Sir Stafford Northcote, Conservative financier and statesman, born in London of old Devonshire stock; educated at Oxford; became private secretary to Mr. Gladstone in 1842, and five years later was called to the bar; entering Parliament in 1885, he sat in succession for Dudley, for Stamford, and for North Devon; under Lord Derby he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury in 1859, and President of the Board of Trade in 1866; under Disraeli he was at the India Office in 1868, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1874; he succeeded Disraeli in the leadership of the Commons, and was raised to the peerage in 1885; was successively First Lord of the Treasury and Foreign Secretary under Lord Salisbury; in 1871 Mr. Gladstone appointed him Commissioner in the settlement of the Alabama claim, and he was elected Lord Hector of Edinburgh University in 1883; resigning from the Foreign Office in January 1887, he died suddenly a few days later at the Prime Minister's residence (1818-1887).