[Cecil Arthur]. English diplomatist, born in London on the 17th of February 1859, the second son of the Hon. Charles Spring-Rice (1810–1870), sometime assistant under-secretary for foreign affairs, and grandson of the 1st Baron Monteagle. He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, and entered the Foreign Office in 1882, becoming private secretary to Lord Granville in 1884 and précis writer to Lord Rosebery in 1885. He went to Washington as third secretary in 1886, and after various brief appointments went in 1895 to Berlin. In 1898 he became secretary at Teheran, and from there went in 1901 to Cairo as British commissioner on the Caisse de la Dette. In 1903 he went to St. Petersburg, first as secretary and later as councillor of embassy, remaining in Russia during the war with Japan of 1904–05 and the revolution of 1905. In 1906 he was sent to Persia as minister, having lately been created K.C.M.G., and his stay there coincided with the period of the delicate negotiations which preceded the signing of the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907. In 1908 he was created G.C.V.O. and went to Sweden as minister, and in 1912 was appointed ambassador to the United States. Ill-health, however, prevented his undoubtedly brilliant capacity from making his work at all prominent during his tenure of this position. He died at Ottawa on his way home to England on the 14th of February 1918. He married in 1904 Florence, daughter of Sir Frank Lascelles, and left two children.
