Edward Hertslet

Sir Edward Hertslet (3 February 1824 – 4 August 1902) was an English librarian of the Foreign Office, known as an author of reference works.

Life Born at 16 College Street, Westminster, on 3 February 1824, he was youngest son of Lewis Hertslet, from a Swiss background, by his first wife, Hannah Harriet Jemima Cooke. Educated privately near Hounslow, he was on 23 March 1840 temporarily attached to the library of the Foreign Office under his father, who was then librarian. On 8 January 1842 he received a permanent appointment, on 28 August 1844 became second clerk, and a little later the senior clerk. On 1 April 1855 he became sub-librarian, and on 19 November 1857 librarian.

Hertslet was involved in Foreign Office work through memoranda by him matching history, geography, or international law with major public questions which came before the government. With the post of librarian he combined, up to 1870, the agency for members of the diplomatic and consular services. He was attached to the mission of Lord Beaconsfield to the Congress of Berlin in 1878, and was knighted for his services. He was also one of the delegates for the examination of the boundary between British and Dutch territory in Borneo in June 1889.

Family Hertslet married Eden (died 1899), daughter of John Bull, clerk of the journals of the House of Commons. Of his nine sons and three daughters, six sons and a daughter survived him. His third son, Godfrey L. P. Hertslet, in the library of the Foreign Office, succeeded him as editor of the Foreign Office List and was also assistant editor of Hertslet's Commercial Treaties.