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.
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 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 nationalistUdham 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]
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]
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]