Edwin Samuel Montagu

The Right Honourable Edwin Samuel Montagu PC
Edwin Montagu (left) Secretary of State for India, shown in the 1910s.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 3 February – 25 May 1915
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	Herbert Henry Asquith
Preceded by	Charles Masterman
Succeeded by	Winston Churchill
In office 11 January – 9 July 1916
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	Herbert Henry Asquith
Preceded by	Herbert Samuel
Succeeded by	Thomas McKinnon Wood
Secretary of State for India
In office 17 July 1917 – 19 March 1922
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	Austen Chamberlain
Succeeded by	The Viscount Peel
Personal details
Born	6 February 1879 (1879-02-06)
Died	15 November 1924 (1924-11-16)
Nationality	British
Political party	Liberal
Spouse(s)	Venetia Stanley (1887-1948)
Alma mater	University College London Trinity College, Cambridge

Edwin Samuel Montagu PC (6 February 1879 – 15 November 1924) was a British Liberal politician. He notably served as Secretary of State for India between 1917 and 1922.

Background and education

Montagu was the second son and sixth child of Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling, by his wife Ellen, daughter of Louis Cohen. He was educated at Clifton College, the City of London School, University College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he was the first student President of Cambridge University Liberal Club, from 1902 to 1903, and in 1902 was also President of the Cambridge Union.

Political career

Montagu was elected Member of Parliament for Chesterton in 1906, a seat he held until 1918, and then represented Cambridgeshire until 1922. He served under H. H. Asquith as Under-Secretary of State for India from 1910 to 1914, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1914 to 1915 and again from 1915 to 1916 and as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (with a seat in the cabinet) in 1915 and 1916. In 1915 he was sworn of the Privy Council. In 1916 he was promoted to Minister of Munitions. He was initially left out of David Lloyd George's coalition government, but in 1917 he was appointed Secretary of State for India, which he remained until March 1922, when he resigned. He was primarily responsible for the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms which led to the Government of India Act 1919 which committed the British to the eventual evolution of India to dominion status.

Montagu led the Indian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, where he opposed plans for dividing Turkey (including the Greek occupation of Smyrna and the projected removal of the Sultan from Constantinople). On this subject, at the Council of Four on 17 May 1919, he introduced representatives of Muslim India (including the Aga Khan) and urged that Muslim peoples were beginning to see the Conference as "taking sides against Islam".

Zionism

Cartoon in Punch magazine, 14 July 1920, on the occasion of Montagu labelling as "frightful" General Dyer for his role in the Amritsar massacre, as it was then known.

Montagu was the second Jew to enter the British Cabinet. However, he was strongly opposed to Zionism, which he called "a mischievous political creed", and opposed the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which he considered anti-semitic and whose terms he managed to modify. In a memo to the cabinet, he outlined his views on Zionism thus: "...I assume that it means that Mahommedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test." He was opposed by his cousin Herbert Samuel, a moderate Zionist who became the first High Commissioner of Palestine.

Family

Montagu married the Hon. Venetia Stanley, daughter of Edward Stanley, 4th Baron Stanley of Alderley, in 1915. She converted to Judaism upon her marriage. They had one daughter, Judith. Montagu died in November 1924 at the age of 45. His wife died in August 1948, aged 60.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Edwin Montagu

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Walter Raymond Greene	Member of Parliament for Chesterton 1906–1918	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire 1918–1922	Succeeded by Harold Stannus Gray
Political offices
Preceded by The Master of Elibank	Under-Secretary of State for India 1910–1914	Succeeded by Charles Henry Roberts
Preceded by Charles Masterman	Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1914–1915	Succeeded by Francis Dyke Acland
Preceded by Charles Masterman	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1915	Succeeded by Winston Churchill
Preceded by Francis Dyke Acland	Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1915–1916	Succeeded by Thomas McKinnon Wood
Preceded by Herbert Samuel	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1916	Succeeded by Thomas McKinnon Wood
Preceded by David Lloyd George	Minister of Munitions 1916	Succeeded by Christopher Addison
Preceded by Austen Chamberlain	Secretary of State for India 1917–1922	Succeeded by The Viscount Peel