Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair
Vice-President of the Committee on Education | |
---|---|
In office 13 February 1886 – 20 July 1886 | |
Monarch | Queen Victoria |
Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone |
Preceded by | Sir Henry Holland, Bt |
Succeeded by | Sir Henry Holland, Bt |
Personal details | |
Born | Robert Lambert Playfair (brother) | 1 May 1818
Alma mater | University of St Andrews University of Edinburgh |
Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair politician who was Postmaster-General from 1873 to 1874.
Early life
Playfair was born at
Early career
After returning to
After the Exhibition, the
Appointed a
Political career
In 1868, Playfair was elected
During the 1870s and early 1880s, anti-vaccination supporters sought to repeal UK government legislation for compulsory childhood vaccination against smallpox.[6] Playfair's speech to parliament in 1883[7] helped the government win a motion to keep compulsory vaccination by over 250 votes.[6]
In November 1887, a meeting of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations held in Oxford passed a resolution calling for Fair Trade (a form of protectionism).[8] The following month, Playfair defended free trade in a speech in Leeds, which was published by the Cobden Club under the title "On Fair Trade and the Depression in Agriculture". He later claimed that this pamphlet sold around 100,000 copies.[9] The veteran free trade campaigner, John Bright, wrote to Playfair and said his speech was "one of the best, if not the best, spoken on the question".[10]
Playfair delivered a speech to the City Liberal Club in London, where he claimed that economic depressions were not due to fiscal arrangements but were universal and synchronous in all industrialised nations. The advances in science, such as improved transport and the substitution of machine for manual labour, had lowered the value of labour of quantity and heightened the value of labour of quality. This, Playfair claimed, had dislocated labour.[10] Playfair enlarged on this speech in an article for The Contemporary Review of March 1888.[11] Afterwards, Playfair delivered a speech to the National Liberal Club, which was published as "On Industrial Competition and Commercial Freedom" by the Cobden Club. The Liberal Party leader, William Ewart Gladstone, wrote to Playfair to thank him for his "admirable tract; so comprehensive, clear, simple in statement, rich in illustration".[12]
Having represented
Later life
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/The_grave_of_Lyon_Playfair%2C_East_Cemetery%2C_St_Andrews.jpg/220px-The_grave_of_Lyon_Playfair%2C_East_Cemetery%2C_St_Andrews.jpg)
Lord Playfair died at his home at Onslow Gardens in South Kensington, London, in May 1898, aged 80. His body was returned to Scotland, where he was buried in the Eastern Cemetery, St Andrews, towards the north-east corner. He was succeeded in the barony by his son from his first marriage, George James Playfair (1849-1939) who is buried with him.[14]
A memorial fountain was erected to Playfair in St Andrews in 1899, to a design by
Family
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Edith%2C_Lady_Playfair.jpg/220px-Edith%2C_Lady_Playfair.jpg)
His younger brothers were, William Smoult Playfair, a well known obstetrician, and Sir Lambert Playfair, a soldier and diplomat.
Playfair married three times. He firstly married Margaret Eliza Oakes, daughter of James Oakes, in 1846. After her death in August 1855 he married Jean Ann Millington, daughter of Crawley Millington, in 1857. There were children from both marriages. Jean Ann died in 1877 and is buried in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh facing the section known as "Lords Row". After her death, he married Edith Russell of Boston, whose 1884 portrait is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.[17]
Legacy
Playfair is credited with coining the quip "cannot see a forest for the trees of which it is composed".[18]
Notes
- ^ a b Dorothy Porter, Roy Porter (editors). "Lyon Playfair and the Idea of Progress". Doctors, Politics and Society: Historical Essays. Vol. 23. Rodopi, 1993.
{{cite book}}
:|author=
has generic name (help) - ^ Wemyss Reid, Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair (London: Cassell, 1900), pp. 148–149.
- ^ Reid, pp. 149–150.
- ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
- ^ "No. 24045". The London Gazette. 16 December 1873. p. 5869.
- ^ a b Blatchford, Ian (2021). "Vaccination and the Victorians; Lyon Playfair's battle for science". Retrieved 30 May 2022.
- ^ Playfair, Lyon; Dilke, Chas (1883). Facts about vaccination ; speeches in Parliament. Jarrold & Sons.
- ^ 'Conservative Conference at Oxford', The Times (23 November 1887), p. 8.
- ^ Reid, p. 367.
- ^ a b Reid, p. 368.
- ^ Reid, pp. 368–369.
- ^ Reid, p. 369.
- ^ "No. 26323". The London Gazette. 6 September 1892. p. 5090.
- ^ Lundy, Darryl. "thepeerage.com Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair". The Peerage.[unreliable source]
- ^ Dictionary of Scottish Architects: Robert Lorimer
- ISBN 9780230230095.
- ^ "Edith, Lady Playfair (Edith Russell)". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 5 January 2017. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
- ^ William A P Martin. The Lore of Cathay, or the Intellect of China. Olipant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1900. p. 396.
References
- Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair by Wemyss Reid, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1899
Further reading
- Obituary of Lyon Playfair in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, volume LXIV, 1899 (pages ix – xi, near the end of the volume)
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Blatchford, I, "Lyon Playfair: chemist and commissioner, 1818–1858", Science Museum Journal, Issue 15, Spring 2021
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lyon Playfair
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 831.