LOCARNO (Ger. Luggarus), a small town of Italian appearance in the Swiss canton of Tessin or Ticino, of which till 1881 it was one of the three capitals (the others being Bellinzona, q.v., and Lugano, q.v.). It is built at the north or Swiss end of the Lago Maggiore, not far from the point at which the Maggia enters that lake, and is by rail 14 m. S.W. of Bellinzona. Its height above the sea-level is only 682 ft., so that it is said to be the lowest spot in Switzerland. In 1900 its population was 3603, mainly Italian-speaking and Romanists. It was taken from the Milanese in 1512 by the Swiss who ruled it till 1798, when it became part of the canton of Lugano in the Helvetic Republic, and in 1803 part of that of Tessin or Ticino, then first erected. In 1555 a number of Protestant inhabitants were expelled for religious reasons, and going to Zürich founded the silk industry there. Above Locarno is the romantically situated sanctuary of the Madonna del Sasso (now rendered easily accessible by a funicular railway) that commands a glorious view over the lake and the surrounding country.
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LOCH, HENRY BROUGHAM LOCH, 1st Baron (1827-1900), British colonial administrator, son of James Loch, M.P., of Drylaw, Midlothian, was born on the 23rd of May 1827. He entered the navy, but at the end of two years quitted it for the East India Company’s military service, and in 1842 obtained a commission in the Bengal Light Cavalry. In the Sikh war in 1845 he was given an appointment on the staff of Sir Hugh Gough, and served throughout the Sutlej campaign. In 1852 he became second in command of Skinner’s Horse. At the outbreak of the Crimean war in 1854, Loch severed his connexion with India, and obtained leave to raise a body of irregular Bulgarian cavalry, which he commanded throughout the war. In 1857 he was appointed attaché to Lord Elgin’s mission to the East, was present at the taking of Canton, and in 1858 brought home the treaty of Yedo. In April 1860 he again accompanied Lord Elgin to China, as secretary of the new embassy sent to secure the execution by China of her treaty engagements. The embassy was backed up by an allied Anglo-French force. With Harry S. Parkes he negotiated the surrender of the Taku forts. During the advance on Peking Loch was chosen with Parkes to complete the preliminary negotiations for peace at Tungchow. They were accompanied by a small party of officers and Sikhs. It having been discovered that the Chinese were planning a treacherous attack on the British force, Loch rode back and warned the outposts. He then returned to Parkes and his party under a flag of truce hoping to secure their safety. They were all, however, made prisoners and taken to Peking, where the majority died from torture or disease. Parkes and Loch, after enduring irons and all the horrors of a Chinese prison, were afterwards more leniently treated. After three weeks’ time the negotiations for their release were successful, but they had only been liberated ten minutes when orders were received from the Chinese emperor, then a fugitive in Mongolia, for their immediate execution. Loch never entirely recovered his health after this experience in a Chinese dungeon. Returning home he was made C.B., and for a while was private secretary to Sir George Grey, then at the Home Office. In 1863 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Man. During his governorship the House of Keys was transformed into an elective assembly, the first line of railway was opened, and the influx of tourists began to bring fresh prosperity to the island. In 1882 Loch, who had become K.C.B. in 1880, accepted a commissionership of woods and forests, and two years later was made governor of Victoria, where he won the esteem of all classes. In June 1889 he succeeded Sir Hercules Robinson as governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner of South Africa.
As high commissioner his duties called for the exercise of great judgment and firmness. The Boers were at the same time striving to frustrate Cecil Rhodes’s schemes of northern expansion and planning to occupy Mashonaland, to secure control of Swaziland and Zululand and to acquire the adjacent lands up to the ocean. Loch firmly supported Rhodes, and, by informing President Kruger that troops would be sent to prevent any invasion of territory under British protection, he effectually crushed the “Banyailand trek” across the Limpopo (1890-91). Loch, however, with the approval of the imperial government, concluded in July-August 1890 a convention with President Kruger respecting Swaziland, by which, while the Boers withdrew all claims to territory north of the Transvaal, they were granted an outlet to the sea at Kosi Bay on condition that the republic entered the South African Customs Union. This convention was concluded after negotiations conducted with President Kruger by J. H. Hofmeyr on behalf of the high commissioner, and was made at a time when the British and Bond parties in Cape Colony were working in harmony. The Transvaal did not, however, fulfil the necessary condition, and in view of the increasingly hostile attitude of the Pretoria administration to Great Britain Loch became a strong advocate of the annexation by Britain of the territory east of Swaziland, through which the Boer railway to the sea would have passed. He at length induced the British government to adopt his view and on the 15th of March 1895 it was announced that these territories (Amatongaland, &c.), would be annexed by Britain, an announcement received by Mr Kruger “with the greatest astonishment and regret.” Meantime Loch had been forced to intervene in another matter. When the commandeering difficulty of 1894 had roused the Uitlanders in the Transvaal to a dangerous pitch of excitement, he travelled to Pretoria to use his personal influence with President Kruger, and obtained the withdrawal of the obnoxious commandeering regulations. In the following year he entered a strong protest against the new Transvaal franchise law. Meanwhile, however, the general situation in South Africa was assuming year by year a more threatening aspect. Cecil Rhodes, then prime minister of Cape Colony, was strongly in favour of a more energetic policy than was supported by the Imperial government, and at the end of March 1895 the high commissioner, finding himself, it is believed, out of touch with his ministers, returned home a few months before the expiry of his term of office. In the same year he was raised to the peerage. When the Anglo-Boer war broke out in 1899 Loch took a leading part in raising and equipping a body of mounted men, named after him “Loch’s Horse.” He died in London on the 20th of June 1900, and was succeeded as 2nd baron by his son Edward (b. 1873).
LOCHABER, a district of southern Inverness-shire, Scotland, bounded W. by Loch Linnhe, the river and loch Lochy, N. by the Corryarrick range and adjoining hills, N.E. and E. by the district of Badenoch, S.E. by the district of Rannoch and S. by the river and loch Leven. It measures 32 m. from N.E. to S.W. and 25 m. from E. to W., and is remarkable for wild and romantic scenery, Ben Nevis being the chief mountain. The district has given its name to a celebrated type of axe, consisting of a long shaft with a blade like a scythe and a large hook behind it, which, according to Sir Walter Scott, was introduced into the Highlands and Ireland from Scandinavia. It was the weapon of the old City Guard of Edinburgh. The pathetic song of “Lochaber no more” was written by Allan Ramsay.
LOCHES, a town in France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Indre-et-Loire, 29 m. S.E. of Tours by rail, on the left bank of the Indre. Pop. (1906) 3751. The town, one of the most picturesque in central France, lies at the foot of the rocky eminence on which stands the castle of the Anjou family, surrounded by an outer wall 1¼ m. in circumference, and consisting of the old collegiate church of St Ours, the royal lodge and the donjon. The church of St Ours dates from the 10th to the 12th centuries; among its distinguishing features are the huge stone pyramids surmounting the nave and the beautiful carving of the west door. The royal lodge, built by Charles VII. and used as the subprefecture, contains the tomb of Agnes Sorel and the oratory of Anne of Brittany. The donjon includes, besides the ruined keep (12th century), the Martelet, celebrated as the prison of Lodovico Sforza, duke of Milan, who died there in 1508, and the Tour Ronde, built by Louis XI. and containing the famous iron cages in which state prisoners, including—according to a story now discredited—their inventor Cardinal Balue, were confined. Loches has an hôtel-de-ville and several houses of the Renaissance period. It has a tribunal of first instance, a communal college and a training college. Liqueur-distilling and tanning are carried on together with trade in farm-produce, wine, wood and live-stock.
On the right bank of the Loire, opposite the town and practically its suburb, is the village of Beaulieu-lès-Loches, once the seat of a barony. Besides the parish church of St Laurent, a beautiful specimen of 12th-century architecture, it contains the remains of the great abbey church of the Holy Sepulchre founded in the 11th century by Fulk Nerra, count of Anjou, who is buried in the chancel. This chancel, which with one of the older transepts now constitutes the church, dates from the 15th century. The Romanesque nave is in ruins, but of the two towers one survives intact; it is square, crowned with an octagonal steeple of stone, and is one of the finest extant monuments of Romanesque architecture.