Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford was a British diplomat, collector and writer.
Background
Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford was born on February 24, 1837. He was the son of Henry Reveley Mitford (1804-1883) of Exbury House, Exbury, Hampshire and the great-grandson of the historian William Mitford. While his paternal ancestors were landed gentry, whose holdings had once included Mitford Castle in Northumberland, his mother (Georgiana) Jemima was a daughter of the courtier the 3rd Earl of Ashburnham, with a noble ancestry through the earls of Beverley. His parents separated in 1840 when Redesdale was just three years old, and his mother remarried a Mr. Molyneaux.
Education
He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.
Career
Entering the Foreign Office in 1858, Mitford was appointed Third Secretary of the British Embassy in St Petersburg.
After service in the Diplomatic Corps in Shanghai, he went to Japan as second secretary to the British Legation at the time of the migration of the Japanese Seat of Power from Kyoto to Edo (modern-day Tokyo), known as the "Meiji Restoration". Rededale served as secretary under Myburgh`s replacement, John Frederik Lowder. There he met Ernest Satow and wrote Tales of Old Japan (1871), a book credited with making such Japanese Classics as "The Forty-seven Ronin" first known to a wide Western public. He resigned from the diplomatic service in 1873.
Following the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, in 1906 he accompanied Prince Arthur on a visit to Japan to present the Emperor Meiji with the Order of the Garter. He was asked by courtiers there about Japanese ceremonies that had disappeared since 1868. He is one of the people credited with introducing Japanese knotweed to England.
From 1874 to 1886, Mitford acted as secretary to HM Office of Works, involved in the lengthy restoration of the Tower of London and in landscaping parts of Hyde Park such as "The Dell".
He was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron from 1889 to 1914. Redesdale was President of the Royal Photographic Society between 1910-1912.
Royal Yacht Squadron
1889 - 1914
Royal Photographic Society
1910 - 1912
Connections
Lord Redesdale married in 1874 Lady Clementina Gertrude Helen (1854-1932), the daughter of David Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie by his spouse Blanche, the daughter of Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley. They had five sons and four daughters:
Honorary Frances Mitford (born 1875), who later married Alexander Kearsey.
Honorary Clement Freeman-Mitford (1876-1915), the eldest son, killed in action in the Battle of Loos, whose posthumous daughter Clementine married Sir Alfred Beit.
Honorary David Freeman-Mitford (1878-1958), who succeeded his father in the barony and was the father of the prominent Mitford sisters
Honorary Iris Freeman-Mitford (1878-1966), who was married.
Honorary Bertram Freeman-Mitford (1880-1962), who succeeded David as the 3rd Baron Redesdale in 1958.
Honorary John Freeman-Mitford (1885-1963), who succeeded Bertram as the 4th Baron Redesdale in 1962.
Honorary Joan Freeman-Mitford (born 1887), who married Dennis Hebert Farrer in 1907.
Honorary Ernest Freeman-Mitford (1895-1939), who was the father of Clement Freeman-Mitford, 5th Baron Redesdale.
Honorary Daphne Freeman-Mitford (1895-1996), who married George Bowyer, 1st Baron Denham.
During his time in Japan, he was said to have fathered two children with a geisha. Later, he was considered to be one of the possible fathers of Clementine Hozier (1885–1977), in the course of an affair with his wife's sister Blanche. Clementine married Winston Churchill in 1908.