[5] From 1920 to 1921, he was attached to an Officer Training Corps (OTC) University Contingent, with the local rank of captain.

[6] Lumley sat in the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston upon Hull East 1922–29, then York 1931–37.

In 1923 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to William Ormsby-Gore, from 1924 to 1926 to Sir Austen Chamberlain and subsequently to Anthony Eden.

He presided over the Interdepartmental Commission of Enquiry on Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies set up after the Second World War to consider how Britain might maintain and increase the links it had built up during the war in the geographical areas under the Commission's consideration.

The Commission's report, presented in 1947, argued for considerable strengthening of university departments' capacity to carry out research and training related to these areas, and for significant funds to be made available to this end.