Sir Cecil Spring Rice

Cecil Arthur Spring Rice (1859–1918) entered the Foreign Office in 1882 after education at Eton and Oxford. His overseas service included an early Washington posting and assignments in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He became minister to Persia in 1906 and to Sweden in 1908, before returning to the United States as ambassador in 1913. He married Florence Lascelles, daughter of the British ambassador in Berlin, in 1904. ^{1, 2}

During the First World War he had to defend British naval measures to a government determined to preserve American neutral rights. In March 1915 he outlined conditions under which Britain would recognize ships transferred from an enemy flag to American ownership. American certification could establish that the beneficial ownership predated the war, but Britain reserved the right to investigate suspicious trade with its enemies and to arrest enemy reservists aboard such ships. ³

He also dealt with the survival of humanitarian relief across the blockade. In February 1917, as the United States’ relations with Germany broke down, he assured the State Department that Britain wanted Belgian relief to continue. Britain welcomed continued American involvement even if American personnel withdrew and would consider German proposals for routing relief ships, subject to examination by British naval authorities. ⁴

Spring Rice’s friendship with Theodore Roosevelt and other Republicans became a difficulty in his dealings with Wilson’s administration. His authority was also weakened by the multiplication of British wartime missions. At the beginning of 1918 Lord Reading was appointed to combine diplomatic leadership with responsibilities for finance and supplies, and Spring Rice left Washington. He traveled to Ottawa with his family and died there on 14 February, while staying at Rideau Hall. He was buried in Beechwood Cemetery. ^{1, 5}

He also wrote poetry. Shortly before leaving Washington, he revised an earlier poem into The Two Fatherlands, now known as I Vow to Thee, My Country. Gustav Holst later set the words to music adapted from Jupiter in The Planets. ¹