Colonial Despatches

Sir James Emerson Tennent was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 7 April 1804 and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1831. On 21 December 1832, he was elected a member of the House of Commons for Belfast and held his seat intermittently until July 1845, when he was knighted.1

He served as secretary to the India Board from 8 September 1841 to 5 August 1843 and as civil secretary to the colonial government of Ceylon [Sri Lanka] from 12 August 1845 to December 1850. On his return from India, he sat in Parliament as member for Lisburn from January to December 1852, before becoming permanent secretary to the Poor Law Board from March to September 1852 and secretary to the Board of Trade from November 1852 to his retirement on 2 February 1867, when he was created a baronet. He died at Tempo Manor, Fermanagh, on 16 November 1876.2

• 1. G. C. Boase and Elizabeth Baigent, Tennent, Sir James Emerson, first baronet, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• 2. Ibid.