Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey
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Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey (1836-1918) was a British politician.
Brassey was the son of the railway contractor Thomas Brassey (1805-1870). He was educated at Rugby School and University College Oxford. He was Liberal MP for Hastings in 1868, a Lord of the Admiralty in 1880, and became Secretary to the Admiralty in 1884. He was knighted in 1881, and was created Baron Brassey of Bulkeley in 1886. From 1895 to 1900 he was Governor of Victoria, and was created Earl Brassey in 1911.
He was succeeded in the earldom by his son Thomas, styled Viscount Hythe. Thomas Brassey, 2nd Earl Brassey (1863-1919) was educated at Eton College and Balliol College Oxford. The second earl died in 1919, when the titles became extinct.
Between July 6, 1876 and May 27, 1877 he circumnavigated the world in his steam-assisted three-masted topsail-yard schooner "Sunbeam". This voyage is said to have been the first circumnavigation by a private yacht. His son Thomas Allnut Brassey (1863-1919) left the "Sunbeam" at Rio de Janeiro in order to return to school in England. His wife Annie (1839-1887) published an account of the cruise entitled A Voyage In The Sunbeam: Our Home On The Ocean For Eleven Months.
He was President of the Royal Statistical Society, 1879-80.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Henry Campbell-Bannerman | Secretary to the Admiralty 1884–1885 | Succeeded by: Charles Thomson Ritchie |
| Government Offices | ||
| Preceded by: The Earl of Hopetoun | Governor of Victoria 1895–1900 | Succeeded by: Sir George Clarke |
| Honorary Titles | ||
| Preceded by: HRH The Prince of Wales | Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports 1908–1913 | Succeeded by: The Earl Beauchamp |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by: New Creation | Earl Brassey | Succeeded by: Thomas Allnutt Brassey |
