The Hon. James Hozier

The Honourable James Hozier, M.P., was born at Tannochside House, Lanarkshire, on the 4th of April 1851, and is the only son of Lord Newlands of Newlands and Mauldslie Castle, Lanarkshire. Mr Hozier, besides being the Member for South Lanarkshire, is a Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for the County of Lanark. He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1880 he married Lady Mary Cecil, daughter of the Third Marquis of Exeter, the head of the elder branch of the Cecil family. As far back as 1874 Mr Hozier obtained, by competitive examination, an appointment in the Foreign Office, and two years later he was appointed Acting Secretary in the Diplomatic Service, and in that capacity ­accompanied the late Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., on his mission to attend the conference at Constantinople in 1876 and 1877. From 1878 to 1880 Mr Hozier was Private Secretary to the late Marquis of Salisbury, when Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and he was again Private ­Secretary to the Marquis of Salisbury when Prime Minister from 1885 to 1886. Mr Hozier first contested South ­Lanarkshire in 1885, when he was defeated by Col. Hamilton of Dalzell, but the following year, in 1886, he turned the tables upon Colonel (subsequently Lord) Hamilton of Dalzell, whom he defeated by eighteen votes. From 1886 onwards Mr Hozier has held his seat for South Lanarkshire, having been victorious by largely increasing majorities in four consecutive Parliamentary contests, and he has thus the honour of being the Senior Member for the County of Lanark. Mr Hozier is one of the Government Members of the Public Works Loan Commission, and he was Grand Master Mason of Scotland from 1899 till 1903. Mr Hozier inherits all the kindly characteristics of his family, and, as Member for the Constituency, treats his political friends and opponents with unvarying courtesy. The request is a most unreasonable and impracticable one to which he does not give a ready response. Indeed, he seems to derive pleasure in affording pleasure in others. Very many of his political opponents, while enjoying a contest in other places, do not contemplate one in South Lanark with any great pleasure.

Mr Hozier is intensely devoted to the interests of his native County, and, although he does not intervene in local affairs to any considerable extent, he follows the course of events most minutely.