John Francis Charles, 7th Count de Salis-Soglio


Sir John Francis Charles de Salis, 7th Count de Salis was a British diplomat and landowner.

Family background

He was the elder son of Count John Francis William de Salis, a diplomat and renowned numismatist of Hillingdon, and Amelia Frances Harriet, eldest daughter of Christopher Tower, JP DL MP,, of Huntsmoor Park, Iver, Buckinghamshire, and of Weald Hall, Essex, by his wife, Lady Sophia Frances Cust, eldest daughter of the 1st Earl Brownlow.

Diplomatic career

After being educated at Eton he was nominated an attaché in the diplomatic service on 20 November 1886. He passed a competitive examination on 14 January 1887. On 12 June 1888 he was appointed to Brussels as an attaché and promoted to Third Secretary on 14 January 1889. From 24 April 1892 he served in Madrid, and was promoted to Second Secretary on 22 August 1893. From August 1894 he served in Cairo under Lord Cromer in charge of the agency there when the Dervishes were active. In autumn 1897 he was in Berlin, in 1899 in Brussels and from 1901 in Athens, as head of chancery. He was promoted to First Secretary on 1 April 1904. He was employed between 1901–06 at the Foreign Office in London, and appointed a British Delegate for negotiation of a new Commercial Convention with Romania on 7 September 1905. He served as Berlin chargé d'affaires and counsellor of embassy from 1 July 1906 to 1911, and was a British delegate at the International Copyright Conference at Berlin, October–November 1908. From November 1911 to 1916 he served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of Montenegro at Cettinjé, and was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on a special mission to the Holy See in 1916–1923,. He was a member of the 1931 Malta Royal Commission.

De Salis Report

In 1919 the British Government sent de Salis to investigate the Serbian occupation of Montenegro, but his resulting report was suppressed. Alexander Devine in The Martyred Nation, 1924 wrote: The fact is the Report contains such a damning indictment of Serbian rule that its publication would immediately provoke interference; and that interference did not suit our policy towards the French Government.
In the House of Commons, Ronald McNeill repeatedly asked about production of the Report and De Salis's possible arrest. But as Devine put it: When the day came that Mr. McNeill found himself Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the late Conservative Ministry, the Report was on his desk in the Foreign Office and Mr. McNeill could no more disclose its contents than his predecessors could. Meanwhile, Lord Sydenham in the House of Lords, Hansard, 29 November 1920 said:
In a letter, dated New York, 1 May 1922, published in The New York Times, 7 May 1922, Ronald Tree described the Count as:
'..perhaps the greatest English authority on the Balkans'.
In April 1920, months after the possible event, an alleged arrest and imprisonment by the Serbians, the New York Times reported:
The sensitivity of the issue is shown by the fact that only one of his four obituaries in The Times mentions his Montenegran Report, although not the arrest.

Estate

In 1883 the Count was listed in Bateman's Great Landowners, based on the Return of Owners of Land, 1873, Irish section, Dublin, 1876, as being of Tandragee and London and owning worth £5,392 per annum in County Armagh and worth £3,349 per annum in County Limerick. These Irish estates derived from Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath, an ancestral uncle by marriage.
The 1883 and 1887 Burke's Peerage and Walford's list him as living at Grange Hill, Limerick; 7, Athlestone Terrace; and Hillingdon Place, Middlesex. He was accordingly a JP for Limerick and Armagh; and Deputy Lieutenant for Limerick. Debrett's Peerage in 1925 had his seats as: Loughgur, co. Limerick; and Bondo, Bregalia, Grisons. His livery was: green coat with a yellow waistcoat.
In addition to his CVO, CMG, and KCMG, he held the 2nd Class Prussian Order of the Red Eagle, and the King George V Coronation Medal.

Wife and her family

He married in Brussels, 6 December 1890, Hélène Marie de Riquet, Comtesse de Caraman-Chimay, daughter of Marie Eugène Auguste de Riquet, Prince de Caraman-Chimay, of the chateau de Beaumont, by Louise de Graffenried-Villars.
Prince Eugene was son of Joseph de Riquet de Caraman, 17th Prince de Chimay and 1st Prince de Caraman, of Chimay, Ménars, etc., by Émilie Louise Marie Françoise Joséphine Pellapra,.
Prince Eugene was grandson of François-Joseph-Philippe de Riquet, Count de Caraman, 16th Prince de Chimay,, by Juana Maria Ignazia Teresa Cabarrús, Madame Tallien,, whom he married in Paris, 22 August 1805.
He was a member of the Marlborough ; Bath; White's; and Travellers'. In 1933 his address was listed as The Bath Club, 34 Dover Street, London, W.I.

Brother

Count Rodolph de Salis . J.P. for Buckinghamshire from 1898.
Author Bradshaw's Canals & Navigable Rivers of England & Wales, 1904, 1918 and 1928.
De Salis: 'explored the waterways yard by yard, mile by mile travelling in his steam launch, Dragon Fly I, II and III for 11 years and covering 14,000 miles'.
He was a main witness to the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways..
Educated at Eton,. Associate Member Institution Civil Engineers. Associate of the Institute of Naval Architects. Member of the Society of Art. JP for Buckinghamshire ; High Sheriff, Bucks. Member Buckinghamshire County Council ; Thames Conservancy Board.
He was director of: Fellows Morton & Clayton Ltd ; Windsor Electrical Installation Co. Ltd ; Slough and Datchet Electrical Supply Co. Ltd.
He married, on 9 May 1893, Alice Mary , elder daughter of Captain Robert Lambert , of Weston, Thames Ditton.
They lived at Ivy Lodge, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire; Acton Lodge, Milverton Hill, or Church Hill, Leamington Spa, Warweickshire; and retired to Chy-Morvah, St. Ives, Cornwall. He was found shot dead in his bedroom at Acton Lodge on 25 February 1936.
From The Times, 26 February 1936, :