"Bob's your uncle"

[Gerald Cohen]

     I'm still looking for evidence of "Bob's your uncle" being
discussed in treatments about Arthur James Balfour, whose uncle
(Robert Cecil = Lord Salisbury) appointed him chief secretary for
Ireland in 1887.

     There's not much chance of Balfour's main biographer, Blanche E.
C. Dugdale, shedding light on the expression. She was his niece and
not even willing to admit the possibility of nepotism in the 1887
Balfour appointment. In her book _Arthur James Balfour_ vol. 1,1936
(later reprinted) pg. 126, she wrote about that appointment:

     "The political world received with stupefaction the appointment
of the Prime Minister's nephew. NEPOTISM COULD HARDLY SUGGEST ITSELF
AS AN EXPLANATION OF THIS CHOICE OF A PRACTICALLY UNTRIED MAN [caps.
added], still reputed a brilliant flaneur [circumflex over a],
delicate in body and mind, to the hardest post in the Ministry.
There was fierce glee on the Irish benches. 'We have killed Forster,
we have blinded Beach,' they said.  'What shall we do to Balfour?'"

     In fact, of course, nepotism would be a perfect explanation. But until
evidence from say, the 1880s or 1890s shows up, clearly connecting
the expression to the Balfour appointment, it's not possible to write
Q.E.D. to the Balfour/Lord Salisbury etymology.

    Would anyone know what newspapers in London or Ireland of
1887-1890 would be most likely to have satirized the Balfour
appointment and used "Bob's your uncle"?

---Gerald Cohen