Peter Campbell Scarlett


Peter Campbell Scarlett CB, DL, styled The Honourable from 1830, was a British diplomat.

Background

Scarlett was the youngest child of James Scarlett, 1st Baron Abinger and his wife Louise Henrietta Campbell, daughter of Peter Campbell. His older brother was Robert Scarlett, 2nd Baron Abinger and his older sister Mary Campbell, 1st Baroness Stratheden. He was educated at Eton College.

Career

Scarlett served successively as attaché at the British embassies in Constantinople from 1825, then in Paris from 1828 and finally Rio de Janeiro from 1834. He was sent to Florence as secretary of legation in 1844, later acting as chargé d'affaires. In 1854, he was awarded a Commander of the Order of the Bath and was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Brazil in the end of 1855. Despite his stay abroad, Scarlett received a commission as Deputy Lieutenant for Surrey in the following year.
After three years in Brazil, he was transferred in December 1858 as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Grand Duke of Tuscany until 1859, when following the occupation by Kingdom of Sardinia, the grand duchy was abolished. Scarlett became Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of Greece in 1862, a post he held for the next two years. In 1864, he was nominated Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Emperor of Mexico and retired in 1867.

Family

He married firstly Frances Sophia Mostyn, second daughter of Edmund Lomax on 22 May 1843 and had by her two sons and a daughter. She died in 1849 and Scarlett remarried Louisa Anne, daughter of James Murray, Lord Cringletie, and widow of Edward Jeannin, on 27 December 1873. This second marriage was childless. Scarlett died at London in 1881 and was survived by his wife until 1900.

Works