John Lawrence Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven, GCMG, DSO, PC (27 April 1874 – 20 August 1941) was a British politician who served as the eighth Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1925 to 1930.

Baird was a member of the Diplomatic Service before winning election to the House of Commons in 1910, representing the Conservative Party.

When war broke out a few years later, he joined the Intelligence Corps and won the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).

Baird was added to the Lloyd George ministry in 1916, and held various junior portfolios until 1922 when he was appointed Minister of Transport and First Commissioner of Works.

Lord Stonehaven was the first governor-general to live in Canberra, moving into Yarralumla in 1927 and presiding over the first sitting at the new Parliament House.

Already in April 1919, he was made Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, which he remained until the coalition government fell in October 1922.

But, like his predecessor, he found that Australian Prime Ministers no longer wanted a Governor-General acting as an Imperial overseer, or as a representative of the British government, but merely as discreet figureheads.

The 1926 Imperial Conference in London recognised the de facto independence of the Dominions, and ended the role of the Governors-General as diplomats and as channels of communication between governments.

This meant an end to travelling between government houses in Sydney and Melbourne and made the post of Governor-General less expensive.

At the same time, the advent of aviation, of which Stonehaven was a keen exponent, made travelling around Australia much easier.

Although the Parliament was only a year old, Stonehaven agreed at once: the days when Governors-General exercised a discretion in this area had passed.