Sir Evelyn Ashley was a British official who, in 1883, may have attended one or two of the conferences between the Transvaal deputation and the imperial government that produced the London Convention of 1884. He appears in the final appendix of Van der Kemp’s article on the Acheh agreement of 1819 in his capacity as a possible participant in those conferences.
The Transvaal conferences of 1883
The imperial side at the 1883 conferences was composed, in the recollection of D. P. Faure, of three men: Lord Derby (the Colonial Secretary), Sir Hercules Robinson (the High Commissioner for Southern Africa) and Sir Robert Herbert. Faure added, with characteristic caution: “(Sir Evelyn Ashley, I believe, was present on one or two occasions).” The bracketed aside is the only mention of Ashley in the article, and Van der Kemp reproduces it verbatim from Faure’s open letter to Joseph Chamberlain published in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 28 May 1899.
Faure’s careful wording — “I believe, on one or two occasions” — makes it clear that Ashley was not a regular member of the British delegation. He was rather an occasional attendant, present perhaps as a junior official or as a representative of the Colonial Office, whose attendance Faure could not swear to with the same confidence as he could that of Derby, Robinson and Herbert.
Significance for Acheh studies
Van der Kemp reproduces Faure’s testimony at length because it offers a structural parallel to the Dutch experience with the treaty of 1824. In both cases — the Acheh reservation in 1824 and the omission of the word “suzerainty” in 1884 — a stipulation originally “proposed as of no significance” was later treated by the stronger party as decisive of the legal position. Ashley’s role in this parallel is marginal: he was present, perhaps, at one or two of the conferences that produced the convention of 1884, and his name is recorded by Faure for the sake of completeness. The substance of the testimony rests with the three principal British representatives — Derby, Robinson and Herbert — whose private understandings with the Transvaal deputation are the subject of Faure’s evidence.
Van der Kemp’s argument is that the Dutch plenipotentiaries of 1824 walked into a similar trap when they accepted the Acheh reservation in an exchanged note rather than in the body of the treaty. The Transvaal parallel is invoked as a contemporary instance of how an imperial power could come to treat a stipulation originally “of no significance” as decisive of the legal position, and Ashley’s name is preserved in the article as one of the witnesses to that instance.
See Also
- Lord Derby
- Sir Hercules Robinson
- Sir Robert Herbert
- D. P. Faure
- London Convention on Transvaal (1884)
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- P. H. van der Kemp
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.
Sir Evelyn Ashley was a British official who, in 1883, may have attended one or two of the conferences between the Transvaal deputation and the imperial government that produced the London Convention of 1884. He appears in the final appendix of Van der Kemp’s article on the Acheh agreement of 1819 in his capacity as a possible participant in those conferences.
The Transvaal conferences of 1883
The imperial side at the 1883 conferences was composed, in the recollection of D. P. Faure, of three men: Lord Derby (the Colonial Secretary), Sir Hercules Robinson (the High Commissioner for Southern Africa) and Sir Robert Herbert. Faure added, with characteristic caution: “(Sir Evelyn Ashley, I believe, was present on one or two occasions).” The bracketed aside is the only mention of Ashley in the article, and Van der Kemp reproduces it verbatim from Faure’s open letter to Joseph Chamberlain published in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 28 May 1899.
Faure’s careful wording — “I believe, on one or two occasions” — makes it clear that Ashley was not a regular member of the British delegation. He was rather an occasional attendant, present perhaps as a junior official or as a representative of the Colonial Office, whose attendance Faure could not swear to with the same confidence as he could that of Derby, Robinson and Herbert.
Significance for Acheh studies
Van der Kemp reproduces Faure’s testimony at length because it offers a structural parallel to the Dutch experience with the treaty of 1824. In both cases — the Acheh reservation in 1824 and the omission of the word “suzerainty” in 1884 — a stipulation originally “proposed as of no significance” was later treated by the stronger party as decisive of the legal position. Ashley’s role in this parallel is marginal: he was present, perhaps, at one or two of the conferences that produced the convention of 1884, and his name is recorded by Faure for the sake of completeness. The substance of the testimony rests with the three principal British representatives — Derby, Robinson and Herbert — whose private understandings with the Transvaal deputation are the subject of Faure’s evidence.
Van der Kemp’s argument is that the Dutch plenipotentiaries of 1824 walked into a similar trap when they accepted the Acheh reservation in an exchanged note rather than in the body of the treaty. The Transvaal parallel is invoked as a contemporary instance of how an imperial power could come to treat a stipulation originally “of no significance” as decisive of the legal position, and Ashley’s name is preserved in the article as one of the witnesses to that instance.
See Also
- Lord Derby
- Sir Hercules Robinson
- Sir Robert Herbert
- D. P. Faure
- London Convention on Transvaal (1884)
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- P. H. van der Kemp
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.