John Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven

John Lawrence Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven

John Lawrence Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven , Bt , GCMG , DSO PC , JP , DL (born April 27, 1874 in Chelsea , London , Great Britain ; † August 20, 1941 in Stonehaven , Scotland ) was a British politician and eighth Governor General of Australia .

Early life

Baird was born in the London borough of Chelsea to Sir Alexander Baird, 1st Baronet, a wealthy MP. He attended Eton College and Oxford University , but dropped out of Oxford. Baird then embarked on a military career. In 1894, Baird served as aide-de-camp for the Governor of New South Wales and then went into the diplomatic service. He married his wife Ethel Sydney Keith-Falconer in 1905. She inherited the title of Countess of Kintore in 1966 after the death of her father and was the oldest member of the House of Lords when she died in 1974 .

Political career

houses of Parliament

John Baird was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative for the Rugby District in 1912 . From 1922 to January 1924 he was Secretary of Transportation in the governments of Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin . Subsequently, the Labor Party of Ramsay MacDonald became the new strongest power in the country. After the Conservatives became ruling party again after less than a year in the opposition in December 1924, Baird accepted the offer to go to Australia as Governor General . He then received the title of Baron Stonehaven and was accepted as a Knight Grand Cross in the Order of St. Michael and St. George .

Australia

Several proposals were made to Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce and he eventually selected John Baird as the new Governor General . Baird owed his election on the one hand to his political experience and on the other hand to his moderate nature.

Baird, now Baron Stonehaven , arrived in Australia in October 1925. He had a good relationship with Bruce from the start. During the Imperial Conference in London in 1926 , the role of the Governors General as diplomats and as mediators between the British government and the former colonies was abolished, so that Lord Stonehaven only had representative tasks.

During his term of office there were some innovations. In May 1927, Lord Stonehaven opened the first session of the Australian Parliament in the new Parliament House in Canberra . The Governor General also received a permanent residence, the Government House in Canberra. This also meant an end to travel between the former offices in Sydney and Melbourne .

In September 1929 Bruce unexpectedly lost the majority in the House of Representatives, so he asked Baird to dissolve the government. Although Parliament had only been in office a year, Baird immediately agreed. In October of the same year Bruce's party lost the election and James Scullin of the Australian Labor Party was elected as the new Prime Minister. The relationship between Baird and Scullin was fine but not amicable, so that Scullin did not even inform the incumbent Governor General Baird of the choice of his successor when he left Australia in October 1930.

Return to Great Britain

On his return to the United Kingdom, he was appointed chairman of the Conservative Party and rose to Viscount Stonehaven .

On August 20, 1941, Stonehaven died of heart disease in Stonehaven, Scotland, at the age of 67 . He left behind his wife, two sons and three daughters. His titles went to his eldest son, who later inherited his mother's title.

swell

• Chris Cunneen: John Lawrence Baird . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English).
• Biography gutenberg.net.au

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Viscount Stonehaven 1938-1941	Ian Keith
New title created	Baron Stonehaven 1925-1941	Ian Keith