Arthur Montagu Brookfield


Arthur Montagu Brookfield was a British army officer, diplomat, author and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1903.

Biography

Brookfield was the son of Rev. William Henry Brookfield, curate of St. Luke's, Berwick Street, and Jane Octavia, daughter of Sir Charles Elton, 6th Baronet. He was educated at Rugby School and Jesus College, Cambridge. He served as a lieutenant in the 13th Hussars in India and retired from the regular army in 1880. He was Colonel commanding the 1st Cinque Ports VRC and was a JP for Sussex.
At the 1885 general election, Brookfield was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Rye.
In parliament he was responsible for the Uniforms Act of 1894. During his time in parliament, he commanded a battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry in the Second Anglo-Boer War.
Brookfield left his parliamentary seat in 1903 to become British Consul at Montevideo, and in 1904 transferred as Consul to Danzig, then in West Prussia. In 1910 he became British Consul at Savannah, Georgia, which was a shipping point for the cotton trade between the U.S. and Great Britain.
He was appointed a Knight of Grace of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England in August 1901.

Family

Brookfield married in 1877 Olive Harriet Hamilton, daughter of James Murray Hamilton of Preston, N.B. and of Buffalo, U.S.A. His brother Charles Brookfield was an actor playwright and journalist.