Henry Eliot, 5th Earl of St Germans

Who was Henry Eliot, 5th Earl of St Germans?

Henry Cornwallis Eliot, 5th Earl of St Germans

Henry Cornwallis Eliot was born in London on 11 February 1835 to Edward Granville Eliot, 3rd Earl of St Germans and his wife Jemima née Cornwallis.

Henry was educated at Eton College from 1845–1847, and served as a Midshipman in the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea from 1848 - 1853. He was appointed as a Junior Clerk in the Foreign Office on 28 January 1855, where he worked until he succeeded to the Peerage in 1881. On 26 November 1864, Henry was granted the usage of the title of Lord Eliot on the death of his older brother Edward John Cornwallis Eliot.

In July 1867, he was Secretary to a special mission of Earl Vane to St Petersburg to invest the Emperor of Russia with the Order of the Garter. He was an Assistant Clerk from 1872 until the death of his older brother William Gordon Cornwallis Eliot, 4th Earl of St Germans on 19 March 1881 when he succeeded as 5th Earl of St Germans. In the 1881 Census, he was living at 13 Grosvenor Gardens, St George Hanover Square, London