About Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon
Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon (12 September 1866 – 12 August 1941), styled as the Earl of Willingdon between 1931 and 1936, was a British Liberal politician and administrator who served as Governor General of Canada and as Viceroy and Governor-General of India. Freeman-Thomas was born in England and educated at Eton College and then the University of Cambridge before serving for 15 years in the Sussex Artillery. He then entered the diplomatic and political fields, acting as aide-de-camp to his father-in-law when the latter was Governor of Victoria and, in 1900, was elected to the British House of Commons. He thereafter occupied a variety of government posts, including secretary to the British prime minister and, after being raised to the peerage as Baron Willingdon, as Lord-in-waiting to King George V. From 1913, Willingdon held gubernatorial and viceregal offices throughout the British Empire, starting with the governorship of Bombay and then the governorship of Madras, before he was in 1926 appointed as the Governor-General of Canada to replace the Viscount Byng of Vimy, occupying the post until succeeded by the Earl of Bessborough in 1931. Willingdon was immediately thereafter appointed as Viceroy and Governor-General of India to replace Lord Irwin (later created Earl of Halifax), and he served in the post until succeeded by the Marquess of Linlithgow in 1936. After the end of his viceregal tenure, Willingdon was installed as the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and was elevated in the peerage as the Marquess of Willingdon. After representing Britain at a number of organisations and celebrations, Willingdon died in 1941 at his home in London, and his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey. In the midst of those dark times, Mahatma Gandhi returned to Bombay from South Africa and Willingdon was one of the first persons to welcome him and invite him to Government House for a formal meeting. His father-in-law was created Earl Brassey at the coronation in that year.
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