in 1859 and M.A. in 1860. On 1 June 1859 he entered the foreign office. He was despatched to Syria with Lord Dufferin's special mission on 31 July 1860, and returning in September 1861 was selected to accompany the prince of Wales in his tour through Palestine and Eastern Europe in 1861-2. In the autumn of 1862 he accompanied Earl Russell to Germany in attendance upon the queen. On 27 Nov. 1862 he was appointed a groom of the bedchamber to the prince of Wales. In 1863 he accompanied Earl Granville abroad with the queen.
In June 1864 Meade became private secretary to Earl Granville as president of the council, and was with him till July 1866; he then resumed his work in the foreign office. When Lord Granville became, on 10 Dec. 1868, secretary of state for the colonies, Meade accompanied him as private secretary to the colonial office. On 21 May 1871 Meade was appointed to an assistant under-secretaryship of state in the colonial office; thenceforward he devoted himself to the ordinary and responsible duties of that post. He was appointed a royal commissioner for the Paris exhibition on 22 Jan. 1877, and a British delegate to the conference on African questions at Berlin on 24 Oct. 1884 (see Parl. Papers, c. 4290, of 1885, for his conversations with Prince Bismarck). In February 1892 he became permanent under-secretary for the colonies under Lord Knutsford, and subsequently served under Lord Ripon and Mr. Chamberlain. Latterly his health became indifferent; he was anxious to retire in 1895, but stayed on at the request of the secretary of state for a year longer. However, towards the end of 1896 he fell and broke his leg one evening in entering an omnibus upon leaving the office. He never returned to his work. Ill-health and the sudden death of his daughter broke him down completely, and he died on 8 Jan. 1898 at an hotel in fast. He was buried at Taplow, near Maidenhead. He became C.B. on 21 March 1886, K.C.B. in 1894, and G.C.B. in 1897.
Meade had considerable practical common sense and much tact, and he was besides a man of peculiar charm, greatly liked by all who knew him. He was one of a knot of official liberals who formed a little coterie in the service of the crown from about 1870 to 1890.
Meade married, first, on 19 April 1865, Lady Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Lascelles, third earl of Harewood; she died on 7 Feb. 1866, leaving one daughter, who predeceased her father in 1897. Meade married, secondly, on 13 April 1880, Caroline Georgiana, daughter of Charles William Grenfell of Taplow Court, Maidenhead; she died on 6 March 1881, leaving a son, Charles Francis, who survived him.
[Foreign Office List, 1895; Colonial Office List, 1895; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886; Times, 10 Jan. 1898; Burke's
MELVILL, Sir JAMES COSMO (1792–1861), last secretary of the East India Company, born at Guernsey in 1792, was the third son of Philip Melvill (1762–1811), afterwards lieutenant-governor of Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, by his wife, Elizabeth Carey (d. 1844), youngest daughter of Peter Dobree of Beauregarde, Guernsey. Henry Melvill [q. v.] was his elder brother. James entered the home service of the East India Company in February 1808. He soon displayed unusual abilities, and rose by rapid steps to the highest permanent position at the East India House. In 1824 he was appointed auditor of Indian accounts. While in this position he gave important evidence in 1830 before a parliamentary committee vindicating the company's conduct of its China trade from the attack of William Huskisson [q. v.], and again in 1832 before another committee on Indian affairs in regard to the accounts of the company (Thorton, Hist. of British Empire in India, 1858, pp. 501, 503). In 1834 he became financial secretary, and in 1836 chief secretary, an office which he held until the termination of the company's existence as a governing body in 1858. After his retirement from the service of the company he was appointed government director of Indian railways, and it is said that he was offered appointments of high rank in the Indian government, but declined them. Melvill was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 14 Jan. 1841, and was created K.C.B. on 5 Sept. 1853. He died at Tandridge Court, near Godstone in Surrey, on 23 July 1861. In March 1815 he married Hester Jean Frances (d. 10 April 1864), youngest daughter of William Marmaduke Sellon of Harlesden in Middlesex. By her he had numerous issue.
[Memoirs of Philip Melvill, 1812; Ann. Reg. 1861, ii. 469; Gent. Mag. 1861, ii. 334; Boase's Collect. Cornub. 1890; London Review, 27 July 1861; Bell's British Folks and British India Fifty Years Ago, 1891.]
MENDS, Sir WILLIAM ROBERT (1812–1897), admiral, eldest son of Admiral William Bowen Mends (1781–1864), and nephew of Sir Robert Mends [q. v], was born at Plymouth on 27 Feb. 1812. In May
