David Alexander Edward Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford and 10th Earl of Balcarres KT, PC, DL, FRS, FSA (10 October 1871 – 8 March 1940), styled Lord Balniel between 1880 and 1913, was a British Conservative politician and art connoisseur. Born at Dunecht, Aberdeenshire, Crawford was the eldest son of James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford and 9th Earl of Balcarres and his wife Emily Florence, daughter of Colonel the Hon. Edward Bootle-Wilbraham. The Hon. Sir Ronald Lindsay was his younger brother. He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford.[1] Crawford was elected Member of Parliament for Chorley in 1895[1][2] and served as a Junior Lord of the Treasury from 1903 to 1905 under Arthur Balfour. After the Conservatives went into opposition in 1905 he was Chief Conservative Whip in the House of Commons between 1911 and 1913. The latter year he succeeded his father in the earldom and took his seat in the House of Lords (in virtue of his junior title of Baron Wigan, which was in the Peerage of the United Kingdom).[1] In July 1916 Crawford was admitted to the Privy Council[3] and appointed President of the Board of Agriculture, with a seat in the cabinet, in the coalition government of H. H. Asquith.[4] When David Lloyd George became Prime Minister in December 1916, Crawford became Lord Privy Seal[5]. In January 1919 Lloyd George appointed him Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,[1] but removed him from the cabinet. He was made First Commissioner of Works in April 1921[6], and in April of the following year he was also made Minister of Transport,[7] and restored to the cabinet. He retained these two posts until the coalition government fell in October 1922.[1] Apart from his political career Crawford was Chancellor of the University of Manchester between 1922 and 1940, a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire. He became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1900 and of the Royal Society in 1924 and was made a Knight of the Thistle in 1921.[1] Lord Crawford married Constance Lilian, daughter of Sir Henry Pelly, 3rd Baronet, in 1900. They had eight children, two sons and six daughters. One daughter, Lady Mary Lilian Lindsay (1910–2004), married Reginald Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1962 to 1964. Their youngest son the Hon. James Lindsay was Member of Parliament for Devon North. Their second daughter was Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, Director-General of MI5 from 2002 to 2007. Lord and Lady Crawford's fifth daughter Lady Katharine Constance Lindsay married Sir Godfrey Nicholson, 1st Baronet, and was the mother of Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne. Lord Crawford died in March 1940, aged 68, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son David, Lord Balniel. The Countess of Crawford died in January 1947.[1]