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'Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, 1st Baronet', KCB (2 April 1807 – 19 June 1886) was a British civil servant. He is referred to in the modern Irish folk song The Fields of Athenry about the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1849.
He was born in Taunton, where his father George Trevelyan was Archdeacon and his wife Harriet Neave, daughter of Sir Richard Neave, Bt. He was educated at Charterhouse School and Haileybury.
In the 1830s he was in Calcutta, India, where he was active in the field of education.
He was assistant secretary to HM Treasury from 1840 - 1859, during both the Irish famine and the Highland Potato Famine of 1846-1857. In Ireland he was responsible for administering famine relief, whilst in Scotland he was closely associated with the work of the Central Board for Highland Relief. His inaction and attitude towards the Irish are widely believed to have worsened the FamineCecil Woodham-Smith, 1962. The Great Hunger.
As Assistant Secretary to the Treasury he was placed in charge of the administration of Government relief to the victims of the Irish Famine in the 1840s. In the middle of that crisis Trevelyan published his views on the matter. He saw the Famine as a "mechanism for reducing surplus population". He described the famine as "The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people".
Trevelyan was Governor of Madras from 1859 to 1860, and Indian Finance Minister from 1862 to 1865. He was also a civil service reformer and is widely regarded as the founder of the modern civil service.
He was appointed KCB on 27 April 1848, and created a Baronet on 2 March 1874. His wife was Hannah More Macaulay, the daughter of Zachary Macaulay and sister of the 1st Baron Macaulay. Their only son, who inherited the Baronetcy on his father's death, was Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, the statesman.

Contents

Popular Culture

References

Popular Culture

★ The Fields of Athenry - "The Fields of Athenry" is a folk song about the Great Irish Famine. It tells the story of the famine through first-person narrative.

References

★ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/trevelyan_charles.shtml - BBC History profile

★ http://www.irelandforvisitors.com/articles/black_47.htm - Article on the Irish famine

★ http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Charles_Edward_Trevelyan - Cork Multitext Project article on Trevelyan

★ Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1990, ISBN 0-550-16040-X

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