- Robert Adair
Sir Robert Adair (1763 – 1855) was a distinguished English diplomat, and frequently employed on the most important
diplomatic mission s.He was the son of Robert Adair, sergeant-surgeon to George III and Lady Caroline Keppel, daughter of
Willem Anne van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle . He was educated atWestminster School and theUniversity of Göttingen , and then studied law atLincolns Inn , but hardly practised as abarrister .He hoped to gain office as Under-secretary of State to
Charles James Fox , but he was in opposition. Following theFrench Revolution , he travelled in Europe, visiting Berlin, Vienna, and St Petersburg to study the effects of the revolution and equip himself for a diplomatic career.He became Whig
Member of Parliament for Appleby (1799–1802) and Camelford (1802–12).In 1805, he made a disasterous marriage to Angélique Gabrielle, daughter of the marquis de l'Escuyer d'Hazincourt (known as ‘Talleyrand's spy’), but this kept him out of office when Fox returned to government. Instead Fox sent him to Vienna. In 1809,
George Canning transferred him to Constantinople. In 1811, he was granted a pension of £2000 per year.He was employed in Belgium from 1831 to 1835, where he succeeded in preventing a war between the Flemish and Dutch troops. He then visited Prussia. In the 1840s, he published memoirs of his diplomatic activities in the 1800s.
References
*W. P. Courtney, ‘Adair, Sir Robert (1763–1855)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/84] , accessed 23 Sept 2008
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
