Lord Stonehaven
John Lawrence Baird, 1st Baron Stonehaven (27 April 1874 - 20 August 1941), eighth Governor-General of Australia, was 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 Edith Keith-Falconer, daughter of an Earl.
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 office, he accepted the position of Governor-General of Australia, and was created Baron Stonehaven.
In accordance with what was now the 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 Stonehaven. Bruce opted for Stonehaven partly because of his political experience and partly because he was a more modest figure than the aristocratic alternatives. Australian Prime Ministers no longer wanted grandees as Governors-General, they wanted discreet figureheads.
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 or needed a Governor-General acting as an Imperial overseer, nor as a representative of the British government. 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. Frrom 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, 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 seem 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 was defeated at the October election, and the Labor leader, James Scullin, took office. His relations with Scullin were correct but not friendly, since everyone knew where Stonehaven's political sympathies lay. It was probably fortunate for him that his term expired in 1930, before the crises of the Scullin government began. Scullin did not consult him 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.
| Preceded by: Lord Forster | Governors-General of Australia | Followed by: Sir Isaac Isaacs |
