text: Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale,  (24 February 183717 August 1916), was a British diplomat, collector and writer, whose most notable work is Tales of Old Japan (1871). Nicknamed "Bertie", he was the paternal grandfather of the Mitford sisters.
  Early years
  Mitford was the son of Henry Reveley Mitford (1804–1883), of Exbury House, Hampshire, and great-grandson of the historian William Mitford. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Classics. While his paternal ancestors were landed gentry, whose holdings included Mitford Castle in Northumberland, his mother Lady (Georgiana) Jemima Ashburnham was the daughter of the 3rd Earl of Ashburnham and Lady Charlotte Percy. After his parents separated in 1840, his father, an erstwhile attaché at Florence, resided in Germany and France; his early years were thus spent on the Continent.
  Like his cousin Swinburne, he was named Algernon after his great-grandfather Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley, but always went by his middle-name Bertram and was known familiarly as "Bertie" (pronounced "Barty").
  Career