English statesman, born in London on the 25th of July 1826. From Winchester School he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford. He was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1851. In 1857 he was elected member of Parliament for North Hampshire, which constituency he continued to represent in the Conservative interest until 1887. As secretary of the poor-law board in 1867, he represented that department in the lower house. On the resignation of Lord Derby in February 1868, Mr. Sclater-Booth was appointed to the secretaryship of the treasury in place of Mr. Hunt, who became chancellor of the exchequer. During Mr. Gladstone’s administration he served as chairman of the committee on public account. On the formation of Mr. Disraeli’s government, in 1874, he was sworn in as a privy councilor, and appointed to the office of president of the local government board, which he held till the Conservatives resigned in April 1880. During the period of Mr. Gladstone’s administration (1880–85), Mr. Sclater-Booth acted as chairman in conducting the new experiment of grand committees. In 1887 he was created a peer, with the title of Baron Basing. He died in 1894.
