Arthur Hope, 2nd Baron Rankeillour

Arthur Oswald James Hope, 2nd Baron Rankeillour GCIE MC (7 May 1897 – 26 May 1958) was a British politician, soldier and administrator. He was a Conservative and served as Member of Parliament for Nuneaton from 1924 to 1929 and for Birmingham Aston from 1931 to 1939, after which he was Governor of the Madras Presidency of British India from 1940 to 1946.

Hope was born to the first Lord Rankeillour in 1897 and had his early education in England. He served with distinction in France during the First World War and entered public life soon after his military service was over. He served as Conservative member of parliament for Nuneaton and later for Birmingham Aston. In 1940, he was appointed Governor of Madras and served till 1946.

Hope married Grizel Gilmour in 1919 and had four daughters. He died on 26 May 1958, nineteen days after his 61st birthday.

Early life
Arthur Oswald James Hope was born to James Fitzalan Hope, 1st Baron Rankeillour, by his marriage to Mabel Ellen Riddell, at Marylebone, England on 7 May 1897. His father had served as a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. Arthur was the eldest of four children, the others being Henry John Hope, 3rd Baron Rankeillour (1899–1967), Joan Mary Hope, and Richard Frederick Hope (1901–1964).

Hope was educated at The Oratory School and at Sandhurst. He joined the Coldstream Guards in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War and rose to be a Captain. He was wounded in action in France and was mentioned in dispatches. He was awarded the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre.

Public life
Hope left the army at the conclusion of the First World War and entered public life. He joined the Conservative Party and at the 1924 general election was elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom from the Nuneaton constituency in Warwickshire. Hope served a total of fourteen years in the House of Commons, representing Nuneaton from 1924 to 1929 and Birmingham Aston from 1931 to 1940. At the 1935 election, he beat his nearest rival by a margin of 10,355 votes. He was still a member of the House of Commons when appointed as Governor of Madras but gave up his seat, thereby causing a by-election. He was also a fine cricketer and played a first class match for the British Army against Cambridge University at Fenners Ground on 7 June 1926.

Hope served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Colonel George Lane Fox, Secretary for Mines from 1924 to 1926 and was a whip from 1935 to 1946, first as an unpaid Assistant Whip in 1935, then as an unpaid Lord of the Treasury from 1935 to 1937, as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household from May 1937 to October 1937 and finally as Treasurer of the Household from 1937 to 1939.

As Governor of Madras
Hope was appointed Governor of Madras in 1940 and succeeded John Erskine, Lord Erskine on 12 March 1940.

Hope served as the Governor of Madras throughout the Second World War. Following the Japanese conquest of Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, there were strong apprehensions about possible Japanese attacks on coastal Indian cities. On 18 April 1942, in a secret communication to Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy of India, Hope described reports of a Japanese force heading towards India. There were Japanese air raids on the coastal towns of Vizagapatam and Cocanada on 6 April 1942 followed by sea attacks on Madras port. Hope responded by evacuating commercial and administrative establishments and business offices along the Madras coast and moving them inland.

Madras was in a state of emergency when Hope took over as the last elected government had resigned in October 1939. The Quit India Movement was started in 1942 and an Anti-British campaign was launched. The provincial governments responded with a crackdown. Hope imposed censorship of newspapers in the Presidency and reporting on internal politics was suppressed. In protest against the government's actions, newspapers all over India were suspended for a day. Hope responded by withdrawing special privileges accorded to striking newspapers.

The government also imposed censorship of Indian-language films. A provincial propaganda officer, G. D. B. Harvey was appointed to promote propaganda films in support of the British war effort. In 1943, the government issued an order under the Defence of India rules restricting the size of indigenously made films to 11,000 feet.

In the beginning, the provincial leadership of the Indian National Congress under Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari was strongly opposed to India's forcible involvement in the Second World War. But later, Rajagopalachari changed his mind and spoke in support of the British war effort even while his colleagues in New Delhi were still agitating against the war.

Due to economic reasons, the different battalions of the Madras Regiment had been disbanded in stages. With the transferring of the 1st Battalion in 1928, the Madras Regiment ceased to exist. When Hope became Governor in 1940, he tried to revive the Madras Regiment and canvassed for the same.

Due to the efforts of Hope, the Madras Regiment was revived in 1942 and Hope was appointed the regiment's first Colonel-in-chief. A training centre was raised at Madukkarai in Coimbatore district in July 1942 and the regiment fought with distinction in the Burma campaign.

Hope's tenure came to an end on 26 February 1946 and he was succeeded by Henry Foley Knight who served as the Acting Governor till the arrival of Hope's designated successor Archibald Edward Nye. In 1945, Hope inaugurated a polytechnic college in Coimbatore which was later named "Arthur Hope Polytechnic" in his honour. The polytechnic was later upgraded to a college of science and technology and renamed Government College of Science and Technology in 1950. Though the college was renamed and moved to a new campus, the area where it was originally located is still being called as "Hope College".

Death
Hope returned to the United Kingdom in 1946. He died on 26 May 1958 at the age of 61.

Honours
Hope was made a Grand Commander of the Indian Empire in 1939 just before his appointment as Governor of Madras. Arthur Hope succeeded to the barony on the death of his father, the 1st Baron on 14 February 1949.

Family
On 2 June 1919, at the age of 22, Hope married Grizel Gilmour, the second daughter of Brigadier-General Sir Robert Gordon Gilmour (1857–1939) and Lady Susan Lygon (1870–1962). The couple had four daughters:


 * Bridget Mary Hope (b. 1920)
 * Jean Margaret Hope (b. 1923)
 * Alison Mary Hope (b. 1927)
 * Barbara Mary Hope (b. 1930)

On Hope's death in 1958, due to the absence of a male heir, the barony passed on to his brother, Henry John Hope (1899–1967).