[Sydney Charles, 1st Viscount]. British politician and administrator, born in London on the 25th of October 1853, the grandson of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Bart. He was educated at Clifton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and afterwards entered public life, becoming a member of the London School Board in 1876. He was Liberal M.P. for Peterborough from 1883 to 1885, and for Poplar from 1886 till 1914. From 1892 to 1895 he was Under-Secretary for the Colonies. From 1905 to 1910 he was Postmaster-General, and from 1910 to 1914 President of the Board of Trade. In 1914 he was appointed High Commissioner and Governor-General of South Africa, being raised to the peerage as Viscount Buxton. He retired from this office in 1920.
Lord Buxton published Handbook to Political Questions (1880); Finance and Politics: An Historical Study (1783–1885) (1888); Handbook to the Death Duties (with G. S. Barnes, 1890); Political Manual (4th ed., 1891); Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1901); The Fiscal Question (1904).
