Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton

Richard Maximilian Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton, (7 August 1870 – 16 June 1924) was a British peer and diplomat, ultimately Britain's first Ambassador to Finland in 1919–20.

Early life The scion of an ancient and distinguished Shropshire family,

Diplomatic career Dalberg-Acton entered the British Foreign Office in 1894. He began a career in Europe as Third Secretary in the Diplomatic Service at the British Embassy in Berlin in 1896. He was promoted Second Secretary in 1900 and served in the Berlin embassy until 1902, also the year he succeeded to his father's peerage. then Berne, Switzerland; Madrid in 1906–07, and The Hague.

In 1911 he was promoted First Secretary, in which grade he was charge d'affaires at Darmstadt and Karlsruhe in Germany until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. He served again in Switzerland as Counsellor of Embassy at Berne in 1915–16, and became Consul-General in Zürich in 1917. In 1919 he became the first British Ambassador in recently independent Finland at Helsinki, then retired from the Foreign Office in 1920.

Honours Acton was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as a Member (fourth class) in 1901. He was promoted to be a Knight Commander of the same order in the 1916 New Year Honours.

He was also invested with the 1st class Order of the Crown of Prussia, as a Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour, a Grand Cross of the Danish Order of the Dannebrog, and the Serbian Royal Red Cross.