Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon, (19 August 1857 – 1 November 1941) was a British politician, diplomat, art collector and author. Early life Vincent was born at Slinfold, West Sussex on He was the youngest son of Sir Frederick Vincent, 11th Baronet of Stoke D'Abernon (1798–1883) and, his second wife, Maria Copley (d. 1899). Among his older siblings were brothers Sir William Vincent, 12th Baronet and Sir Frederick d'Abernon Vincent, 15th Baronet, whom he succeeded as 16th Baronet in 1936. He was educated at Eton College for the diplomatic service. Instead, he spent five years as a member of the Coldstream Guards before coming into the service as secretary to Lord Edmond FitzMaurice, Queen's Commissioner on the East Rumelian Question. Career Vincent was appointed Commissioner for the Evacuation of Thessaly (ceded to Greece by Turkey) and advised the Egyptian government on financial matters from 1883 to 1889. That year, he became governor of the Imperial Ottoman Bank. One of his policies was to get the Bank involved in South African mining shares on European stock exchanges. This caused a speculation craze in Constantinople where tens of thousands of people bought South African mining shares, a lot of them with money loaned from the Ottoman Bank. This led to a run on the Bank in late 1895 and then a crash in the share values, followed by an international panic and the financial ruin of many of those who invested in the shares. Vincent, who personally made a fortune from the shares, was heavily condemned for his role in the disaster. In 1896, the banking office in Constantinople was occupied by a group of armed Armenians who threatened to destroy the building with bombs. Vincent escaped through a skylight and notified the Turkish authorities at the Sublime Porte and secured a negotiator from the Russian Embassy. The attackers agreed to surrender their bombs in exchange for safe passage to exile in France, being conducted on Sir Edgar's private vessel. Member of Parliament In 1899, he was elected a Conservative Member of Parliament for Exeter. He was less a true Conservative than a personal devotee of the Conservative leader, A. J. Balfour. He held the seat until losing to a Liberal in 1906. He opposed the Conservative policy of Tariff Reform and unsuccessfully stood for the Liberal Party in Colchester in December 1910. In July 1914 he was raised to the peerage