John Herbert (Conservative politician)


Sir John Arthur Herbert GCIE, born Coldbrook, Monmouthshire, Wales, to Sir Arthur James Jones-Herbert GCVO, of Llanarth, Monmouthshire, and Dame Helen Louise Gammell, of Rhode Island; died Government House, Calcutta, was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom and a colonial governor in British India, serving as Governor of Bengal from 1939 till his death in December 1943.

Biography

Herbert was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the British Army in 1919. He was elected as Member of Parliament for Monmouth in Wales at a by-election in 1934. In that year, he was made an honorary Major. He represented the constituency in the House of Commons until his resignation on 1 July 1939, when he was appointed as Governor of Bengal. Herbert was made an honorary Colonel in 1939 and was also knighted with the GCIE upon becoming Governor of Bengal. He served as Governor until his death in 1943, aged 48.
He was partly blamed for the Bengal famine of 1943.