Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tennent, Sir James Emerson

TENNENT, Sir James Emerson (1794–1869), English politician and traveller, the third son of William Emerson, a merchant of Belfast, was born there on 7th April 1794. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, of which he became LL.D. After travelling in Greece, where he made the acquaintance of Lord Byron, whose sentiments in regard to the Greek cause he fully shared, he studied for the bar and was called at Lincoln’s Inn in 1831. He published a Picture of Greece (1826), Letters from the Ægean (1829), and a History of Modern Greece (1830). On his marriage to the daughter and heiress of William Tennent, a wealthy merchant at Belfast, he adopted by royal licence the name of his wife in addition to his own. He entered parliament in 1832 as member for Belfast. In 1841 he became secretary to the India Board, and in 1845 he was knighted and appointed colonial secretary of Ceylon, where he remained till 1850. The result of his residence there appeared in Christianity in Ceylon (1850) and Ceylon, Physical, Historical, and Topographical (2 vols., 1859). On his return he became member for Lisburn, and under Lord Derby was secretary to the Poor Law Board from February to November 1852. From then till 1867 he was permanent secretary to the Board of Trade, and on his retirement he received a baronetcy from Lord Palmerston. In his early years his political views had a Radical tinge, and, although he subsequently joined the Tories, his Conservatism was of a mild type. He withdrew from the Whigs along with Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, and afterwards adhered to Peel. He died in London on 6th August 1869.

Besides the books above mentioned, he wrote Belgium in 1840 (1841) and Wine, its Duties and Taxation (1865), and was a contributor to magazines and a frequent correspondent of Notes and Queries.