The 11th Marquess of Lothian (Philip Kerr, 1882-1940) devoted much of his life to working for world peace through the creation of more solid links amongst the nations of the British Commonwealth and between the Commonwealth and the United States. As a young man he was a member of Lord Milner's group (the 'Kindergarten') in South Africa during the period of reconstruction after the Boer War. As editor of The Round Table from 1910 to 1916, Lothian was an active proponent of closer imperial union, and as Private Secretary to Lloyd George from 1917 to 1921 he had a significant influence on British foreign policy, particularly during the Paris Peace conference of 1919.

During the inter-war years he devoted much of his influence to improving Anglo-American relations and to bringing about the Indian Federation. He studied the problem of national sovereignty, developed a theory of supranational organisation and became a severe critic of the League of Nations. After Munich he took a leading part, with Sir Charles Kimber, Lionel Curtis, Sir William Beveridge, Barbara Wootton and Lionel Robbins, in the establishment of the Federal Union movement. His writings on international relations inspired Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi who, during their internment under Mussolini, developed the case for a federated Europe after the war on the basis of the Federal Union literature. Today Lothian is honoured in Europe as a founding father of the British federalist school and a pioneer of European unification.

In 1939 Lothian was appointed British ambassador in Washington, where he played a decisive part in bringing about the Anglo-American alliance through the Destroyers-for Bases deal and the Lend-Lease programme.

The archives section on this website contains two articles by Lord Lothian:

Pacifism is not enough, given as the Burge Memorial Lecture on 28 May 1935

The ending of armageddon, first published in the summer of 1939.