John David Rees

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Sir John David Rees, KCIE, CVO, MP (December 16, 1854 - June 2, 1922) was a colonial administrator in British India and subsequently a Member of Parliament at Westminster. He was educated at Cheltenham College and joined the Indian Civil Service in 1875. He served mostly in the south of India where he was Under-Secretary in the Madras Government, and later the British Resident in Travancore and Cochin. He also served as an Additional Member of the Governor-General's Council in the 1890s.

In 1901, Rees retired from the Civil Service. He was an active proponent of the Raj and wrote a number of books on British India. The Real India, first published in 1908, went through a number of editions. In 1902, he had even contributed a number of columns to the Times Literary Supplement on Indian matters. He served two terms as Member of Parliament: from 1906 to 1910 as the Liberal MP of Montgomery constituency, and from 1912 to 1922 as the Unionist MP of East Nottingham.

He married Mary Catherine Dormer in 1891, and was elevated to the peerage in 1919 whereby he became a baronet.