Background
Edwin Montegu was the eighth child of the family, a sensitive child perpetually worrying about his health, haunted by a presentiment of early death.
Edwin Montegu was the eighth child of the family, a sensitive child perpetually worrying about his health, haunted by a presentiment of early death.
He took an interscience degree at University College, London, and went on to Cambridge, where he was president of the student union.
After graduating in 1903 he joined a London firm of solicitors, but decided on a political career. In 1906 he was elected Liberal member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire and held the seat until 1922. He was private secretary to the chancellor of the exchequer, Herbert Asquith, and moved with him to the prime minister’s office.
In 1910 Montagu began his close connection with India when he was appointed parliamentary undersecretary of state for India. His fascination with that country’s problems lasted until the end of his life. He supported India’s aspirations to independence and his “Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms” led to the Government of India Act of 1919, w'hich gave that country the beginnings of self-government.
In 1914 Montagu was appointed financial secretary to the Treasury, and was made a privy councillor in 1915 and entered the cabinet, taking up the post of minister of munitions in 1916.
From 1917 to 1922 he was secretary of state for India. As a patriotic Englishman he became a violent anti-Zionist. He wss a powerful voice in the British cabinet in opposing the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which endorsed the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, being largely responsible for the modification of the original text that weakened its promises to the Zionists. He lost his seat in the 1922 parliamentary election and engaged in finance in the City of London until his death.
Liberal.
In 1915 he married Venetia Stanley, daughter of Baron Sheffield (who was romantically involved with Asquith), after she converted to Judaism. The income from his father’s bequest to him was conditional upon his continuing to profess the Jewish religion and not marrying out of it.