Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/515

 , the Boers gained virtual possession of the pastoral resources of Swaziland, In 1889 De Winton was sent as a commissioner to Swaziland, with instructions to hold an inquiry into its affairs in conjunction with a commissioner of the South African republic. He reached Pretoria in Nov. 1889, and after several interviews with President Kruger left for Swaziland, accompanied by Generals Joubert and Smit. The joint commissioners held a meeting of the native chiefs and head-men, and, amongst other things, promised them that the independence of the Swazis should be maintained by both governments; but, according to the report which De Winton subsequently made respecting his mission, the Swazis had already parted 'not only with all their actual territory but with rights which should only belong to the government of a country, to a lot of adventurers whose sole object was to make money by them.' He therefore considered a British protectorate inadvisable and impracticable. Not until the close of the South African war was the position of the Swazis improved. In May 1890 Sir Francis, who retired from the army on 21 June of that year with the honorary rank of major-general, was appointed governor of the Imperial East African Association's possessions; but he resigned in June 1891. In January 1892 he was appointed controller and treasurer of the household of the duke of Clarence, after whose death in January 1892 he continued to act in the same capacity in the household of the duke of York, now King George V. He was promoted G.C.M.G. in 1893. He was hon. sec. of the Royal Geographical Society in 1888-9. He was made hon. LL.D. of Cambridge in 1892, and was also hon. LL.D. of Durham. He died at Llanstephan, Llyswen, South Wales, on 16 Dec. 1901, and was buried at Glasbury, Breconshire.

He married in 1864 Evelyn, daughter of Christopher Rawson of Lennoxville, Canada, and had issue two sons and two daughters. One son predeceased him in 1892.

 DE WORMS, HENRY, first (1840–1903), politician, born in London on 20 Oct. 1840, was third and youngest child of Baron Solomon Benedict de Worms (1801–82), by his wife Henrietta, eldest daughter of Samuel Moses Samuel of London. The father, Solomon de Worms, was son of Benedict de Worms of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, by his wife Jeanette, eldest daughter of Meyer Amschel Rothschild of the same city, and sister of Nathan Meyer Rothschild [q. v.], the first of the Rothschild family to settle in England. Solomon de Worms and his two brothers came to England in 1815 and formed a banking and colonial business in London. Becoming interested in coffee-planting in Ceylon, they did much to further the economic development of the island (Sir, Ceylon, 5th edit. ii. p. 250). Solomon de Worms was created hereditary baron of the Austrian empire in 1871, and in 1874 Queen Victoria gave him and his descendants permission to use the title in England, in recognition of the services rendered by the family to Ceylon.

Henry was educated at King's College, London, of which he became a fellow in 1873. He originally intended to devote himself to medicine (, Reminiscences, i. p. 64), but in 1860 he entered the Inner Temple as a student, and in 1863 was called to the bar, joining the old home circuit and practising at the Kent sessions. Later he engaged with his eldest brother, George, in the management of the family business in Austin Friars, until it was dissolved in 1879.

From early manhood De Worms was interested in public affairs both at home and abroad. A frequent visitor to Austria, he formed a close acquaintance with the Austrian statesman Count von Beust, which grew more intimate during Beust's tenure of the Austrian embassy in London (1871-8). After Beust's death in 1886 De Worms edited with an introduction an English translation of the count's memoirs (1887, 2 vols.). Meanwhile De Worms had become an active politician in England on the conservative side. Beust had introduced him by letter to Disraeli in 1867, with the result that he contested the borough of Sandwich in Nov. 1868, when he was defeated. He was returned at the general election of 1880 as the conservative member for Greenwich, in succession to Gladstone, and was made parliamentary secretary to the board of trade in Lord Salisbury's first administration (June 1885-Jan. 1886). In Nov. 1885 he was elected for the East Toxteth division of Liverpool and was re-elected in June 1886. He resumed office at the board of trade in Lord Salisbury's second administration, and retained that position until February 1888, when he was appointed under-secretary for the colonies (1888-92) and a member of the 