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From: "Peter_McCrae" <>
Subject: BAIRD: John Lawrence Baird--d;20/8/1941>UK
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:35:58 +0100

John Lawrence Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven, GCMG, DSO, PC, JP, DL (27
April 1874 - 20 August 1941), was a British Conservative politician, who
served as a Member of Parliament, government minister, and was later the
eighth Governor-General of Australia.

Early life

Baird born in London, the son of a wealthy baronet. He was educated at Eton
and Oxford, but left university without graduating. In 1894 he served as an
aide-de-camp to the Governor of New South Wales, then entered the diplomatic
service. In 1905 he married Ethel Sydney Keith-Falconer, daughter of the
10th Earl of Kintore, who later became 11th Countess of Kintore.


Parliament

Baird was elected to the House of Commons for Rugby in 1912, as a
Conservative. He was Minister for Transport in the governments of Andrew
Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin from 1922 until January 1924, when Ramsay
MacDonald's Labour government took office. In December, after the
Conservatives returned to power, he accepted the position of
Governor-General of Australia, and was created Baron Stonehaven (Stonehaven,
The Mearns, Scotland).


Australia

In accordance with now accepted practice, the Australian Prime Minister,
Stanley Bruce, had been offered a number of choices, including a Duke, a
Marquess and an Earl, but chose John Baird. Bruce opted for Baird partly
because of his political experience and partly because he was a more modest
figure than the aristocratic alternatives.

Baird (now Baron Stonehaven) arrived in Australia in October 1925. He
quickly established good relations with Bruce, with whom he had much in
common. But like his predecessor, he found that Australian Prime Ministers
no longer wanted a Governor-General acting as an Imperial overseer, or as a
representative of the British government, but merely as discreet
figureheads. The 1926 Imperial conference in London recognised the de facto
independence of the Dominions, and ended the role of the Governors-General
as diplomats and as channels of communication between governments. From now
on the Governor-General's sole role was to be a personal representative of
the Crown.

There were other changes during Stonehaven's term. In May 1927 he formally
opened the first meeting of the Australian Parliament in the newly built
Parliament House in Canberra, and at last was given a permanent residence,
Government House, Canberra, commonly known by the previous name of the
house, Yarralumla. This meant an end to travelling between government houses
in Sydney and Melbourne and made the post of Governor-General less
expensive. At the same time, the advent of aviation, of which Stonehaven was
a keen exponent, made travelling around Australia much easier.

For most of Stonehaven's term Bruce seemed firmly entrenched in office, but
in September 1929 he was unexpectedly defeated on the floor of the House of
Representatives, and asked Stonehaven for a dissolution. Although the
Parliament was only a year old, Stonehaven agreed at once: the days when
Governors-General exercised a discretion in this area had passed.

Bruce's party was defeated at the October election, and Bruce also lost his
own seat (the only time a sitting Australian Prime Minister to have suffered
this fate). The Labor leader, James Scullin, took office. Stonehaven's
relations with Scullin were correct but not friendly, since his political
sympathies lay elsewhere. It was probably fortunate for him that his term
expired in 1930, before the crises of the Scullin government began.
Stonehaven was not consulted by Scullin about the choice of his successor,
and he left Australia in October 1930. On his return to Britain he was
appointed Chairman of the Conservative Party, and elevated to the title
Viscount Stonehaven. He died in Scotland in 1941.

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