| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Earl of Kimberley | |
| Order1: | Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs |
| Term Start1: | 10 March 1894 |
| Term End1: | 21 June 1895 |
| Monarch1: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister1: | The Earl of Rosebery |
| Predecessor1: | The Earl of Rosebery |
| Successor1: | The Marquess of Salisbury |
| Order2: | Leader of the House of Lords Lord President of the Council |
| Term Start2: | 18 August 1892 |
| Term End2: | 5 March 1894 |
| Monarch2: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister2: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor2: | The Marquess of Salisbury (Leader of Lords) The Earl of Cranbrook (President of Council) |
| Successor2: | The Earl of Rosebery |
| Order4: | Secretary of State for India |
| Term Start4: | 18 August 1892 |
| Term End4: | 10 March 1894 |
| Monarch4: | Victoria |
| Primeminister4: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor4: | The Viscount Cross |
| Successor4: | Henry Fowler |
| Term Start5: | 6 February 1886 |
| Term End5: | 20 July 1886 |
| Monarch5: | Victoria |
| Primeminister5: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor5: | Lord Randolph Churchill |
| Successor5: | The Viscount Cross |
| Term Start6: | 16 December 1882 |
| Term End6: | 9 June 1885 |
| Monarch6: | Victoria |
| Primeminister6: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor6: | Marquess of Hartington |
| Successor6: | Lord Randolph Churchill |
| Order7: | Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster |
| Term Start7: | 25 July 1882 |
| Term End7: | 28 December 1882 |
| Monarch7: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister7: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor7: | John Bright |
| Successor7: | John George Dodson |
| Order8: | Secretary of State for the Colonies |
| Term Start8: | 21 April 1880 |
| Term End8: | 16 December 1882 |
| Monarch8: | Victoria |
| Primeminister8: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor8: | Sir Michael Hicks Beach, Bt. |
| Successor8: | The Earl of Derby |
| Term Start9: | 6 July 1870 |
| Term End9: | 17 February 1874 |
| Monarch9: | Victoria |
| Primeminister9: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor9: | The Earl Granville |
| Successor9: | The Earl of Carnarvon |
| Order10: | Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal |
| Term Start10: | 9 December 1868 |
| Term End10: | 6 July 1870 |
| Monarch10: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister10: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Predecessor10: | The Earl of Malmesbury |
| Successor10: | The Viscount Halifax |
| Order11: | Lord Lieutenant of Ireland |
| Term Start11: | 1 November 1864 |
| Term End11: | 13 July 1866 |
| Monarch11: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister11: | The Earl Russell |
| Predecessor11: | The Earl of Carlisle |
| Successor11: | The Marquess of Abercorn |
| Order12: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for India |
| Term Start12: | 25 April 1864 |
| Term End12: | 16 November 1864 |
| Monarch12: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister12: | The Viscount Palmerston |
| Predecessor12: | Hon. Thomas Baring |
| Successor12: | Lord Dufferin and Clandeboye |
| Order13: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs |
| Term Start13: | 19 June 1859 |
| Term End13: | 15 August 1861 |
| Monarch13: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister13: | The Earl of Aberdeen The Viscount Palmerston |
| Predecessor13: | William Vesey-FitzGerald |
| Successor13: | Austen Henry Layard |
| Term Start14: | 28 December 1852 |
| Term End14: | 5 July 1856 |
| Monarch14: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister14: | The Earl of Aberdeen The Viscount Palmerston |
| Predecessor14: | Lord Stanley |
| Successor14: | The Earl of Shelburne |
| Office15: | Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal |
| Term Start15: | 8 January 1847 |
| Term End15: | 8 April 1902 Hereditary Peerage |
| Predecessor15: | The 2nd Lord Wodehouse |
| Successor15: | The 2nd Earl of Kimberley |
| Birth Date: | 1826 1, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Wymondham |
| Death Place: | London |
| Nationality: | British |
| Party: | Liberal Party |
| Alma Mater: | Christ Church, Oxford |
| Spouse: | Lady Florence FitzGibbon (d. 1895) |
| Children: | 3 |
John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley (7 January 18268 April 1902), known as the Lord Wodehouse from 1846 to 1866, was a British Liberal politician. He held office in every Liberal administration from 1852 to 1895, notably as Secretary of State for the Colonies and as Foreign Secretary.
Kimberley was born in 1826 in Wymondham, Norfolk, the eldest son of the Hon. Henry Wodehouse (1799–1834) and grandson of John Wodehouse, 2nd Baron Wodehouse.[1] His mother was Anne Gurdon (d. 1880), daughter of Theophilus Thornhagh Gurdon. In 1846 he succeeded his grandfather as third Baron Wodehouse. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a first-class degree in classics in 1847.[1]
He was by inheritance a Liberal in politics, and in 1852–1856 and 1859–1861 he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Lord Aberdeen's and Lord Palmerston's ministries. In the interval (1856–1858) he had been envoy-extraordinary to Russia; and in 1863 he was sent on a special mission to Copenhagen in the hope of finding a solution to the Schleswig-Holstein question. However, the mission was a failure.[1]
In 1864 Kimberley became Under-Secretary of State for India, but towards the end of the year was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In that capacity, he had to grapple with the first manifestations of Fenianism, and in recognition of his services, he was created Earl of Kimberley in 1866. In July 1866 he vacated his office with the fall of Lord Russell's ministry, but in 1868 he became Lord Privy Seal in Gladstone's cabinet, and in July 1870 was transferred from that post to be Secretary of State for the Colonies. It was the moment of the great diamond discoveries in southern Africa, and the town of Kimberley in the Cape Colony was named after him.[1] Lord Kimberley has been credited with the change in British policy towards the independent Malay states that led to the signing of the Pangkor Treaty of 1874, after which British political agents known as Residents were placed in the Malay states as advisors to the rulers.[2]
After an interval in opposition from 1874 to 1880, Lord Kimberley returned to the Colonial Office in Gladstone's next ministry. He was in that office when responsible government was granted to Cape Colony, British Columbia was added to the Dominion of Canada and during the First Boer War. At the end of 1882 he exchanged this office first for that of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and then for the secretaryship of state for India, a post he retained during the remainder of Gladstone's tenure of power (1882–1885, 1886, 1892–1894), though in 1892–1894 he combined with it that of the lord presidency of the council.[1]
In Lord Rosebery's cabinet (1894–1895) he was Foreign Secretary. During this time he signed the landmark Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation. Sir Edward Grey who served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary under Kimberley at the Foreign Office portrays him unfavourably as prolix and prone to irrelevant digressions in conversation although concise, definite and clear on paper.[3] However, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "As leader of the Liberal party in the House of Lords he acted with undeviating dignity, and in opposition, he was a courteous antagonist and a critic of weight and experience".
On 5 April 1850, he joined the Canterbury Association, formed to establish a colony (in the later Canterbury Region) on the South Island of New Zealand.
Lord Kimberley took interest in education, and after being for many years a member of the senate of the University of London, he became its chancellor in 1899.[1]
Lord Kimberley married Lady Florence FitzGibbon (d. 1895), daughter of Richard FitzGibbon, 3rd Earl of Clare, on 16 August 1847. They had three children:
He died at 35 Lowndes Square in London (now the High Commission of Pakistan) on 8 April 1902, aged 76, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son, John.[1] His more distant relatives include the writer P. G. Wodehouse.
The following places were named after the 1st Earl of Kimberley:
Attribution: