Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood - Definition and Overview

Samuel John Gurney Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood (1880-1959), more commonly known as Sir Samuel Hoare, was a British Conservative politician who served in various capacities in the Conservative and National governments of the 1920s and 1930s. He was most famous for his role as Foreign Secretary in 1935, when he had to deal with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Together with French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval, he developed the so-called Hoare-Laval Agreement, which would have granted Italy considerable territorial concessions in Ethiopia, and put the rump of Ethiopia under Italian hegemony. The public uproar against this apparent sell-out of the Ethiopians led to Hoare's resignation as Foreign Secretary at the end of the year. Nevertheless, Hoare continued to serve in important posts in later governments. Upon Winston Churchill's appointment as Prime Minister in 1940, Hoare lost his cabinet position and was sent off as Ambassador to Spain. In this role he sought to encourage Francisco Franco to keep Spain out of the war, in which he was successful. He remained Ambassador until 1944 when he returned to Britain and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Templewood. The title became extinct upon his death in 1959.