Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Pakenham, Francis John
PAKENHAM, Sir FRANCIS JOHN (1832–1905), diplomatist, born on 29 Feb. 1832 in London, was seventh son of Thomas Pakenham, second earl of Longford, by his wife Emma Charlotte, daughter of William Lygon, first Earl Beauchamp. After private education he matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 17 Oct. 1849. On leaving the university he was appointed attaché at Lisbon in 1852, and was promoted paid attaché at Mexico two years later. He was transferred in 1858 to Copenhagen, and in 1863 to Vienna. In June 1864 he was promoted to be secretary of legation at Buenos Ayres. During April, May, and June of the following year he was employed on special service in Paraguay on board of H.M.S. Dotterel, which had been sent up the River Plate and its tributaries for the protection of British subjects during the war between Paraguay, the Argentine Republic, and Brazil. He acquitted himself of this duty to the entire satisfaction of his superiors. In August of that year he was transferred to Rio de Janeiro, but remained in charge of the legation at Buenos Ayres till December 1865. In December 1866 he was employed on special service at Rio Grande do Sul in connection with an attempt which had been made on the life of the British consul, Mr. (afterwards Sir) R. de Courcy Perry from motives of personal revenge. He was transferred to Stockholm in March 1868, and later in the same year to Brussels, thence to Washington in 1870, and to Copenhagen in 1874. In March 1878 he was promoted to be minister resident and consul-general at Santiago, where he remained till 1885, serving in 1883 as British commissioner for claims arising out of the war between Chile and Bolivia and Peru. In February 1885 he was appointed British envoy at Buenos Ayres, with the additional office of minister plenipotentiary to Paraguay. In February 1896 he was transferred to Stockholm, where he remained till his retirement from the service in 1902. He was made K.C.M.G. in 1898.
While travelling for reasons of health he died at Alameda in California on 26 Jan. 1905. He married on 29 July 1879 Caroline Matilda, seventh daughter of the Hon. Henry Ward, rector of Killinchy, co. Down; she survived him, without issue. A portrait painted in 1900 by Count George de Rosen, member of the Royal Swedish Academy, is at Bernhurst House, Hurst Green, Sussex, the residence of his widow, which Pakenham inherited in 1858 by the will of Comte Pierre Coquet de Tresseilles.
Sir Francis was distinguished rather for the British qualities of phlegmatic calmness and sturdy good sense than for those which are generally attributed to the Irish race. His good nature and hospitality made him very popular with the British communities at the various posts in which he served, and he was successful in maintaining excellent personal relations with the governments to which he was accredited, even when, as in his South American posts, the questions to be discussed were of a nature to occasion some heat.
[The Times, 27 Jan. 1905; Foreign Office List, 1906, p. 300.]