Background
Frederic John Chelmsford was born in London on August 12, 1868, the eldest of five sons.
Frederic John Chelmsford was born in London on August 12, 1868, the eldest of five sons.
Educated at Winchester and at Magdalen College, Oxford, he won distinction in jurisprudence and a fellowship to All Souls in 1892.
He was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Law by Birmingham University in 1927, an honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law by Magdalen College, Oxford University in 1929.
After a brief experience in local government, he became governor of Queensland, Australia (1905-1909), and governor of New South Wales (1909-1913).
In 1914 he went with the 4th Dorset Territorials to India. Though only a captain with no Indian experience, in 1916 he was offered the most important post of the empire, the viceroyalty of India, succeeding Lord Hardinge of Penshurst.
The government of India had undertaken a disastrous campaign in Mesopotamia, in which Chelmsford's oldest son had died; mismanagement was partially due to the overcentralized system of army administration instituted by Lord Kitchener, commander in chief from 1902 to 1909. "The disastrous effect" of Britain's defeat at "Mespot, " as Chelmsford expressed it, led to the resignation of Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for India, in July 1917, and the appointment of E. S. Montagu in his stead.
Earlier in 1917 terrorism had broken out in Bengal, and Chelmsford had been forced to assume temporary powers of repression. On August 20, 1917, the historic Montagu-Chelmsford Report announced Britain's ultimate goal in India as "the progressive realisation of responsible government. " It drew the sting from a potentially explosive agitation and initiated the Government of India Act of 1919.
Because the Indian bureaucracy had always been slow to implement change and was largely unimaginative, Chelmsford and his council were especially criticized for institutional faults. But he guided his government through the unrest caused by Mohandas Gandhi's campaign of satyagraha, which was followed by serious disorders in the Punjab and by the Third Afghan War. Chelmsford used force and firm executive action in both crises, leaving the subsequent bitter Indian resentment to his successors.
After retiring in 1921, Chelmsford assumed a number of academic appointments which were interrupted only by his joining the first Labor government of Ramsay MacDonald in 1924. Chelmsford became first lord of the Admiralty, but the government fell within a year. He died of a heart attack on April 1, 1933.
In the honour of his family, the NSW Government launched a new ferry, to be known as the Lady Chelmsford in 1910 as a Sydney Harbour Ferry. The Lady Chelmsford continued working the harbour until 1971 when she was sold. In Melbourne she operated as a cruising restaurant before being taken out of service and sold in 2005. Again becoming a restaurant, she sank at her moorings in February 2008 and after a protracted battle over insurance, the ship was deemed unsalvageable and broken up underwater in mid-2011.
In 1924, despite being a lifelong Conservative, Chelmsford was persuaded to join the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 as First Lord of the Admiralty, due to the fact that Labour had so few peers in the House of Lords. He never joined the party and only agreed on the condition that the Navy's size be maintained and that he not be expected to attend any cabinet meetings of a political nature. After the fall of the government in November 1924, he retired from political life.
He was a long-standing Freemason, and served as Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.
On 27 July 1894 he married Frances Charlotte Guest, daughter of Baron Wimborne at St George's, Hanover Square. They had six children.
She was born in 1869 and died in 1957.
She was born in 1911, the date of death is unknown.
She was born in 1900, the date of death is unknown.
She married Donough O'Brien, 16th Baron Inchiquin in 1921.
He was born in 1896 and died in 1 May 1917.
He married Sir Alan Lascelles in 1920.
He was born in 1903 and died in1970.
