Thomas Spring Rice, 3rd Baron Monteagle of Brandon

Thomas Aubrey Spring Rice, 3rd Baron Monteagle of Brandon CMG, MVO (3 November 1883 – 11 October 1934) was an Anglo-Irish peer and British diplomat.^[1]

Spring Rice was born in County Meath, the youngest son of Thomas Spring Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon and Elizabeth Butcher. He was brought up on the family estate of Mount Trenchard House, and educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford.^[2]

He entered the Diplomatic Service in 1907. He held appointments in St Petersburg (1908-1910) and Washington DC (1910-1919), where he served alongside his relation, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, who was ambassador. Together with his father, he helped to arrange the Irish Convention in 1917, using his personal connections to ensure that the interests of Sinn Féin were represented after the party leadership refused to attend.^[3] He later served in Paris and Brussels between 1920 and 1921, before retiring from the Foreign Office. Spring Rice was invested as a Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George and a Member of the Royal Victorian Order.

He became Baron Monteagle of Brandon in 1926 on the death of his father, following the premature death of his older brother, Stephen.^[4] His sister was the Irish nationalist activist, Mary Spring Rice. He sat as a Liberal in the House of Lords. Spring Rice did not marry, and was succeeded in the title by his uncle, Francis.

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