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Talk:Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby

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Use of the 11th ed. of the Enc. Brit.

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This article, like others, should not rely on the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. As useful and well-written a work as the 11th ed. of the EB is, it is not at all appropriate as a source of up-to-date historical assessments, especially in terms of biographies. For example, when the 11th ed. was compiled, Lord Derby's personal papers were not in the public record, as they are now, plus very little of the Foreign Office papers covering the period that led up to his resignation were available for viewing, there being a rule that confidential documents in the UK do not enter the public record until a minimum of 30 years passage after their creation. As the 11th ed. was published in 1911, and as such written in the course of work years before this, almost none of the records that refer to the reality of his work at the Foreign Office and in Disraeli's govt. were looked at by the authors. That the wikipedia entry lists verbatim (which has its own massive problems, which I will not refer to here) the 11th ed.'s words about the end of Derby's career as Foreign Secretary, i.e. "His part in the later phases of the Russo-Turkish struggle has never been fully explained, for with equal wisdom and generosity he declined to gratify public curiosity at the cost of some of his colleagues. A later generation will know better than his contemporaries what were the precise developments of policy which obliged him to resign," is a completely irresponsible piece of information to have on a supposedly modern encyclopedia article. This "later generation" has arrived, as for about 75 years we have indeed known why this happened. It is recommended not that the article be updated or that this information be added to the 11th ed.'s entry, but that the 11th ed. be scrapped as a template and an entire new article be written using modern sources on Derby's life and career.--Lrschum (talk) 20:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I edited the page before I saw this comment; I was reading Blake's life of Disraeli and, startled by what Derby had done, looked him up here. As you can see, instead of learning more, I found myself adding what little I'd gleaned from Blake.
A full rewrite would be nice, but until someone who's read a biography of Derby shows up here, editing the Britannica text is the best we are likely to get. --Tbanderson (talk) 13:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of Stanley's role in the formation of the country of Canada in 1867 as a sovereign nation

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As Stanley was foreign secretary from 1866-1868 I would assume he would have had a substantial role in dealing with and piloting Britan's official response to this event. I do not have any historical knowledge to offer on this, but it would be very interesting to know more. And this is certainly significant to Canadians since it touches on one of the pinnacle events in our political history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.182.250 (talk) 07:55, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This was the responsibility of Lord Carnarvon and the Duke of Buckingham, the Colonial Secretaries of that government. Different job.Paulturtle (talk) 11:53, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Spoons

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Wasn't he known as "Spoons" Derby on account of his habit of nicking cutlery from other people's dinner parties? I think it was in Richard Shannon The Crisis of Imperialism, a History of Britain 1865-1915 which I read several decades ago. Also John Charmley's late 1990s book on Britain's commitment to mainland Europe has a fair bit on Derby in the 1870s, as I recall.Paulturtle (talk) 03:51, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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