Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/169

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Berkeley
149
Bernard

bounties on the export of sugar, was one of the British delegates at the conferences held in Brussels on this question in 1899 and 1901, and signed the convention concluded on the latter occasion 5 March 1902. In 1903 he was appointed the British delegate on the permanent commission established under Article VII. of that convention, and attended the various meetings of the commission, furnishing reports which were laid before parliament and which were marked by his usual power of terse, lucid explanation. He served as a member on the royal commission for the Paris exhibition of 1900. He retired from the foreign office on a pension on 1 Oct. 1902, but his employment on the special subjects of which he had an intimate acquaintance continued. He received the C.B. in 1902 and the K.C.B. in the following year. In November 1908 he served as British delegate at the international copyright conference at Berlin, and died there of a chill on 15 Nov.

Though scarcely an author in the ordinary sense of the term, Bergne rendered important services to the Authors' Society, of which he became a member in 1890, and after his retirement from the foreign office served on the committee of management, and copyright sub-committee, acting as chairman of the general committee (1905-7). He contributed to the 'Quarterly Review,' 'Blackwood's Magazine,' 'The Spectator,' and other periodicals articles on subjects with which he was professionally well acquainted (including the 'Halifax Fishery Commission,' the 'Law of Extradition,' 'Anglo-American Copyright,' and 'Queen's Messengers'). He was also an accomplished mountaineer and well-known member of the Alpine Club from 1878 to death. His father had been known as an expert numismatist; he was himself a collector of Oriental china.

He married in 1878 Mary à Court, daughter of Rev. S. B. Bergne, and had two sons, the elder of whom was killed in an accident near Saas Fee in Switzerland in January 1908; the younger, Evelyn, survives.

[The Times, 16 Nov. 1908; Author, 1 Dec. 1908; Alpine Journal, xxiv. 499-501; Foreign Office List, 1909, p. 397.]

S.


BERKELEY, Sir GEORGE (1819–1905), colonial governor, born in the Island of Barbados, West Indies, on 2 Nov. 1819, was eldest son of General Sackville Hamilton Berkeley, colonel of the 16th regiment of foot. The father, who descended from a branch of the family of the earls of Berkeley, served at the capture of Surinam in 1804, of the Danish Islands of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix in 1807, and of Martinique in 1809. Sir George's mother was Elizabeth Pilgrim, daughter of William Murray of Bruce Vale Estate, Barbados. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered on 3 July 1837, he graduated B.A. in 1842, and soon returned to the West Indies, where his active life was almost wholly passed. On 11 Feb. 1845 he was appointed colonial secretary and controller of customs of British Honduras and ex-officio member of the executive and legislative councils. While still serving in that colony he was chosen in 1860-1 to administer temporarily the government of Dominica, and on 8 July 1864 was appointed lieutenant-governor of the Island of St. Vincent. During his tenure of office in 1867 an Act to amend and simplify the legislature substituted a single legislative chamber for the two houses which had been in existence since 1763. He was acting administrator of Lagos from December 1872 to October 1873, when he was appointed governor in chief of the West Africa settlements (Sierra Leone, Gambia, Gold Coast, and Lagos). The Gold Coast and Lagos were soon erected into a separate colony (24 July 1874), and Berkeley was recalled, so as to allow of a new governor (of Sierra Leone and Gambia) being appointed at a reduced salary. While on his way home in June 1874 he was offered, and accepted, the government of Western Australia, but did not take up the appointment, being sent instead to the Leeward Islands as governor in chief. There he remained until 27 June 1881, when he retired on a pension. He was created C.M.G. on 20 Feb. 1874, and K.C.M.G. 24 May 1881.

Berkeley died unmarried in London on 29 Sept. 1905, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

[Colonial Office List, 1905; The Times, 2 Oct. 1905; Oliver's Hist. of the Island of Antigua, 1899, iii. 319; Hart's Army List, 1863; Dublin Univ. Matric. Book, 1837; Colonial Office Records.]

C. A.


BERNARD, Sir CHARLES EDWARD (1837–1901), Anglo-Indian administrator, born at Bristol on 21 Dec. 1837, was son of James Fogo Bernard, M.D., of 16 The Crescent, Clifton, by his wife Marianne Amelia, sister of John, first Lord Lawrence [q. v.]. He was educated at Rugby, which he entered in 1851, in company with his cousin, Alexander Hutchinson, eldest son of Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence [q. v.], and C. H. Tawney, whose sister he afterwards married. In 1855 he