The India Defence League was a British pressure group founded in June 1933 dedicated to keeping India within the British Empire.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. The UK's 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi) were home to an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
India, also known as the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35,500,000 km2 (13,700,000 sq mi), 24% of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, the phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets" was often used to describe the British Empire, because its expanse around the globe meant that the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories.
It grew from the parliamentary India Defence Committee and was founded with the support of 10 Privy Councillors, 28 peers, 57 MPs, 2 former Governors and 3 former Lieutenant-Governors of Indian provinces and including members of the armed forces and the judiciary. [1] Viscount Sumner was its Honorary President, with Lord Carson, Rudyard Kipling, Winston Churchill, Sir Henry Page-Croft, the Marquess of Hartington, and Viscount FitzAlan holding the Vice-Presidencies. [2] It eventually had over 100 peers as members. [3]
A peerage is a legal system historically comprising various hereditary titles in a number of countries, and composed of assorted noble ranks.
The British Armed Forces, also known as Her Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military services responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and the Crown dependencies. They also promote Britain's wider interests, support international peacekeeping efforts and provide humanitarian aid.
John Andrew Hamilton, 1st Viscount Sumner, was a British lawyer and judge. He was appointed a judge of the High Court of Justice in 1909, a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1912 and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1913. Created a life peer as Baron Sumner in 1913, he was further honoured when he was granted a hereditary peerage as Viscount Sumner in 1927.
The IDL also helped Admiral Keyes win the Portsmouth North by-election in 1934. [4]
Admiral of the Fleet Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he served in a corvette operating from Zanzibar on slavery suppression missions. Early in the Boxer Rebellion, he led a mission to capture a flotilla of four Chinese destroyers moored to a wharf on the Peiho River. He was one of the first men to climb over the Peking walls, to break through to the besieged diplomatic legations and to free the legations.
The Portsmouth North by-election of 1934 was held on 19 February 1934. The by-election was held due to the elevation to the peerage of the incumbent Conservative MP, Bertram Godfray. It was won by the Conservative candidate Roger Keyes.
Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, was a British Army commander during the Second World War. He was a career soldier who spent much of his military career in India, where he rose to become Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army by early 1941. In July 1941 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East theatre, but after initial successes the war in North Africa turned against the British, and he was relieved of the post in 1942 during the crucial Alamein campaign. In June 1943 he was once again appointed Commander-in-Chief, India, where his support through the organisation of supply, maintenance and training for Slim's Fourteenth Army played an important role in its success. He served as Commander-in-Chief, India until the Partition in 1947, when he assumed the role of Supreme Commander of all British forces in India and Pakistan until late 1948.
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax,, styled Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was one of the most senior British Conservative politicians of the 1930s. He held several senior ministerial posts during this time, most notably those of Viceroy of India from 1925 to 1931 and of Foreign Secretary between 1938 and 1940. He was one of the architects of the policy of appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1936–38, working closely with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. However, after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 he was one of those who pushed for a new policy of attempting to deter further German aggression by promising to go to war to defend Poland.
The Governor-General of India was the representative of the Monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 1947, the representative of the Indian head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William. The officer had direct control only over Fort William, but supervised other East India Company officials in India. Complete authority over all of British India was granted in 1833, and the official came to be known as the "Governor-General of India".
Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, was an Irish and British politician and colonial administrator. He was styled as Viscount Wellesley until 1781, when he succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Mornington. In 1799, he was granted the Irish peerage title of Marquess Wellesley. He first made his name as Governor-General of Bengal between 1798 and 1805, and he later served as Foreign Secretary in the British Cabinet and as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infantry and cavalry officers of the British and Indian Armies.
Field Marshal William Joseph Slim, 1st Viscount Slim,, usually known as Bill Slim, was a British military commander and the 13th Governor-General of Australia.
The order of precedence in Scotland was fixed by Royal Warrant in 1905. Amendments were made by further Warrants in 1952, 1958, 1999 to coincide with the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government and most recently in 2012.
An unofficial order of precedence in Northern Ireland, according to Burke's Peerage, 106th Edition, not officially authorised by or published with authority from either Buckingham Palace or the College of Arms, or the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice or the Northern Ireland Office of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, or the Assembly of Northern Ireland, or the Northern Ireland Executive.
The Most Exalted Order of the Star of India is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1861. The Order includes members of three classes :
- Knight Grand Commander (GCSI)
- Knight Commander (KCSI)
- Companion (CSI)
The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1878. The Order includes members of three classes:
- Knight Grand Commander (GCIE)
- Knight Commander (KCIE)
- Companion (CIE)
The Imperial Order of the Crown of India is an order in the British honours system. The Order was established by Queen Victoria in 1878, when she became Empress of India. The Order is open only to women; no new appointments have been made after the Partition of India in 1947. The Order was limited to British princesses, wives or female relatives of Indian princes and wives or female relatives of any person who held the office of:
Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford, was a British statesman who served as Governor of Queensland from 1905 to 1909, Governor of New South Wales from 1909 to 1913, and Viceroy of India from 1916 to 1921, where he was responsible for the creation of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. After serving a short time as First Lord of the Admiralty in the government of Ramsay MacDonald, he was appointed the Agent-General for New South Wales by the government of Jack Lang before his retirement.
The Carlton Club is a London private members' club which describes itself as "the original home of the Conservative Party before the days of Conservative Central Office". Membership of the club is by nomination and election only.
A princely state, also called native state, feudatory state or Indian state, was a vassal state under a local or regional ruler in a subsidiary alliance with the British Raj. Though the history of the princely states of the subcontinent dates from at least the classical period of Indian history, the predominant usage of the term princely state specifically refers to a semi-sovereign principality on the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by a local ruler, subject to a form of indirect rule on some matters. In actual fact, the imprecise doctrine of paramountcy allowed the government of British India to interfere in the internal affairs of princely states individually or collectively and issue edicts that applied to all of India when it deemed it necessary.
Walter Turner Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, was a British politician.
Thomas Walker Hobart Inskip, 1st Viscount Caldecote, was a British politician who served in many legal posts, culminating in serving as Lord Chancellor from 1939 until 1940. Despite legal posts dominating his career for all but four years, he is most prominently remembered for serving as Minister for Coordination of Defence from 1936 until 1939.
Henry David Reginald Margesson, 1st Viscount Margesson, PC was a British Conservative politician, most popularly remembered for his tenure as Government Chief Whip in the 1930s. His reputation was of a stern disciplinarian who was one of the harshest and most effective whips. His sense of the popular mood made him know when to sacrifice unpopular ministers. He protected the appeasement-supporting government as long as he could.
The Indian Empire Society was a London-based lobbying organization, formed in 1930 to promote the cause of the British Empire in India.
George Sydenham Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe was a British Army officer and colonial administrator.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919 when troops of the British Indian Army under the command of Acting Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer fired rifles into a crowd of unarmed Indian civilians who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab. The civilians had assembled for a peaceful protest to condemn the arrest and deportation of two national leaders, Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew, and to honour the Sikh festival of Baisakhi.