Elgin was Governor General of the Province of Canada from 1847 to 1854; the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa is named after him. In 1860 London sent him as High Commissioner to China with an army to impose an unequal treaty on the Qing government. On this day in 1860 he ordered the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, in order to move negotiations along. Objects looted by Elgin's troops turn up in the London auction houses to this day. Source.