postings around the world. After ten years of widowhood, she died on 17 October 1885, aged 80, at The Bury, the home of her husband's nephew Captain (RN retired) Hugh Maximilian Elliot in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. She is buried at the Heath Lane Cemetery, Hemel Hempstead, where a stone cross bears a worn inscription to her memory.Heath Lane Cemetery Register, Dacorum Borough Council, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.
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