Herwald Ramsbotham, 1st Viscount Soulbury

Infobox Governor-General
name = Herwald Ramsbotham,
1st Viscount Soulbury


caption =
imagesize =
order = 2nd Governor-General of Ceylon
term_start = July 6 1949
term_end = July 17 1954
monarch = Queen Elizabeth II
King George VI
prime_minister =
predecessor = Sir Henry Monck-Mason Moore
successor = Sir Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke
birth_date = Birth date|1887|5|6|df=yes
birth_place =
death_date = Death date |1971|1|30|df=yes
death_place =
spouse =
profession = Civil Servant, Conservative Party politician.|

Herwald Ramsbotham, 1st Viscount Soulbury GCMG GCVO OBE MC PC (6 March 1887 – 30 January 1971) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Ramsbotham sat as Member of Parliament for Lancaster from 1929 to 1941 and served under Neville Chamberlain as Minister of Pensions from 1936 to 1939 and as First Commissioner of Works from 1939 to 1940. In 1939 he became a member of the Privy Council and during the Second World War he served in the wartime coalition of Winston Churchill as President of the Board of Education from 1940 to 1941. The latter year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Soulbury, of Soulbury in the County of Buckinghamshire.

Ramsbotham later served as Chairman of the Assistance Board from 1941 to 1948 and as Governor-General of Ceylon from 1949 to 1954. In 1955 he was further honoured when he was created Viscount Soulbury, of Soulbury in the County of Buckinghamshire.

Lord Soulbury was son of Herwald Ramsbotham of Crowborough Warren and Ethel Margaret Bevan.

Lord Soulbury died in January 1971 at the age of 83. He was succeeded in the Viscountcy by his eldest son James. His younger son Peter Ramsbotham, 3rd Viscount Soulbury notably served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1974 to 1977.