Succeeding his father in 1908, Linlithgow served on the Western Front in World War I, and then served in various minor roles in the Conservative governments of the 1920s and 30s, including that of Chairman of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India and of the select committee on Indian constitutional reform.
In 1936, he succeeded Lord Willingdon as Viceroy of India. Linlithgow implemented the plans for local self-government embodied in the Government of India Act of 1935, which led to government led by the Congress Party in 5 of the 11 provinces, but the recalcitrance of the princes prevented the full establishment of Indian self government.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Linlithgow's appeal for unity led to the resignation of the Congress ministries. Disputes between the British administration and Congress ultimately led to massive Indian civil disobedience in the Quit India movement in 1942. Linlithgow suppressed the unrest brutally and arrested the Congress leaders.
It was during this period that, while attending Christmas morning service at the Cathedral of the Redemption in Delhi with his large family, he had to sit through a sermon delivered by the then Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India attacking his attitude to Congress and Home Rule; the peroration of the sermon led to uncontrollable laughter in church as the bishop gestured at the viceregal pew and said "...and all we have left is an array of blasted Hopes."
Upon his retirement in 1943, his seven year tenure as viceroy had been the longest in the history of the Raj. He died in 1952.
VictorAlexanderJohnHope, 2ndMarquess of Linlithgow (24 September1887 - 5 January1952) was a British statesman who served as Viceroy of India from 1936 to 1943.
Succeeding his father in 1908, Linlithgow served on the Western Front in World War I, and then served in various minor roles in the Conservative governments of the 1920s and 30s, including that of Chairman of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India and of the select committee on Indian constitutional reform.
Linlithgow implemented the plans for local self-government embodied in the Government of India Act of 1935, which led to government led by the Congress Party in 5 of the 11 provinces, but the recalcitrance of the princes prevented the full establishment of Indian self government.
Known as Lord JohnHope from 1912 to 1964, he was the younger son of VictorAlexanderJohnHope, 2ndMarquess of Linlithgow and Doreen Maud Milner.
Hope was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford and served in the Second World War in Norway and Italy with the Scots Guards, achieving the rank of temporary Major and twice mentioned in dispatches.
Hope served in the Conservative administrations of Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan as Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1954 to 1956, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations from 1956 to 1957 and as Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from 1957 to 1959.