Lord Balcarres (also Earl of Crawford and Balcarres) KT, FRS, FRIBA

Other names: David Alexander Robert Lindsay

Born 10 October 1871
Died 8 March 1940

Active: 1912 - 1940

Politician, conoisseur and art patron

Born at Dunecht House, Aberdeen. Until succeeding his father in 1913 David Lindsay held the courtesy title of Earl of Balcarres. He was chairman of the family firm, the Wigan Coal and Iron Company. From June 1895 to his accession to the peerage in 1913 he was a Conservative member of Parliament, representing the Chorley division of Lancashire. He was private secretary to the politician Gerald Balfour (1853–1945), and part of the political cadre around Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930), through this he developed an interest in the arts and especially art administration.

He used his position as MP to criticize the administration of the South Kensington Museum beginning in 1896. Partly as a result of his interventions the House of Commons reorganized the museum into the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899 (opened 1909).

Balcarres also introduced legislation, which became the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1900. In 1901 he was made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and appointed a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.

As concern grew with Britain's art treasures being sold abroad (principally the United States), Balcarres chaired the National Art Collections Fund beginning in 1903 (through 1921), presiding over the acquisition, together with Robert Witt (q.v.) and Isidore Spielmann (1854-1925), of the Rokeby ‘Venus and Cupid’ by Velazquez, which was in danger of leaving the country.

Balcarres turned to art writing, publishing a monograph on Donatello in 1903, followed by ‘Evolution of Italian Sculpture’ of 1909. He wrote the article on ‘Museums of Art’ for the eleventh edition of the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’ in 1911.

In 1903 he had been made a party whip in the House of Commons and in 1911 was promoted to Chief Whip. After serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps he resumed his political career in December 1916 when he was appointed lord privy seal outside the cabinet, with responsibility for the wheat commission.

From 1919-21 he was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and acting as deputy leader in the House of Lords. In 1921 he was appointed first commissioner of works, which gave him a key position in relation to the siting of monuments and sculpture. From 1922 he was also an unpaid minister of transport giving him a cabinet position. However the fall of Lloyd George's coalition ended his career in front-bench politics.

After this he turned his attention more fully to art. He was appointed trustee of the British Museum in 1923, the National Gallery and was first Chairman of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, a body set up in 1924 to approve public works. Balcarres chaired the committee on broadcasting, and so oversaw the founding of the BBC in 1925. His other roles included chairman of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.

By 1931 his family company had incurred significant losses and he was forced to step down as chairman. He died suddenly at Haigh Hall.

Wealth at death: £389,064 8s. 0d.
Probate date: 24 June 1940

Citing this record

'Lord Balcarres (also Earl of Crawford and Balcarres) KT, FRS, FRIBA', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1222254596, accessed 01 Apr 2023]