Bassano Ltd · Public domain

A British Conservative politician who served as Secretary of State for the Colonies in the 1920s and for India through the Second World War, but is remembered above all for one speech: on 7 May 1940, in the House of Commons, he invoked Cromwell's words against Neville Chamberlain, helping trigger the debate that toppled Chamberlain and brought Winston Churchill to power. He was also a prolific historian and diarist of the British Empire.