Quick Facts
Biography
Richard Maximilian Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton KCVO JP DL (7 August 1870 – 16 June 1924) was a British peer and diplomat, ultimately Britain's first Ambassador to Finland in 1919–20.
Early life
Dalberg-Acton was born in Bavaria, in the then German Empire, first and only surviving son of John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton and his German wife, Countess Marie Anna Ludomilla Euphrosina von Arco auf Valley. He completed his education in England at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Diplomatic career
Dalberg-Acton entered the British Foreign Office in 1894. He began a career in Europe as Third Secretary in the Diplomatic Service at the British Embassy in Berlin in 1896. He was promoted Second Secretary in 1900 and served in the Berlin embassy until 1902, also the year he succeeded to his father's peerage.
He then served as Second Secretary at successive embassies in Vienna from 1902;Berne, Switzerland; Madrid in 1906–07, and The Hague.
In 1911 he was promoted First Secretary, in which grade he was charge d'affaires at Darmstadt and Karlsruhe in Germany until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. He served again in Switzerland as Counsellor of Embassy at Berne in 1915–16, and became Consul-General in Zürich in 1917. In 1919 he became first British Ambassador in recently independent Finland at Helsinki, then retired from the Foreign Office in 1920.
Government posts
Alongside his diplomatic career, Lord Acton, a Liberal peer, was a Lord-in-Waiting, from 1905 to 1915, to Kings Edward VII and George V under the Liberal administrations of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H. H. Asquith.
Family
The fourth generation of his family to have been born abroad, he was, despite his paternal English roots and service to the British government, not formally a British subject until he was naturalised by Act of Parliament in 1911.
In 1919 he assumed by Royal Licence the additional surname of Lyon before his patronymics.
He married Dorothy Lyon, daughter of Thomas Henry Lyon, of Appleton Hall on 7 June 1904. The couple had nine children:
- Hon. Marie Immaculeé Antoinette Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1905–1994) married John Douglas Woodruff.
- Hon. Dorothy Elizabeth Anne Pelline Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1906–1998) married Joseph Edward Eyre and had issue.
- John Emerich Henry Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 3rd Baron Acton (1907–1989)
- Hon. Richard William Heribert Peter Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1909–1946) married Jill Ehlert.
- Hon. Helen Mary Grace Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1910–2001) married Prince Guglielmo Rospigliosi and had issue.
- Hon. Gabrielle Marie Leopoldine Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1912–1930)
- Hon. Joan Henrica Josepha Mary Clare Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1915–1995)
- Hon. Margaret Mary Teresa Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1919–1997)
- Hon. Ædgyth Bertha Milburg Mary Antonia Frances Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1920–1995) married John Alexander Callinicos and had issue; her son Alex Callinicos is a Marxist political theorist and activist.
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Honours and styles
Honours
Acton was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as a Member (fourth class) in 1901. Members (fourth class) were declared to be Lieutenants (LVO) in 1984 by Elizabeth II. He was promoted to be a Knight Commander of the same order in the 1916 New Year Honours.
He was also invested with the 1st class Order of the Crown (Prussia), as a Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour, a Grand Cross of the Danish Order of the Dannebrog, and the Serbian Royal Red Cross.
Styles of address
- 1870–1901: The Hon. Richard Dalberg-Acton
- 1901–1902: The Hon. Richard Dalberg-Acton MVO
- 1902–1916: The Rt Hon. The Lord Acton MVO
- 1916–1919: The Rt Hon. The Lord Acton KCVO
- 1919–1920: His Excellency The Rt Hon. The Lord Acton KCVO
- 1920–1924: The Rt Hon. The Lord Acton KCVO