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Lawrence Dundas, 2nd Marquess of Zetland

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The Most Honourable
The Marquess of Zetland
KG GCSI GCIE PC JP DL
Secretary of State for India and Burma
In office
28 May 1937 – 13 May 1940
MonarchGeorge VI
Prime MinisterNeville Chamberlain
Preceded byNew office
Succeeded byLeo Amery
Secretary of State for India
In office
7 June 1935 – 28 May 1937
MonarchsGeorge V
Edward VIII
George VI
Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin
Preceded bySir Samuel Hoare, Bt
Succeeded byOffice renamed Secretary of State for India and Burma
Governor of Bengal
In office
26 March 1917 – 28 March 1922
Governor GeneralThe Viscount Chelmsford
Preceded byThe Lord Carmichael
Succeeded byThe Earl of Lytton
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
12 March 1929 – 6 February 1961
Hereditary Peerage
Preceded byThe 1st Marquess of Zetland
Succeeded byThe 3rd Marquess of Zetland
Member of Parliament
for Hornsey
In office
5 June 1907 – 6 December 1916
Preceded byCharles Balfour
Succeeded byKennedy Jones
Personal details
Born(1876-06-11)11 June 1876
London, England, United Kingdom
Died6 February 1961(1961-02-06) (aged 84)
Richmond, England, United Kingdom
Political partyConservative
SpouseCicely Archdale (1886–1973)
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge

Lawrence John Lumley Dundas, 2nd Marquess of Zetland, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC, JP, DL (11 June 1876 – 6 February 1961), styled Lord Dundas until 1892 and Earl of Ronaldshay between 1892 and 1929, was a British hereditary peer and Conservative politician. An expert on India, he served as Secretary of State for India in the late 1930s.

Early life and education

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Zetland was born in London in 1876, the eldest surviving son of Lawrence Dundas, 1st Marquess of Zetland, and his wife Lady Lilian Selena Elizabeth Lumley, daughter of Richard Lumley, 9th Earl of Scarbrough.[1] He was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge.[2] At Cambridge, he was a member of the University Pitt Club.[3]

Political career

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Zetland as a Governor of Bengal in Dhaka (1919)

Lord Ronaldshay was commissioned a lieutenant in the North Riding of York Volunteer Artillery. He was on 3 April 1900 appointed an extra aide-de-camp to Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India.[4] While working for Curzon in the British Raj, Ronaldshay travelled widely through Asia, having experiences which would later inform his fictional and non-fictional writing.[5]

Zetland was returned to Parliament for Hornsey in 1907, a seat he held until 1916. Much of his public career centred on British India. In September 1912, he was appointed (with Lord Islington, Herbert Fisher, Mr Justice Abdur Rahim, and others) as a member of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India of 1912–1915.[6] He was Governor of Bengal between 1917 and 1922 and Secretary of State for India between 1935 and 1940. Although a member of the Conservative Party, his belief was that Indians should be allowed to take ever-increasing responsibility for the government of the country, culminating in Dominion status (enjoyed by Canada, Australia, and other formerly self-governing parts of the British Empire).

Zetland played an important role in the protracted negotiations which led to the Government of India Act 1935, which began, subject to the implacable opposition of Winston Churchill and the "diehards" to anything that might imperil direct British rule over India, to implement those ideals.

Lord Ronaldshay as Governor of Bengal (1917–22).

Zetland was also an author: Rab Butler, who served as his Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the India Office, records that he asked how he could understand better his chief's thinking about the future of India and received the answer: "Read my books!" Zetland kept Butler, who had helped to pass the Government of India Act and had enjoyed great influence under Zetland's predecessor Samuel Hoare, at arm's length, requiring him to book an appointment in advance if he wanted to see him. Butler continued to serve under him for another two years, but devotes only a single paragraph to this period in his memoirs.[7]

Zetland was ideally placed as Secretary of State for India to implement the new Act, although the two Viceroys with whom he served, Lords Willingdon and Linlithgow, were rather less idealistic than he. In the event, Willingdon and Linlithgow were proved right when the Congress Party won the 1937 Provincial elections, much to the dismay of Zetland. Zetland's term as Secretary of State — and the experiment with democracy represented by the 1935 Act — came to an end with Churchill's assumption of the Prime Ministership in 1940: Zetland then offered his resignation, feeling that his ideas and Churchill's regarding India were so different that "I could only end by becoming an embarrassment to him." Two months prior to this, on 13 March 1940, Zetland was one of four people shot at the Caxton Hall by Indian nationalist Udham Singh; former lieutenant governor of the Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer, was killed. Zetland suffered only bruising to his ribs (the bullet was found in his clothes) and was able to take his seat in the House of Lords five days later.[8][9]

Zetland, who was known to favour good relations between the UK and Germany, was associated with the Anglo-German Fellowship during the late 1930s.[10]

Zetland was sworn of the Privy Council in 1922[11] and made a Knight of the Garter in 1942. He also bore the Sword of State at the coronation of George VI in 1937[12] and was Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire between 1945 and 1951.[13] He was elected President of the Royal Geographical Society in 1922 and President of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1928–31.[14] From 1932 to 1945, he was chairman of the National Trust.[15]

Marriage and children

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Lord Ronaldshay married on 3 December 1907 to Cicely Archdale (1886–1973), daughter of Mervyn Henry Archdale. They lived at Snelsmore at Chieveley in Berkshire, and had five children:[16]

Death

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Lord Zetland died in 1961 at the age of 84 and was succeeded in the marquessate and other titles by his elder and only surviving son, Lawrence. The Marchioness of Zetland died in January 1973.[16]

Arms

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Coat of arms of Lawrence Dundas, 2nd Marquess of Zetland
Coronet
A Coronet of a Marquess
Crest
A Lion's Head affrontée struggling through an Oak Bush all proper fructed Or crowned with an Antique Crown of the last
Escutcheon
Argent a Lion rampant within a Double Tressure flory counter-flory all within a Bordure Azure
Supporters
On either side a Lion proper crowned with an Antique Crown Or and gorged with a Chaplet of Oak leaves Vert fructed Gold with a Shield pendent from each, the dexter being charged with Argent a Saltire and Chief Gules on a Canton of the field a Lion rampant Azure for Bruce, and the sinister being charged with lozengy Argent and Gules for Fitzwilliam
Motto
Essayez (Try)[18]

Publications

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  • A Wandering Student in the Far East. 1904
  • Lands of the Thunderbolt: Sikhim, Chumbi & Bhutan. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1923
  • India: a Bird's-eye View. Constable, London, 1924
  • The heart of Âryâvarta; a study of the psychology of Indian unrest. Constable, London, 1925
  • The Life Of Lord Curzon. (3 vols). Ernest Benn Ltd, London, 1927–1928
  • Essayez: The Memoirs of Lawrence. John Murray, London, 1956

Notes

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  1. ^ Woods, Philip (January 2011). "Dundas, Lawrence John Lumley, second marquess of Zetland (1876–1961)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32932.
  2. ^ "Dundas, Lawrence John Lumley, Earl of Ronaldshay (DNDS894LJ)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ Fletcher, Walter Morley (2011) [1935]. The University Pitt Club: 1835–1935 (First Paperback ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-107-60006-5.
  4. ^ "Naval & Military intelligence". The Times. No. 36099. London. 26 March 1900. p. 10.
  5. ^ Lawrence John Lumley Dundas, Making Britain. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
  6. ^ London Gazette, Issue 28642 of 6 September 1912, p. 6631 Archived 2 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ Jago 2015, p.83
  8. ^ "Sir Michael O'Dwyer Shot Dead". Glasgow Herald. Glasgow. 13 March 1940. p. 23.
  9. ^ "The Caxton Hall Tragedy". Glasgow Herald. Glasgow. 19 March 1940. p. 4.
  10. ^ Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers on the Right, Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 220
  11. ^ "No. 32677". The London Gazette. 21 April 1922. p. 3135.
  12. ^ "No. 34453". The London Gazette. 10 November 1937. p. 7051.
  13. ^ "No. 36965". The London Gazette. 2 March 1945. p. 1210.
  14. ^ Sardella, Ferdinando. Modern Hindu Personalism: The History, Life, and Thought of Bhaktisiddhanta . p. 152.
  15. ^ Jenkins, Jennifer; James, Patrick (1994). From acorn to oak tree: the growth of the National Trust 1895–1994. London: Macmillan. p. 335.
  16. ^ a b Mosley, Charles, ed. (2003). "Zetland". Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage. Vol. III (107th ed.). Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage & Gentry LLC. p. 4286. ISBN 0-9711966-2-1.
  17. ^ International Bomber Command Centre, losses database, Dundas, Bruce Thomas
  18. ^ Debrett's peerage, and titles of courtesy, in which is included full information respecting the collateral branches of Peers, Privy Councillors, Lords of Session, etc. London: Dean. 1921. p. 946.

Book

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  • Jago, Michael Rab Butler: The Best Prime Minister We Never Had?, Biteback Publishing 2015 ISBN 978-1849549202

References

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[edit]
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Hornsey
1907–1916 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Governor of Fort William
1917–1922 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Secretary of State for India
1935–1937 		Succeeded by
Secretary of State for India and Burma
Preceded by
New office
 Secretary of State for India and Burma
1937–1940 		Succeeded by
Honorary titles
Preceded by Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire
1945–1951 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Marquess of Zetland
1929–1961 		Succeeded by
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