Lindsay Bernard Hall (1859-1935), John Lawrence Baird (detail), 1928, Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection. View full image
1st Viscount Stonehaven
Governor-General, 8 October 1925 to 22 January 1931
Australia’s eighth Governor-General, Viscount Stonehaven (1874-1941) once described the role as ‘pretending to be King’.1 While embracing the ceremony of vice-regal life, he brought the nuanced bipartisanship of a seasoned politician to the role, forging bonds with political leaders and the public.
London born, Stonehaven was educated at Eton and (briefly) Oxford. He travelled to Australia in 1894 as the aide-de-camp to the Governor of NSW, Sir Robert Duff.2 He then joined the Foreign Office where he had a 14-year diplomatic career. In 1905, he married Lady Ethel Sydney Keith-Falconer, daughter of the Earl of Kintore (Governor of SA 1889-95).3 They had five children.
Stonehaven was elected to the House of Commons, representing Rugby (1910-22) and Ayr Burghs (1922-25). He was awarded the DSO for his Intelligence Corps service in World War I. Returning to parliament, he served as Under-Secretary of State for the Air Ministry (1916-19) and the Home Office (1919-22) under Prime Minister Lloyd George, and Minister for Transport (1922-24) and the first Commissioner for Public Works (1924) in the Bonar Law and Baldwin governments.4 His appointment as Governor-General in 1925 saw him created Baron Stonehaven of Ury and appointed GCMG.
Shortly after Stonehaven’s term commenced, the Balfour Declaration formally recognised the UK and its Dominions as ‘autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status [and] in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs’.5 The Declaration overturned the previous mandate for Governors-General to represent the British Government and Sovereign,6 and instead recognised ‘the right of the Government of each Dominion to advise the Crown in all matters relating to its own affairs’.7
Stonehaven believed that ‘the Representative of the King should live on a different footing and in a different atmosphere from other people’, which he did by entertaining in style.8 He forged a strong friendship with Prime Minister Stanley Bruce. Though Bruce’s successor James Scullin described him as a ‘very decent little fellow’, their relationship was not as close.9 Stonehaven’s term coincided with the 1927 opening of Parliament House in Canberra, and the renovation of nearby Government House, one of the Governor-General’s official residences.
Stonehaven’s lament that few Britons would choose ‘expensive exile at the opposite end of the Earth’ unintentionally tapped into the growing domestic sentiment for an Australian-born Governor-General.10 This was soon realised when the former Chief Justice Sir Isaac Isaacs became his successor. On returning to England, Stonehaven served as the Conservative Party’s chair and held the post until 1936. He became a Viscount in 1938 and died three years later.
Lindsay Bernard Hall
Lindsay Bernard Hall (1859-1935) was born in Liverpool, England, and educated at Kensington Grammar School in London and Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire. He studied painting at the Royal College of Art, London (1874-78), later furthering his studies at academies in Antwerp and Munich. Hall returned to London in 1882 where he drew for magazines such as the Graphic and the Illustrated London News. In 1883, he was accepted by the Royal Academy of Art and exhibited his portraits there and with the Society of British Artists. A foundation member of the New English Art Club, he was appointed director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and Head of the Gallery’s Art School in 1892, where his students included Charles Wheeler and Margaret Preston. He reformed the National Gallery of Victoria’s acquisition policy, travelling Europe as the first Felton Bequest buyer. Hall continued to exhibit on occasion at the Victorian Artists’ Society and held solo exhibitions which were well received. He returned to London in 1934. His works are held in many important public collections throughout Australia.11
John Lawrence Baird
by Lindsay Bernard Hall
1928
Oil on canvas
111.4 x 88.7 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection
References
1. C Cunneen, King’s Men: Australia’s Governors-General from Hopetoun to Isaacs, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1983, p. 170. Information in this biography has also been taken from the following: B Carroll, Australia’s Governors-General: From Hopetoun to Jeffery, Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd, Kenthurst, NSW, 2004; C Cunneen, ‘John Lawrence Baird Stonehaven’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed 14 September 2021.
2. M Rutledge, ‘Duff, Sir Robert William (1835–1895)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed 10 September 2021.
3. R Refshauge, ‘Kintore, ninth Earl of (1852–1930)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed 10 September 2021.
4. ‘History of the UK Government: Past Prime Ministers: Andrew Bonar Law’, Gov.uk; ‘History of the UK Government: Past Prime Ministers: David Lloyd George’, Gov.uk; ‘History of the UK Government: Past Prime Ministers: Stanley Baldwin’, Gov.uk. Websites accessed 10 September 2021.
5. ‘Inter-Imperial Relations Committee: Report, Proceedings and Memoranda’, Imperial Conference 1926, p. 3, accessed 12 October 2021. This declaration was embodied in the UK Statute of Westminster Act 1931, though Australia would not adopt it until 1942.
6. LF Crisp, Australian national government, 4th edn, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1978, p. 398; H Merivale, Lectures on colonization and colonies, delivered before the University of Oxford in 1839, 1840 and 1841, Longman, London, 1861, pp. 649, 666. Cited in J Quick & RR Garran, The annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1901, p. 388.
7. Imperial Conference 1926, op. cit., p. 5.
8. Cunneen, King’s Men, op. cit., p. 170.
9. Ibid., p. 171.
10. Ibid., p. 170.
11. Information in this biography has been taken from: AE Galbally, ‘Hall, Lindsay Bernard (1859–1935)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed 25 May 2021; ‘Hall, Bernard (Lindsay Bernard)’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 491.