Editing Cecil Spring Rice (section)

==Early life and family==
Spring Rice was born into an aristocratic and influential [[Anglo-Irish]] family. He was the son of a diplomat, [[The Honourable|The Hon.]] Charles William Thomas Spring Rice, who was the second son of the prominent [[Whig Party (UK)|Whig]] politician and former cabinet minister [[Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon|Lord Monteagle of Brandon]]. Spring Rice's maternal grandfather was [[William Marshall (1796–1872)|the politician William Marshall]], and he was a cousin of [[Frederick Spring]]. He was the great-grandson of [[Edmund Pery, 1st Earl of Limerick|The 1st Earl of Limerick]], [[John Marshall (industrialist)|John Marshall]], and [[George Hibbert]]. Spring Rice's father died when he was eleven, and he was raised at his mother's family's house at [[Watermillock]] on the shore of [[Ullswater]]. During his childhood, he was often ill, and he later suffered from [[Graves' disease]], despite maintaining an active lifestyle.<ref name=burton>{{cite book|last=Burton|first=David Henry|title=Cecil Spring Rice: A Diplomat's Life|year=1990|publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press|isbn=978-0-8386-3395-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kCGKtLkHnxAC}}</ref>

He was educated at [[Eton College|Eton]] and at [[Balliol College, Oxford]], at both of which he was a contemporary and close friend of [[George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|George Nathaniel Curzon]], and at the latter of which he studied under the direction of [[Benjamin Jowett]]. Spring Rice rowed for Balliol, and achieved a double first in [[Classical Moderations]] (1879) and ''[[Literae Humaniores]]'' (1881).<ref>''Oxford University Calendar 1895'', Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1895 : 232, 329</ref> At Oxford, he was also a contemporary and close friend of [[John Strachey (journalist)|John Strachey]] and [[Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon|Edward Grey]]. However, Spring Rice contributed, alongside [[John William Mackail]], to the composition of a famous sardonic doggerel about Curzon that was published in ''[[Balliol College, Oxford|The Balliol Masque]]'', and, when British Ambassador to the United States, he was suspected by Curzon of trying to prevent Curzon's engagement to the American Mary Leiter, whom Curzon nevertheless married.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mosley|first=Leonard|title=Curzon: The End of an Epoch|url=https://archive.org/details/curzonendofepoch0000mosl|url-access=registration|publisher=Longmans, Green, and Co.|year=1961|page=[https://archive.org/details/curzonendofepoch0000mosl/page/26 26]}}</ref> However, Spring Rice assumed for a certainty, like many of Curzon's other friends, that Curzon would inevitably become [[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (UK)|Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]]: he wrote to Curzon in 1891, 'When you are Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs I hope you will restore the vanished glory of England, lead the European concert, decide the fate of nations, and give me three months' leave instead of two'.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mosley|first=Leonard|title=Curzon: The End of an Epoch|url=https://archive.org/details/curzonendofepoch0000mosl|url-access=registration|publisher=Longmans, Green, and Co.|year=1961|page=[https://archive.org/details/curzonendofepoch0000mosl/page/43 43]}}</ref>

After completing university, Spring Rice travelled in Europe, where he improved his [[French language|French]], at the time the language of diplomacy. Uncertain about which career to pursue, he took an examination for the Foreign Office and was accepted. Although brought up as an Englishman, Spring Rice maintained a close affinity with [[Ireland]], and he later wrote a poem about his dual Rice (Irish) and [[Spring family|Spring]] (English) roots.<ref name=burton/>

Spring Rice had four sisters and four brothers, two of whom predeceased him:  [[Stephen Spring Rice (1856–1902)|Stephen Spring Rice]] died in 1902 and Gerald Spring Rice was killed while serving as an officer on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] in 1916.

===Marriage and issue===
In 1904, Spring Rice married Florence Caroline Lascelles, the daughter of [[Frank Lascelles (diplomat)|Sir Frank Cavendish Lascelles]] and a cousin of the [[Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire|Duke of Devonshire]].<ref name="Simon">{{cite news |last=Simon |first=Bernard |date=31 May 2013 |title=This memorial is poetic justice for Sir Cecil Spring-Rice |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10088951/This-memorial-is-poetic-justice-for-Sir-Cecil-Spring-Rice.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140312080447/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10088951/This-memorial-is-poetic-justice-for-Sir-Cecil-Spring-Rice.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=12 March 2014 |newspaper=The Telegraph|location=London |access-date=28 July 2016 }}</ref> He had two children with Florence:

*Mary Elizabeth Spring Rice (1906–1994), married [[Oswald Raynor Arthur|Sir Oswald Raynor Arthur]] in 1935.
*Anthony Theodore Brandon Spring Rice (1908–1954), died unmarried.