Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st marquess of Reading

Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st marquess of Reading (born Oct. 10, 1860, London, Eng.—died Dec. 30, 1935, London) was a politician, lord chief justice of England, and diplomat.

Called to the bar in 1887, Isaacs built a prosperous practice, representing trade unions as well as large corporations. In 1904 he was elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal. Appointed solicitor general and later attorney general in 1910, he became the first attorney general to be given a cabinet seat (1912). In 1913 a special committee of the House of Commons acquitted Isaacs, the future prime minister David Lloyd George, and other ministers of charges of corruption arising from transactions in the shares of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, of which Isaacs’s brother Godfrey was managing director.

As lord chief justice (1913–21), Isaacs presided over the trial for treason of the Irish patriot Sir Roger Casement (1916). During World War I he worked to strengthen Anglo-American relations, and he headed an Anglo-French delegation that negotiated a war loan of $500 million from the United States. Reading (who had been created baron in 1914, viscount in 1916, and earl in 1917) retained his lord chief justiceship while serving as ambassador to the United States (1918–19).

As viceroy of India (1921–26) during a turbulent period of Indian nationalism, Reading increasingly resorted to summary measures, although he preferred conciliation. He imprisoned two Muslim leaders in 1921 and Mahatma Gandhi in 1922. He also used force against the Moplahs (Muslim separatists in the Madras Presidency) and against Sikh rebels in the Punjab.

Reading’s brief term (August–November 1931) as foreign secretary in James Ramsay MacDonald’s coalition government was uneventful.