Government of India Act

About the Author

As with most legislation, identifying a particular author is difficult, for any bill is likely to be the work of numerous legislators. Further, because the Government of India Act of 1919 was in large part an amendment of earlier acts of Parliament, it contains provisions written by the authors of those earlier acts. Nonetheless, two authors stand out, for the bill essentially enacted the reforms suggested by Edwin Montagu, the secretary of state for India, and Lord Chelmsford, India's viceroy at the time. Their conclusions were presented to the British Parliament as the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, which formed the core of the 1919 act.

Edwin Samuel Montagu, only the second Jew ever to serve in the British cabinet, was born in 1879. He entered politics in 1906, when he was elected to a seat in Parliament. In the years that followed he served in a variety of government posts, including undersecretary of state for India from 1910 to 1914. In 1917 he was appointed secretary of state for India, a post he held until 1922. Montagu died in 1924.

Lord Chelmsford was Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 3rd Baron Chelmsford; he was elevated to the position of 1st Viscount Chelmsford in 1921. He was born in 1868. After completing his education at Oxford University and succeeding his father as Baron Chelmsford, he was appointed governor first of Queensland, Australia, and then of neighboring New South Wales. During World War I he commanded a regiment in India, and he was appointed viceroy of India in 1916, a post he held until 1921. His service in India coincided with massive unrest and the Amritsar Massacre, and he returned to England amid charges of incompetence. He spent the last years of his life retired from politics before his death in 1933.