Sir Robert Herbert was a senior British colonial official who, in 1883, served as one of the three imperial representatives at the conferences with the Transvaal deputation 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 participant in those conferences.
The Transvaal conferences of 1883
When, in 1883, the British government agreed to receive a deputation from the South African Republic (Transvaal), the imperial side at the conferences was composed of three men: Lord Derby (the Colonial Secretary), Sir Hercules Robinson (the High Commissioner for Southern Africa) and Sir Robert Herbert. D. P. Faure, who served as interpreter to the deputation at Lord Derby’s request, recalled that he was present at all the conferences between the Transvaal representatives and those of the imperial government, and he named Herbert — alongside Derby and Robinson — as one of the British representatives. By the time Faure wrote his open letter to Joseph Chamberlain in 1899, all three were dead; Sir Evelyn Ashley “was, I believe, present on one or two occasions”.
Faure’s account of the conferences emphasises the parts played by Derby and Robinson, and he does not record any specific remark by Herbert on the suzerainty question. But the testimony is explicit that Herbert was present throughout, and that he shared in the understanding — to which Faure swore — that the result of the conferences was the abolition of Britain’s suzerainty over the Transvaal, save to the extent preserved by Article 4 of the London Convention that was afterwards signed.
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. Herbert’s role in this parallel is that of one of the three British officials who, in private conference, allowed a weaker party to believe that it had obtained the substance of its grievance, while publicly preserving an ambiguity that allowed the stronger party to re-open the question at a later date.
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 testimony of Faure, who invokes Herbert, Derby and Robinson as participants in the 1883 conferences, is the late-nineteenth-century pendant to Van der Kemp’s account of Palmerston’s later restrictive construction of the 1824 treaty.
See Also
- Lord Derby
- Sir Hercules Robinson
- Sir Evelyn Ashley
- 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 Robert Herbert was a senior British colonial official who, in 1883, served as one of the three imperial representatives at the conferences with the Transvaal deputation 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 participant in those conferences.
The Transvaal conferences of 1883
When, in 1883, the British government agreed to receive a deputation from the South African Republic (Transvaal), the imperial side at the conferences was composed of three men: Lord Derby (the Colonial Secretary), Sir Hercules Robinson (the High Commissioner for Southern Africa) and Sir Robert Herbert. D. P. Faure, who served as interpreter to the deputation at Lord Derby’s request, recalled that he was present at all the conferences between the Transvaal representatives and those of the imperial government, and he named Herbert — alongside Derby and Robinson — as one of the British representatives. By the time Faure wrote his open letter to Joseph Chamberlain in 1899, all three were dead; Sir Evelyn Ashley “was, I believe, present on one or two occasions”.
Faure’s account of the conferences emphasises the parts played by Derby and Robinson, and he does not record any specific remark by Herbert on the suzerainty question. But the testimony is explicit that Herbert was present throughout, and that he shared in the understanding — to which Faure swore — that the result of the conferences was the abolition of Britain’s suzerainty over the Transvaal, save to the extent preserved by Article 4 of the London Convention that was afterwards signed.
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. Herbert’s role in this parallel is that of one of the three British officials who, in private conference, allowed a weaker party to believe that it had obtained the substance of its grievance, while publicly preserving an ambiguity that allowed the stronger party to re-open the question at a later date.
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 testimony of Faure, who invokes Herbert, Derby and Robinson as participants in the 1883 conferences, is the late-nineteenth-century pendant to Van der Kemp’s account of Palmerston’s later restrictive construction of the 1824 treaty.
See Also
- Lord Derby
- Sir Hercules Robinson
- Sir Evelyn Ashley
- 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.