British playwright and librettist whose lightweight comedies of manners were admired because of their tight construction and epigrammatic wit.

Lonsdale established himself as a librettist of musical comedies, chief among them being The King of Cadonia (1908), The Balkan Princess (1910), and The Maid of the Mountains (1916). During the 1920s, however, he began to produce his most characteristic work, reminiscent of the plays of Somerset Maugham. The most successful of them were Aren't We All (1923), The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1925), On Approval (1927), Canaries Sometimes Sing (1929), and Once Is Enough (1938).