Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell

Rodd was born in London on 9 November 1858. He was the only son of Cornishman Major James Rennell Rodd (1812–1892) of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, and his wife Elizabeth Anne Thomson, the third daughter of Dr. Anthony Todd Thomson. His paternal grandparents were Admiral Sir John Tremayne Rodd and the former Jane Rennell, a daughter of the geographer James Rennell.[1]

Rodd was educated at Haileybury and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was associated with the circle of Oscar Wilde. Wilde later assisted Rodd in securing publication for his first book of verse, Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf, for which Wilde provided an introduction.[2] As Wilde began to court scandal in his public career, their friendship subsequently cooled.[3]

He entered the British Diplomatic Service in 1883, and served in minor positions at embassies in Berlin, Rome, Athens and Paris. From 1894 to 1902, Rodd worked under the Consul-General of Egypt, Lord Cromer. He played an important part in negotiating the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897 with Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia. In late 1901, he was appointed first secretary at the embassy in Rome, where he arrived in 1902, and remained for the next two years.[4]

In 1904, Rodd was made minister plenipotentiary to Sweden—and until November 1905, Norway—but did not arrive until 17 January 1905. He played an active and neutral part in the Dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden, for which he was rewarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star by King Oscar II. After the secession, he continued as a minister in Sweden until 1908.

In 1908 he was appointed ambassador to Italy. He remained in this post until 1919, and played a key role in securing Italy's adhesion to the Triple Entente. Rodd left the Diplomatic Service in 1919, but nonetheless served on the mission to Egypt in 1920, with The Viscount Milner. Rodd was the British delegate to the League of Nations from 1921 to 1923. He also sat as Unionist Member of Parliament for the constituency of St Marylebone between 1928 and 1932.[5]

On 27 October 1894, Rennell Rodd was married to Lilias Georgina Guthrie (1864–1951) at St George's Hanover Square Church. She was the fourth daughter of James Alexander Guthrie, 4th Baron of Craigie and the former Elinor Stirling (a daughter of Adm. Sir James Stirling, Governor of Western Australia from 1834 to 1838). Lilias' sister, Rose Ellinor Guthrie, was the wife of Maj.-Gen. The Hon. Sir Cecil Edward Bingham (a younger son of Charles Bingham, 4th Earl of Lucan). They had four sons and two daughters, including:

• Francis James Rennell Rodd, 2nd Baron Rennell (1895–1978), who married the Hon. Mary Constance Vivian Smith, daughter of Vivian Smith, 1st Baron Bicester.
• Hon. Evelyn Violet Elizabeth Rodd (1899–1980), who was a Conservative politician and was created a life peer as Baroness Emmet of Amberley in 1965.
• Hon. Gloria Rodd (1901–1975), who married the painter Simon Elwes
• Hon. Peter Murray Rennell Rodd (1904–1968), who married the author Nancy Mitford, daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale and one of the famous Mitford sisters.
• Hon. Gustaf Guthrie Rennell Rodd (b. 1905), who married Yvonne Mary Marling, the youngest daughter of diplomat Sir Charles Murray Marling.

Lord Rennell died in July 1941, aged 82.[10] He was succeeded in the barony by his second, but eldest surviving, son Francis, who later served as President of the Royal Geographical Society.[11] His widow died on 20 September 1951.

Bibliography

• Social and Diplomatic Memories of James Rennell Rodd
• Sir Walter Raleigh at Internet Archive
• Frederick, Crown Prince and Emperor: a Biographical Sketch Dedicated to his Memory at Internet Archive
• Social and Diplomatic Memories at Internet Archive
• Love, Worship and Death; some renderings from the Greek Anthology at Internet Archive
• Songs in the South at Internet Archive
• Feda: with other poems, chiefly lyrical at Internet Archive
• The Princes of Achaia and the Chronicles of Morea, a study of Greece in the middle ages at Internet Archive
• The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece at Internet Archive
• The Violet Crown at Internet Archive
• Ballads of the Fleet and other Poems at Internet Archive
• Poems in Many Lands at Internet Archive
• The Unknown Madonna, and other Poems at Internet Archive
• Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf with introduction by Oscar Wilde at Internet Archive
• An Englishman in Greece with introduction by Sir Rennell Rodd at Internet Archive
• The British mission to Uganda in 1893 edited and with a memoir by Rennell Rodd at Internet Archive

• Portraits of Lord Rennell at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Rennell Rodd
• Works by Rennell Rodd at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Rennell Rodd at Internet Archive
• Works by Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)