Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

Sir Arthur John Dring (4 November 1902 – 16 June 1991) was the second Prime Minister of the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

of Bahawalpur (now in modern Pakistan). He was also the senior member of the

Indian Political Service The Indian Political Department (IPD), formerly known as the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India, was a government department in British India. It originated in a resolution passed on 13 September 1783 by the board of direc ...

in the last decades of the British Raj, Assistant Private Secretary to the Governor-General of India and an advisor to governments on plebscites for two former British colonies in Africa. Dring Stadium in the city of Bahawalpur, the site of the second test cricket match of the India-Pakistan test series in 1955, is named after him. He was called John throughout his life.Allen, Charles (1975) ''Plain Tales from the Raj: Images of British India in the Twentieth Century''

Early life

Dring was born on 4 November 1902 in Calcutta, India, the second child and only son of Sir William Arthur Dring and his wife Lady Jane Reid Greenshields Dring (née Ross, formerly Alston). The Dring family had been resident in India since 1830. Dring spent his earliest years in India, but was sent to boarding school in England in 1911, aged 9, as was customary for members of elite families in British India. He attended Winchester College and RMC Sandhurst.DRING, Lt-Col Sir (Arthur) John
''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2016 (online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014) He returned to India in 1923 and joined the Guides Cavalry as a lieutenant.

Political career

In 1927, Dring joined the

and soon became Assistant Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India. The Channel 4 historical drama Indian Summers revolves around a fictional character called Ralph Whelan who was the Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India in Shimla in 1932–1935. The character of Ralph Whelan has several similarities with the real-life John Dring, who was in the same political position in the same place at the same time, with the same family history. The National Portrait Gallery of the UK holds a portrait of Dring. Dring was the Deputy Commissioner of Dera Ismail Khan from 1935 to 1936. He was part of the Razmak column which attempted to display a show of force to anti-British tribal forces in the

Waziristan campaign (1936-1939) Waziristan campaign or Waziristan expedition may refer to: *Waziristan campaign (1919–20) *Waziristan campaign (1921–24) *Waziristan campaign (1936–39) *Waziristan War The insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also known as the War in Nort ...

but instead was bogged down in fighting and suffered large casualties. The failure of the Razmak column emboldened the resistance fighters resulted in a surge in their numbers. From 1937 to 1940, Dring served as Secretary to

Sir George Cunningham Sir George Cunningham (23 March 1888 – 8 December 1963) was a civil servant in British India who served as the Governor of the North-West Frontier Province. He was appointed to the post again by the Dominion of Pakistan, after its independenc ...

, the Governor of the Northwest Frontier Province. He then served as

Political Agent Political Agent or political agent may refer to: *Political Resident, a representative with consular duties and political contacts with local chiefs *Political officer (British Empire), an officer of the British imperial civil administration, also ...

of Waziristan from 1941 to 1943Tripodi, C. (2016) ''Edge of Empire: The British Political Officer and Tribal Administration on the North-West Frontier 1877–1947'', Rouledge:London and was awarded the Companion of the

Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria on 1 January 1878. The Order includes members of three classes: #Knight Grand Commander ( GCIE) #Knight Commander ( KCIE) #Companion ( CIE) No app ...

in the

1943 New Year Honours The 1943 New Year Honours were appointments by King George VI to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the United Kingdom and British Empire. They were announced on 29 December 1942.United Kingdom (additiona ...

. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1944. Dring was the Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar from 1945-1947 and hosted Jawaharlal Nehru on his visit to the Northwest Frontier Province in 1946. Following the

Partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

in 1947, Dring served as the Prime Minister of Bahawalpur, a Muslim-majority princely state. He was Bahawalpur's second Prime Minister, and last Prime Minister of British origin, and served from 1948 to 1952. Dring oversaw a transformation in the way of life of the people of Bahwalpur from a desert to a pastoral way of life. He supported and encouraged the Nawab in the developing over a dozen treaties with the British, in the mutual interests of both parties. The Princely State of Bahawalpur was abolished in 1955 and its people and land became part of Pakistan. Dring Stadium in Bahawalpur is named after Dring. It was a stadium ahead of its time and was the only complete stadium in Pakistan at the time.Samiuddin, Osman (2014) ''The Unquiet Ones: A History of Pakistan Cricket'', Delhi:HarperCollins Publishers India The stadium hosted a test match in the first India-Pakistan test cricket series in 1955 and was the training ground for the first Pakistan cricket team tour of England in 1954 After his tenure as Prime Minister was complete, Dring was knighted in the 1952 Queen's Birthday Honours. Like many former British residents of India, he went to Africa after Partition. In 1955 he was appointed as advisor to the Governor of the Gold Coast on possible plebiscite arrangements in Togoland, drawing on his experiences in the transition of Bahawalpur from princely state to part of Pakistan. The plebiscite resulted in the British part of Togoland being integrated into Ghana. In 1959 he fulfilled a similar role as advisor to the Governor-General of Nigeria in the lead-up to the British Cameroons plebiscite. The result was the Muslim-majority Northern Cameroons voting to join Nigeria and the Christian-majority

Southern Cameroons The Southern Cameroons was the southern part of the British Empire, British League of Nations mandate territory of the British Cameroons in West Africa. Since 1961, it has been part of the Republic of Cameroon, where it makes up the Northwest Re ...

voting to join the newly independent country of Cameroon.Nohlen, D, Krennerich, M & Thibaut, B (1999) ''Elections in Africa: A data handbook'', p177

Personal life

On 12 October 1934 in Karachi, Dring married Marjorie Wadham of the family who founded Wadham College, Oxford. The couple had two children. After Marjorie's death in Oxford in 1943, Dring married Alice Deborah Marshall (née Cree) in Shimla in 1946. She was known as Deborah. John and Deborah Dring were two of the subjects of Charles Allen's oral histories of British India, ''Plain Tales from the Raj''. Dring died in England on 16 June 1991, aged 89 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dring, John 1902 births 1991 deaths People educated at Winchester College Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Administrators in British India Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire British Indian Army officers Prime Ministers of Bahawalpur (princely state) British expatriates in Pakistan Indian Political Service officers