Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Scarlett, Peter Campbell
SCARLETT, PETER CAMPBELL (1804–1881), diplomatist, born in Spring Gardens, London, on 27 Nov. 1804, was youngest son of James Scarlett, first baron Abinger [q. v.], and of Louisa Henrietta, daughter of Peter Campbell of Kilmory, Argyllshire. General Sir James Yorke Scarlett [q. v.] was his brother. After being educated at a private school at East Sheen and at Eton, he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1824. He had been intended for the bar, but Canning seems to have persuaded his father to send him into the diplomatic service. Accordingly on 10 Oct. 1825 he became an attaché at Constantinople in the suite of Sir Stratford Canning [q. v.] Removed to Paris on 1 June 1828, he was a witness of the revolution which ended in the flight of Charles X on 16 Aug. 1830, and was for a time made prisoner by the mob. He was appointed paid attaché to Brazil in February 1834, and left England for Rio on 2 Aug. 1834. In the course of 1835–6 he made an excursion across the Pampas and Andes, a full account of which he published under the title of ‘South America and the Pacific’ (2 vols. London, 1838). The book has an interesting appendix upon Pacific steam communication. Ill-health interrupted his diplomatic career, and he acted as marshal to his father, then chief baron of the exchequer. On 3 April 1844 he resumed work abroad as secretary of legation at Florence, and was made a C.B. on 19 Sept. 1854. On 31 Dec. 1855 he was promoted to be envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Rio Janeiro, but on 13 Dec. 1858 went back to Florence as minister. After the union of Italy in 1860 the mission was abolished, and Scarlett retired on a pension. On 12 June 1862 he was again employed as envoy extraordinary at Athens, and in November 1864, after a prolonged stay in England, was transferred to the court of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. There, as at Athens, he witnessed the deposition of the reigning sovereign. On 11 Oct. 1867 he retired finally on pension.
Scarlett during his retirement gathered materials for the life of his father, which were published under the title of ‘Materials for the Life of James Scarlett, Lord Abinger,’ London, 1877. He died at Parkhurst, Dorking, Surrey, on 15 July 1881. He married twice: first, Frances Sophia Mostyn, second daughter of Edmund Lomax of Parkhurst (she died in 1849); secondly, on 27 Dec. 1873, Louisa Anne Jeannin, daughter of J. Wolfe Murray, and widow of Lord Cringletie. He left one son, a colonel in the guards, and one daughter, who married Sir John Walsham.
[Foreign Office List, 1880; Times, 16 July 1881; Burke's Peerage, s.v. ‘Abinger;’ private information.]