For the study of Liberal, SDP and Issue 53 / Winter 2006–07 / £6.00 Liberal Democrat history

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Gladstone on leadership Patrick Jackson Gladstone and the Conservative collapse Rober Cook Dishing the Whigs in Winchester Alun Wyburn-Powell The Inverness turning point 1954 Inverness by-election Nicholas Mander Last of the Midland radicals Sir , Liberal MP 1929 – 45 Jaime Reynolds Last outpost of urban radicalism East, Liberal seat 1832 – 1945 Liberal Democrat History Group Varnished Leaves The relevance Pages 26–32 of this Journal contain a biography of Geoffrey Mander, Liberal MP for Wolverhampton East of history 1929–45. The article has been written by Charles Nicholas Mander, using material published in his book Varnished Leaves: A Biography of the of Wolverhampton 1750–1950 ( Press, 2005). ‘Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.’ By the 1820s the family had established one of the largest chemical factories in Britain. The varnish (George Santayana, 1905) business flourished so much following the rise of the railways that John Mander was able to describe his forebears as the ‘uncrowned kings of Wolverhampton’. As well as the business, the book tells of the family’s The Journal of Liberal History houses, gardens and art patronage, and, of course, its politics. announces a new series of articles. What can we learn from We reproduce here the first page of the flyer produced for the book. Further information can be obtained the lessons of history for modern- from The Owlpen Press, Owlpen Manor, , GL11 5BZ; tel. 01453 860 8261; email day Liberal politics? [email protected]. For example, what relevance has the Liberal record on international institutions have to current problems in the Middle East? Does the historic Liberal attachment to free trade have any relevance in these days of globalisation and the WTO? What can Gladstone’s, or Lloyd George’s, approaches to taxation tell us about modern tax policy? Are the principles on which Beveridge founded welfare provision still of value in the twenty-first century? Articles are invited in this series; we hope to run the first in the summer issue of the Journal. Articles should be thought- provoking and polemical, and between 1500 and 2500 words in length. If you would like to discuss any ideas for articles, please contact the Editor on [email protected].

Next issue: 1906 special The spring 2007 issue of the Journal of Liberal History will be a special issue on the 1906 election and the legacy of the period of reforming Liberal government which followed. Articles, several of which were given as papers to the Cambridge seminar in October, include pieces on Liberal economic policy, foreign policy, and the constitution; assessments of Campbell-Bannerman, and of Churchill as a Liberal; and a debate between academics putting the pessimistic and optimistic view of the long-term prospects for the Liberal Party. Contributors include David Dutton, Vernon Bogdanor, Ian Packer, Thomas Otte, Richard Toye and Ewen Cameron. Journal of Liberal History 54 will be published just before Easter.

 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 Journal of Liberal History Issue 53: Winter 2006–07 The Journal of Liberal History is published quarterly by the Liberal Democrat History Group. ISSN 1479-9642 Gladstone and the Conservative collapse 4 Editor: Duncan Brack Patrick Jackson analyses the article on ‘The Conservative Collapse’ in the Assistant Editor: Siobhan Vitelli Fortnightly Review of 1 May 1880, published anonymously but written by Biographies Editor: Robert Ingham Gladstone Reviews Editor: Dr Eugenio Biagini Deputy Reviews Editor: Tom Kiehl Dishing the Whigs in Winchester 12 Patrons The impact of electoral reform in the nineteenth century on elections in Dr Eugenio Biagini; Professor Michael Freeden; Winchester; by Robert Cook Professor John Vincent The Inverness turning point 18 Editorial Board How the Liberals’ near-miss in the Inverness by-election of 1954 proved a Dr Malcolm Baines; Dr Roy Douglas; Dr Barry Doyle; turning point in the party’s fortunes; by Alun Wyburn-Powell Dr David Dutton; Professor David Gowland; Dr Richard Grayson; Dr Michael Hart; Peter Hellyer; Ian Hunter; Dr J. Graham Jones; Tony Little; Professor Last of the Midland radicals 26 Ian Machin; Dr Mark Pack; Dr Ian Packer; Dr John Biography of Sir Geoffrey Mander, Liberal MP for Wolverhampton East, Powell; Jaime Reynolds; Iain Sharpe 1929 – 45; by Nicholas Mander

Editorial/Correspondence Last outpost of urban radicalism: 33 Contributions to the Journal – letters, articles, and Wolverhampton East, Liberal seat 1832 – 1945 book reviews – are invited. The Journal is a refereed publication; all articles submitted will be reviewed. Jaime Reynolds analyses Mander’s seat. Contributions should be sent to:

Duncan Brack (Editor) Letters to the Editor 35 38 Salford Road, SW2 4BQ Electoral support (John Meadowcroft); Herbert Gladstone and South Africa email: [email protected] (Peter Hatton) All articles copyright © Journal of Liberal History. Tom Horabin remembered 36 Advertisements Interview with Mary Wright, the daughter of Tom Horabin MP; by Robert Full page £100; half page £60; quarter page £35. Ingham Discounts available for repeat ads or offers to readers (e.g. discounted book prices). To place ads, please contact the Editor. Beveridge in person 37 Encounter with Lord Beveridge; from the papers of Ivor Davies Subscriptions/Membership An annual subscription to the Journal of Liberal Report: The 39 History costs £20.00 (£12.50 unwaged rate). This With Professor Peter Barberis; report by Graham Lippiatt includes membership of the History Group unless you inform us otherwise. The institutional rate is £30.00. Non-UK subscribers should add £5.00. Reviews 42 Hurst, Charles Kennedy: A Tragic Flaw, reviewed by Duncan Brack; Foote, Online subscriptions cost £40.00 (individuals) or £50.00 (institutions). Non-UK subscribers should The Republican Transformation of Modern British Politics, reviewed by add £5.00. As well as printed copies, online Eugenio Biagini; Masson, ‘Women’s Rights and Women’s Duties’: The subscribers will be able to access online copies of Aberdare Women’s Liberal Association, 1891–1910, reviewed by Eugenio current and all past Journals. Biagini; Ellis & Treasure, Britain’s Prime Ministers, reviewed by J. Graham Cheques (payable to ‘Liberal Democrat History Jones; Holmes, In the Footsteps of Churchill, reviewed by J. Graham Jones Group’) should be sent to:

Patrick Mitchell Archives 50 6 Palfrey Place, London SW8 1PA; Project to catalogue the papers of Richard Wainwright and David Steel; by email: [email protected] Becky Webster Payment is also possible via our website, www.liberalhistory.org.uk. Liberal Democrat History Group The Liberal Democrat History Group promotes the discussion and research of historical topics relating to the histories of the Liberal Democrats, Liberal Party, and SDP, and of Cover design concept: Lynne Featherstone Liberalism. The Group organises discussion meetings and produces the Journal and other Published by the Liberal Democrat History Group, occasional publications. c/o 38 Salford Road, London SW2 4BQ For more information, including details of publications, back issues of the Journal, tape Printed by Kall-Kwik, records of meetings and archive and other research sources, see our website at: 426 Chiswick High Road, London W4 5TF www.liberalhistory.org.uk. January 2007 Chair: Tony Little Honorary President: Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07  On 1 May 1880 the Fortnightly Review, edited by John Morley,1 published an anonymous article of about 7,500 words under the heading ‘The Conservative Collapse: Gladstone and the Considered in a Letter from a Liberal to an old Conservative’.2 The pseudonym ‘Index’ concealed the authorship of Conservative Collapse Gladstone, then on the threshold of his second administration, and the article is of considerable interest both for what it says and for the circumstances in which it was written. The aim of this article by Patrick Jackson is to consider what this little known episode reveals about the idiosyncratic views of Gladstone on Liberalism and on the nature of party leadership; and also to consider how Liberal supporters such as Morley were made to realise that the old man’s indispensable leadership was only Front page of available on his own the Fortnightly terms. Review article of 1 May 1880

 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 Gladstone and the Conservative Collapse

l a dston e’s di a- displayed’.4 During the next few For Glad- The claim, so to speak, of G ries provide the days the scale of the electoral and H, or rather, I should say, salient facts: on 13 victory became apparent, as it stone the of G with H as against me, or April 1880, ‘Began emerged that Disraeli’s Con- rather as compared with me, is t ent at ively a n servative Party had lost a third downfall complete … [If] they should anonymousG letter on the Con- of the seats it had held in the on surveying their position see servative Collapse’; on the fol- previous parliament. For Glad- of ‘Bea- fit to apply to me, there is only lowing day, ‘Worked on Anon stone the downfall of ‘Beacons- consfield- one form and ground of appli- Letter: really drawn forth by fieldism’ was ‘like the vanishing cation, so far as I see, which the letter of Lord Bath’; and of some vast magnificent castle ism’ was could be seriously entertained on 17 April, ‘Finished my “let- in an Italian romance.’5 by me, namely their conviction ter” & revision of it.’3 The use However, Gladstone was not ‘like the that on the ground of public of the word ‘anonymous’, and the leader of the triumphant policy, all things considered, it of inverted commas around Liberal Party, having resigned vanishing was best in the actual position ‘letter’, indicates that this was in high dudgeon in 1875, and the of some of affairs, that I should come intended from the outset to be a Queen was determined to avoid out.10 published article, stimulated by sending for ‘that half mad fire- vast mag- a letter from Lord Bath but not brand’.6 She did not return from It was essential to Gladstone’s simply a personal reply to it. Baden Baden until 17 April, but nificent self-esteem that he should not The period when Gladstone told Disraeli in a cipher telegram appear to be actively seeking to wrote the article was a brief to let it be known unofficially castle in resume the leadership he had interlude between the end of that she intended to send for an Italian voluntarily renounced. How- a strenuous election campaign Lord Hartington.7 Gladstone, for ever, there was nothing more to in Midlothian and his resump- his part, did not return to Lon- romance. be done until the Queen showed tion of power as Prime Minis- don until 19 April (‘a plunge out her hand, and on the same day, ter. On 7 April he returned to of an atmosphere of peace into amid sessions spent reading ‘dear his home at Hawarden, near an element of disturbance’8), and Guy Mannering’ and ‘that most Chester, from Dalmeny House, while in seclusion at Hawarden heavenly man George Herbert’, Lord Rosebery’s seat near Edin- he did not see either of the offi- Gladstone began to draft the burgh (‘this most hospitable cial party leaders. However, on article on ‘The Conservative of all houses’) which had been 13 April, in a letter to his friend, Collapse’. his base during the election. the former Chief Whip Lord The Marquis of Bath was forty- Despite ‘frightful unearthly Wolverton, who was deputed to nine, twenty-two years younger noises at Warrington’, the over- see Granville and Hartington on than Gladstone, and had served night railway journey had pro- his behalf,9 he set out his posi- as ambassador-extraordinary in vided ‘time to ruminate on the tion in deviously convoluted Lisbon and Vienna. Although great hand of God, so evidently terms: nominally a Conservative he

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07  gladstone and the conservative collapse

was in many ways much closer W. E. Gladstone Bath had also played an active We have had no security with to Gladstone than to Disraeli, in 1877 part in Gladstone’s campaign the present government who whom he disliked and distrusted. against the Bulgarian atrocities, have proved ready to tamper Bath was a devout high-church making Longleat available for with every question in order Anglo-Catholic and, like Glad- meetings and consultations.12 He to meet the exigencies of the stone, he had strongly opposed was thus the sort of Conservative moment, and I have been ever the Public Worship Regulation with whom Gladstone would ready to recognise how con- Act of 1874, which had empow- find it natural and congenial to servative has been your finan- ered bishops to discipline cler- correspond. cial policy compared with gymen guilty of introducing Bath’s long letter of 11 April Northcote’s. unauthorised ritualist practices, 188013 left no doubt about his atti- scathingly described by Disraeli tude towards the outgoing Tory Bath said that he ‘rejoiced that as ‘the mass in masquerade’.11 administration: the government are driven out.

 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 gladstone and the conservative collapse

Honour, religion, the interests urban constituencies outside Although a Liberal, who would of mankind generally require it London Liberals had been gladly see what are termed … But I must frankly admit I am returned with large majorities, Conservative principles en dismayed at the Conservative and even more significantly bloc in a minority at a general collapse.’ It would be ‘difficult the Conservatives had in many election, I am bound to make to secure any voice to property areas lost their traditional hold the admission that they have in the government of the coun- on the rural counties, despite not now been on trial … The try and … easy to leave the few the continued allegiance of spirit of the Administration money & land owners to the most of the landlords and clergy. has been concentrated in one mercy of the multitude’. The proposed extension of the extraordinary man. But what As a landowner himself, and county franchise would prob- has been the relation of that a life-long believer in the social ably have the initial effect of remarkable personage to his- and political role of the aristoc- further reducing the Conserva- toric Conservatism? racy, Gladstone was naturally tive representation, although sympathetic to Bath’s concerns, Gladstone perceptively envis- Gladstone paid a generous trib- and began his reply with the aged the possibility that ‘after ute to his defeated rival. Disraeli reassurance: a time the liberal enfranchise- was ‘not a man of mere talent, ment of the rural labourers, but of genius’, and the moment Although you may be termed together with the consequent of his downfall was not a time an Old Conservative, while redistribution of seats, may be for ‘dwelling on the matters, I am of a school of Liberalism found to have given it a perma- grave as they may be, which will not commonly esteemed to be nent increase’. be put down on the wrong side backward or lethargic, I can at Gladstone was in no doubt of his account. Thus much is least assure you that you have about the underlying strength certain, that in some of his pow- not altogether mistaken your of Conservatism. The estab- ers he has never been surpassed; man in addressing me … [It] is lished institutions of monarchy, and that his career, as a whole, is the characteristic of every sen- church, army, administrative probably the most astonishing sible man to know that party hierarchy, and landed power of all that are recorded in the exists only for the benefit of were all inherently Conservative, annals of Parliament.’ Neverthe- the country, and that he has an and in recent years this strength less Gladstone set out to demon- interest in the character of his had been enhanced by growing strate that Disraeli had subverted opponents only less vital than national prosperity: the traditional policies of the in that of his allies … Both Conservative Party, and had progressive and stationary, or Personal wealth is ten times not sought to conceal his inten- at least stable, elements appear more conservative among us Gladstone tions. As far back as 1844, two to be essential to the health of now than it was forty years years before the overthrow of the body politic; and the two back. It had then scarcely a sin- set out to Peel after the repeal of the Corn parties may be … compared to gle novus homo on those Tory demon- Laws, Disraeli had denounced the oars right and left of a boat, benches where lately the great the ‘organised hypocrisy’ of the by the intermixture and com- brewers, the distillers, the strate that Conservative government: position of whose forces she is tradesmen … and the dabblers propelled in a straight course. in speculations, mustered by Disraeli The notice thus given was In a general way, then, I accede the score. Nay more, during afterwards as formally renewed to your thesis that a strong Con- the last few years, though the had sub- when, at a great festival, he servative Opposition is needed existence of the sea-serpent verted the apprised the party that he had for the well-being of a Liberal has not yet been established been busy in educating them, Government, and for the due to the satisfaction of the world traditional and that they required a great and safe performance of its in general, yet the existence of deal of this education. This work. the Conservative working man policies of some may have termed inso- has, and this in considerable, lence … It is, at any rate, plain ~ though very far from dominant the Con- speaking, and those to whom it numbers. servative was uttered have lost all title to In ‘The Conservative Collapse’, complain. Gladstone set the outcome of This led Gladstone to the heart Party, and the general election in a his- of his thesis. He suggested that The traditional Conservatism of toric context. He had entered ‘this rout, so terrible in the eye had not Peel, under whom Gladstone had the House of Commons as a of the political wire-puller’, served his ministerial appren- Tory in 1832, and the Conserva- was not really a Conserva- sought to ticeship, was characterised by a tive Party was now numerically tive defeat: ‘it is the men, and conceal his rigid economy in expenditure, weaker than in any parliament the men only, who have been and an ‘instinctive indisposition since then. In most of the large condemned.’ intentions. to raise questions which might

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07  gladstone and the conservative collapse

bring Conservatism into colli- this approach was that it ‘leaned sion with Liberalism on an open too much to established power’, field’. By contrast ‘not even in and did not ‘duly appreciate the the most faltering tones is the claims of rising liberty’. It was praise of economical manage- Canning who set the precedent ment’ urged on behalf of the for intervention in support of the Disraeli government: what they cause of national liberation, and claimed credit for was ‘a sys- thereafter this had become part tematically free expenditure for of the Liberal tradition. Disrae- great national objects’. li’s offence had been that, ‘while Gladstone itemised the suc- imitating … the Liberal policy, cessive measures by which Dis- on its dangerous and peccant raeli had aroused unnecessary side, that of habitual stir, it has controversy and turbulence: never once stirred on behalf of the purchase of shares in the freedom, but always against it’. Suez Canal company; the Royal The future hopes of Con- Titles Act, making the Queen servatives now depended partly Empress of India; the rash com- on the mistakes of an over-con- mitment to sustain the crum- fident Liberal Party. Bath had bling Ottoman Empire; the war warned that a Liberal govern- in Afghanistan; and the inva- ment might have found it easier sion of Zululand. This whole to deal with a strong ‘Conserva- group of ‘astonishing transac- tive opposition without than tions’ was ‘the pure offspring of with a Liberal opposition within executive discretion … hatched its ranks’. Gladstone seems to almost without an exception in have shared this apprehension: the darkest secrecy, Parliament and the nation neither know- With great powers come great ing nor approving, however temptations. It remains to be generally, the intention until it seen whether this party will stood revealed, full grown and be able to command itself, as full armed, in act’. Gladstone it commanded its adversaries denounced the prevailing spirit … It has borne bad times; can it of Disraeli’s foreign policy: bear the good?

Studious of theatrical effects, More fundamentally the pros- regardless of ulterior conse- pects of the Conservatives quences, grounded in no firm would depend on learning the principle, dependent on the lesson that the creed for which whim of the moment, and hav- they had been ‘so emphatically ing for its prime endowment an dismissed was a pseudo-Con- art, or knack, of misdirecting servatism’. They must the temporary sympathies of the public … it is better known to … shape again a policy which, us by fruits than by definitions; if somewhat stiff and narrow, and the nation, after tasting, has shall yet be modest, manly, found it as ashes in its mouth. upright, self-denying, assidu- ously practical. Let them think The traditional Conservative once more of the old founda- foreign policy of Wellington, tions … when, before their Peel and Aberdeen had been very eyes, their house built characterised by ‘scrupulous upon the sand has fallen, and regard for treaties, marked and great has been the fall of it. uniform courtesy to foreign powers, equally marked indis- Interestingly Gladstone did not position to entangle the nation address one major issue raised in novel and hazardous engage- by his correspondent. About a ments, and a most careful absti- quarter of Lord Bath’s letter was nence from all language which devoted to his ‘alarm’ over the could excite popular passion or prospect of ‘any change in the national pride.’ The weakness of Probate or succession duties so

 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 gladstone and the conservative collapse far as land is concerned’. Glad- years of his editorship the Fort- a truly national, secular basis, stone no doubt sympathised with nightly Review (now a monthly and this had alienated noncon- the portrayal of the burdens fall- publication, despite the name) formist Liberals. When Disraeli ing upon landowners, but recog- had won a formidable reputation introduced household suffrage nised that it would be impolitic as a medium for advanced, and in the boroughs, wrote Morley, to give any kind of reassurance. often very controversial, radical he had the satisfaction of ‘dish- In the event the decision was opinions. Notoriously the editor ing the Whigs, who were his deferred until after the old man’s favoured a lower case ‘g’ for god. enemies’, whereas Gladstone retirement in 1894, when Har- Many of Morley’s own contribu- had ‘dished the Dissenters, who court’s budget imposed a gradu- tions were articles on philosoph- were his friends’.21 Morley was ated scale of death duties on land ical subjects, or excerpts from also critical of Gladstone’s lack as well as personal property. It work in progress on the writ- of interest in labour questions, was then left to Gladstone’s suc- ers of the eighteenth-century and in January 1873 he sharply cessor Rosebery to voice the French enlightenment. However, suggested that intervening on anxieties of the landowners.14 he had also shown a keen inter- behalf of the imprisoned lead- est in more immediate political ers of a gasworkers’ strike would ~ questions, and had come under have been a more effective way the powerful influence of Joseph for Gladstone to persuade the For John Morley the oppor- Chamberlain, who had been working classes to believe in tunity to publish an article by encouraged to use the Fortnightly providence than the attacks on Gladstone was a long-sought as his platform. Morley looked agnostic writers in which he did journalistic scoop. In Novem- forward to a parliamentary ‘so deplorably little justice to his ber 1877 he had unsuccessfully career; in 1869 he had unsuccess- own intellectual quality’.22 tried to persuade the nominally fully contested a by-election in The low-key opposition lead- retired leader to write something Blackburn, his birthplace, and ership of Gladstone’s Whig suc- on the Eastern Question, plead- at the 1880 general election he cessors, after his resignation in ing that the Fortnightly Review had been defeated at Westmin- 1875, did not inspire enthusiasm had remained ‘staunch to what ster, in one of the few areas less among the radicals, and Glad- you have persuaded the best part susceptible to the swing toward stone’s emergence from semi- of England to regard as the true Liberalism. On 21 April 1880 retirement to lead the attack cause.15 In September 1878 Mor- Morley was again disappointed on Disraeli’s foreign policy was ley renewed the ‘old prayer and when the Liberal caucus in Not- welcomed by Morley, who fas- humble petition for the honour tingham decided by 27 votes to tidiously dismissed Disraeli as of an article from you. I have 24 in favour the candidacy of his ‘a second rate romance writer’, done such battle as I could for namesake Arnold Morley.20 It and ‘one of the most random- many months on behalf of the was to be three years before John minded, flighty, and essentially policy in which you have been Morley was finally returned to unreal men that ever lived’.23 In the leader, and a contribution Parliament as one of the mem- October 1876 Morley responded from you would be an invaluable bers for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. warmly to Gladstone’s high- encouragement … to waverers Morley’s attitude towards minded campaign against the and doubting friends.’16 Finally, Gladstone warrants careful con- Bulgarian atrocities: in April 1880, Morley achieved sideration. From 1886 onwards his objective, and readily waived he was to be a convinced disciple, We know few spectacles so fine, the normal rule that contribu- acting as Gladstone’s closest ally so moving, as that offered by tions to the Fortnightly Review in the struggle for Irish home England today:– Mr Gladstone should be signed.17 He assured rule, and ultimately paying trib- … setting all hearts aflame … all Gladstone that he would handle ute, after the old man’s death, the living and thinking part of the proofs personally, ‘so that we in a great biography. However the nation raising up so power- may not put the discretion of the this position of unquestioning ful a voice in condemnation of printer and others to too severe a loyalty was reached only gradu- Turkey and breaking once and test. No one will be in the secret ally. Like most radicals Morley for all with British policy in but myself: of course in time it had been disappointed by the the East.24 will be likely to ooze out – from performance of the first Glad- internal evidence if for no other stone government from 1868 to However it was far from clear reason.’18 Many insiders must 1874, and the 1870 Education Act that Gladstone would be pre- have recognised Gladstone’s was a particularly sore subject. pared to endorse the sort of style; Edward Hamilton cer- As Morley saw it, by favouring domestic programme demanded tainly did so.19 the church schools Gladstone by the radicals. Morley agreed This was a crucial period in had failed to grasp an unprece- with Chamberlain that only the Cartoons of John Morley’s career. He was forty- dented opportunity to re-estab- Morley, from disestablishment of the Church one, and during the thirteen lish elementary education on Vanity Fair of England would rekindle the

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07  gladstone and the conservative collapse enthusiasm of the nonconform- come back as Prime Minister for The two when considered coolly after ists, but this was a policy that only two years ‘just to see the the electoral euphoria had died Gladstone was unlikely to accept, ship well on her voyage’.27 leaders, away, might have contributed even though some high church- By the time Gladstone’s arti- to Morley’s uneasiness.29 He men regarded disestablishment cle appeared in print on 1 May although originally told Gladstone that as a price worth paying to escape 1880 he was back in office as he found the argument ‘irresist- parliamentary interference in Prime Minister, having under- so differ- ible’, and that it ‘ought to touch liturgical matters. In a Fortnightly mined the self-confidence of ent in many deeply all honest conservatives, Review article, ‘Next Page of the the Queen’s preferred candidate. and to reconcile them to what Liberal Programme’, published When Hartington reported to respects, is in truth their own deliver- on 1 October 1874, Chamberlain Gladstone, on his return from ance’.30 However for radicals had written that, much as Glad- Windsor on the evening of 22 were alike the article revealed a streak of stone was respected, it was ‘not April, he was warned that any the old Conservatism in the for his credit, or for ours, that support for a government formed in insisting new Liberal Prime Minister. we should take him back as we by him, ‘or by Granville with that their As Peter Ghosh has put it in a recover a stolen watch – on the him’, would be conditional: recent article, ‘the idea of a condition that no questions are leadership once and future Liberal leader asked’. Changing circumstances Promises of this sort I said offering advice on the recon- might persuade Gladstone to stood on slippery ground and would be struction of the Tory party was reconsider his position on dis- must always be understood extraordinary to a degree … establishment, but if not, ‘his with the limits which might be made avail- and the episode stood as a fur- worst enemies will admit that he prescribed by conviction.28 able only ther revelation of his eccentric- has earned his right to repose’. ity in relation to the rank and In January 1880 Chamberlain The reluctant Queen was per- on their file of the Liberal Party’.31 told Morley that he had come suaded to accept the inevitable. Gladstone had shown that he round to the view that ‘the bal- However, Morley’s reservations own terms. intended to be a Liberal after his ance of advantage would be were reawakened by what, in own fashion, rather as he had greatly in favour of Gladstone’s the June issue of the Fortnightly accused Disraeli of being a Con- lead’, although ‘he would be Review, he called ‘delays and servative after his own fashion. King Stork, and … some of us hitches, ungracious and unnec- If the election had been a verdict frogs would have a hard time of essary as well as impolitic’ in the on men, rather than on the rival it under him’.25 In the immedi- formation of the new cabinet. merits of traditional party poli- ate aftermath of the 1880 general Lord Bath ought to have been cies, then victory as well as defeat election Morley’s earlier doubts reassured to see that seven out could be attributed to individu- seemed to have receded, and of the fourteen members of the als. The two leaders, although so in a letter dated 7 April 1880, cabinet were peers (or, in Hart- different in many respects, were acknowledging Gladstone’s ington’s case, the heir to a peer- alike in insisting that their lead- message of commiseration age). Although Gladstone had ership would be made available over the defeat at Westminster, agreed under pressure to include only on their own terms. After the ‘heartfelt congratulations’ Chamberlain, it was clear to 1886 the Liberal Party was made sounded genuine: Morley that if he had been free to pay a high electoral price for to follow his own inclinations Gladstone’s leadership. By then It is needless to say how keenly Gladstone would not have con- Morley, like most of his front- I exult in the magnitude of the ceded cabinet rank to ‘any mem- bench colleagues, was prepared victory which you have won. ber of that division of the Liberal to pay the price, but Chamber- It is not often given to a public Party which has been chiefly lain was not. man to perform so beneficent instrumental in procuring from a service, in stirring all that is the constituencies so emphatic Patrick Jackson has written politi- best in his countrymen in suc- a reversal of the verdict pro- cal biographies of three Gladstonian cessful protest against all that is nounced six years ago’. In the Liberals, Lord Hartington (The worst. It is only now that I real- Fortnightly Review article Morley Last of the Whigs, 1994), W. E. ise how dark was our hour two issued a reminder that although Forster (Education Act Forster, years ago.26 ‘Liberalism owes much to Mr 1997), and Sir William Harcourt Gladstone, Mr Gladstone owes (Harcourt and Son, 2004). He has The uncertainties of the situation not less to the work that Liberal- also edited selected extracts from the increased when Morley heard ism has undertaken and accom- journals of Lewis Harcourt (Lou- from Mrs Gladstone’s nephew, plished on his behalf’. lou, 2006), and is now writing a life Alfred Lyttelton, that it was It may not be too fanciful to of John Morley. ‘quite understood in the family speculate that Gladstone’s article circle’ that Gladstone would on ‘The Conservative Collapse’, 1 A footnote to the 13 April 1880

10 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 gladstone and the conservative collapse

entry in (ed.), was an innovation; in the older 27 Garvin, Life of , Gladstone Diaries, vol. IX (Claren- reviews anonymity had been the vol. 1, p. 290. don Press, 1986), p. 501, suggests norm. Thus Gladstone’s article 28 Gladstone Papers ADD MSS 44764 that Morley was ‘just ceasing to be on the Franco-Prussian War for f 43. Patrick Jackson, The Last of the editor’ of the Fortnightly Review. In the Review in October Whigs (Fairleigh Dickinson Uni- fact he did not resign the editor- 1870 had been unsigned. However, versity Press, 1994), pp. 110–23. ship until October 1882. when the article was reprinted 29 Correspondingly, of course, the 2 Walter E. Houghton (ed.), The in Gleanings of Past Years (vol. 4, tone of the article would have Wellesley Index of Victorian Periodi- p. 197) he appended a note, dated appealed to the less radical sec- cals, vol. 2 (University of Toronto 1878, saying that this was the only tions of the Liberal Party, and I am Press, 1972), p. 227. one of his articles ‘meant … to be indebted to Professor John Vincent 3 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, vol. in substance, as well as in form, for the suggestion that Gladstone’s IX. In his Life of Gladstone, vol. 2 anonymous’. intention might have been to reas- (Macmillan, 1903), p. 617, Morley 18 Gladstone Papers ADD MSS 44255 sure those who feared that he had merges the entries for 13 and 14 f 15 and f 17, 21 April 1880. Mor- gone too far in the Midlothian April. ley persuaded Gladstone not to campaign. 4 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, vol IX. use the initial ‘E’ as a pseudonym, 30 21 April 1880. On 5 May Morley Entries for 6 and 7 April 1880. since when the authorship became sent Gladstone an ‘honorarium’ of 5 Letter to the Duke of Argyll: Mor- known ‘this signature might be £36. Gladstone Papers ADD MSS ley, Life of Gladstone, vol. 2, p. 615. taken as artificially misleading’. 44255 f 17 and f 21. 6 Arthur Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby 19 Dudley Bahlman (ed.), Diaries 31 Peter Ghosh emphasises the point (Macmillan, 1942), p. 184. (Clarendon Press, 1972), entries for that Gladstone was using Peel ‘as 7 Monypenny and Buckle, Life of 1 and 2 May 1880. an exemplar to Conservatives, not , vol. 6 ( John 20 Letter from Morley to Gladstone: to Liberals’, and discounts the idea Murray, 1920), p. 532. Gladstone Papers ADD MSS 44255 of a Liberal lineage from Peel to 8 In Gladstone (Macmillan, 1995), p. f 15. Gladstone. (‘Gladstone and Peel’ 434, wrongly said that 21 John Morley, ‘The Struggle for in Ghosh and Goldman (ed.) Poli- Gladstone returned to London on National Education’, Fortnightly tics and Culture in Victorian Britain 13 April 1880. Review, 1 August 1873. (, 2006), 9 On 10 April 1880 Gladstone 22 John Morley, ‘The Five Gas Stok- pp. 70–71.) recorded a conversation in which ers’, Fortnightly Review, 1 January Wolverton ‘threatens a request 1873. from Granville and Hartington. 23 John Morley, ‘Home and Foreign Again I am stunned, but God will Affairs’, Fortnightly Review, 1 July provide.’ (Matthew, Gladstone Dia- 1876. ries, vol. IX, p. 500). 24 Ibid. 10 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, vol. 25 J. L. Garvin, Life of Joseph Cham- IX, p. 501. berlain, vol. 1 (Macmillan, 1932), p. 11 Patrick Jackson, Harcourt and Son 288. (Fairleigh Dickinson University 26 Gladstone Papers ADD MSS 44255 Press, 2004), p. 55. f 13. 12 R. T. Shannon, Gladstone and the Bulgarian Agitation 1876 (Harvester Press, 1975), p. 185. 13 Gladstone Papers ADD MSS 44463 Journal subscriptions f 96. As noted in the last edition, the subscription rate for the Journal of Liberal History is increasing 14 Jackson, Harcourt and Son, pp. from the 2006–07 membership year, which starts with this issue, number 53. 252–54. 15 Gladstone Papers ADD MSS 44255 This will allow us to increase the length of each issue and so publish the greater volume f 2. F. W. Hirst, Early Life and Let- of material now being submitted. We have also taken the opportunity to simplify the rates ters of John Morley, vol. 2 (Mac- structure, which is as follows: millan, 1927), p. 60. In December 1876 Gladstone had written a Standard subscription (printed copies): £20.00 a year for individuals (£12.50 unwaged) and signed article for the Contemporary £30.00 for institutions. Overseas (non-UK) subscribers should add £5.00 to these rates. Review on ‘The Hellenic Factor Online subscription (in addition to printed copies, access is made available online to pdf versions in the Eastern Question’, and in of all current and past issues): £40.00 for individuals and £50.00 for institutions. Overseas May and August 1877 articles by (non-UK) subscribers should add £5.00 to these rates. him on Montenegro and Egypt appeared in the Nineteenth Century For payment details, see page 3. Payment is now possible by credit card via our website, www. (reprinted in Gleanings of Past Years, liberalhistory.org.uk. vol. 4 (John Murray, 1879), pp. 259, 305, 341 The subscription year for individual subscriptions starts on 1 October, but subscriptions 16 Gladstone Papers ADD MSS 44255 commencing after 30 June continue until 30 September in the following year without further f 6. payment. Subscribers receive all issues of the Journal published during the subscription year; 17 Hirst (vol. 2, pp. 91–92) suggests those joining before 1 July are sent any issued since the previous 1 October. The subscription that Morley persuaded Gladstone includes membership of the History Group unless we are informed otherwise. to send him a contribution about Institutional subscribers are invoiced at the start of the calendar year for the period until the the general election, but it seems following 31 December. clear that Gladstone wrote the article without prior invitation. Standing order mandate forms are available on request from the Membership Secretary (see The adoption of a policy of signed contact details on page 3). articles in the Fortnightly Review

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 11 DISHING THE WHIGS IN WINCHESTER

Successive reforms Althought it might Derby’s comment of the electoral of the franchise have been thought that the Tories had, benefit promised for throughout the that the Liberals, as in passing the Second the Conservatives. nineteenth century the main proponents Reform Act, ‘dished Robert Cook changed voting of voting reform, the Whigs’, referred looks at the impact patterns and led would be the not only to Disraeli’s of electoral reform to switches in the beneficiaries, this Parliamentary sleight on the outcome political allegiance of was not necessarily of hand, but to the of elections in many constituencies. the case; Lord growing realisation Winchester.

12 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 DISHING THE WHIGS IN WINCHESTER

ir , Eventually the government was The chief interests in the cor- speaking of his converted. A new bill in 1867 poration were those of Richard opposition to the took Tories, Radicals, Whigs Grenville (1776–1839), 1st Duke Reform Bill of 1832, and Adullamites by surprise. of Buckingham and Chandos, said ‘I was unwilling Disraeli had outmanoeuvred of Avington House, and of Sir Sto open a door which I saw no the Liberals, and secured a Henry St John Mildmay (1787– prospect of being closed.’1 His majority for a far more radical 1848), of Farley Chamberlayne.2 belief that any reform of Par- measure of reform than the one The Duke of Buckingham liament must eventually lead to Parliament had rejected from and Chandos, the model for further reform was vindicated Russell and Gladstone the pre- Trollope’s Duke of Omnium, by the passage of the Repre- vious year. As Lord Derby said, was a Tory and protectionist. sentation of the People Act 1867, the Conservatives had ‘dished So was his heir, the Marquis of which established virtually uni- the Whigs’. He referred prima- Chandos, who was also known versal male household suffrage rily to the Parliamentary sleight as the ‘Farmers’ Friend,’ for hav- in boroughs (although not yet in of hand, but some also thought ing introduced the so-called rural areas). that it presaged a growing reali- Chandos clause into the 1832 The death of Lord Palmer- sation of some electoral benefit Reform Bill, giving the vote to ston in 1865 had changed the promised for the Conservatives £50 tenant farmers in the coun- balance of power in the Liberal by the new franchise. ties. Most of the Grenville fam- government; the ascendancy Winchester can be consid- ily were Tories, but not all; the passed to a more radical section ered a good example of this. Duke’s younger brother, Lord of the party under Lord John Until 1832 the cathedral city and Nugent (1788–1850) was a radi- Russell. The government pro- county town of Hampshire had cal Liberal who unsuccessfully posed a bill for moderate exten- been a corporation borough, contested Southampton in 1842. sion of the franchise in 1866, but with its two members of parlia- But by the time the Marquis of this was too strong for the Con- ment elected by the hundred or Chandos had succeeded as 2nd servatives and for those Liberals, so members and freemen of the Duke in 1839, the estates were in the ‘Adullamites’, who com- municipal corporation. At the serious financial difficulties, and bined with them to defeat the time of reform the city was half he was later forced to flee his bill, and bring down the gov- as large as Southampton, and The Chairing creditors, and to sell Avington ernment, which was replaced retained its two members, with of the Member House in 1848. Prior to reform, – from an by a minority Conservative a reformed electorate of 537. But undated pen- the Duke’s nominee as MP for administration. it was a city to some extent in and-ink drawing Winchester was Sir Edward East Benjamin Disraeli, as leader a state of torpor, for its silk and showing Bonham followed, in 1831, by the latter’s of the new government in the woollen industries had largely Carter being son, James Buller East. Commons, proposed what failed, and its mainly traditional chaired through Mildmay, on the other hand, the streets of was intended to appear a more industries such as brickmak- Winchester was a Whig and reformer, whose attractive measure of reform, ing, printing and brewing, had following younger brother Paulet St John but one which was hedged been bypassed by the Industrial election, in the Mildmay (1791–1845) sat as the about by many safeguards and Revolution. It was an Anglican first volume of other MP for Winchester in the ‘fancy franchises’. Radical Lib- stronghold, with relatively few W. H. Jacob’s unreformed House of Commons. Winchester erals then proposed sweeping nonconformists, but a small, Scrap Books The family was not, however, amendments and roused popu- long-established community of (Winchester City politically united, and the dow- lar opinion in favour of them. recusant Roman Catholics. Library). ager Lady Mildmay was a Tory,

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 13 dishing the whigs in winchester

Election results in Winchester, 1832–85 as was Mildmay’s other brother Humphrey St John Mildmay, 12 December 1832 Paulet St John Mildmay (L) 351 who was elected as Conservative William Bingham Baring (L) 263 MP for Southampton in 1842. James Buller East (C) 151 The city had a small but influ- 10 January 1835 James Buller East (C) 254 ential group of political lead- William Bingham Baring (L) 176 ers, many of whom, like the ­Grenvilles and the Mildmays, Paulet St John Mildmay (L) 123 had previously been involved in 26 July 1837 James Buller East (C) 258 the corporation. They included, Paulet St John Mildmay (L) 242 on the Tory side, Dr David Wil- Bickham Sweet Escott (C) 216 liams, headmaster of Winches- 3 29 June 1841 James Buller East (C) 320 ter College, and in the Whig interest, Charles Shaw-Lefevre, Bickham Sweet Escott (C) 292 MP for the county, and Rever- Richard B Crowder (L) 191 end Thomas Garnier, a friend of Francis Piggot (L) 166 Palmerston, who was nominated 3 August 1847 John Bonham Carter (L) 336 Dean of Winchester in 1840, and Sir James Buller East (LC) 315 held office until1872 ; most of the Bickham Sweet Escott (L) 234 cathedral clergy, however, were reckoned to be Tory. In addition, 9 July 1852 John Bonham Carter (L) 376 new Whig landowners were Sir James Buller East (C) 369 growing in influence in Win- Whittear Bulpett (L) 288 chester, particularly with the 28 March 1857 John Bonham Carter (L) 397 decline of the Chandos estates. Sir James Buller East (C) 385 These included the banking family of Baring, based at Strat- Wyndham Spencer Portal (LC) 252 ton Park, East Stratton, and at 30 April 1859 Sir James Buller East (C) 403 Northington Grange, Alres- John Bonham Carter (L) 348 ford, and the Bonham Carters at 4 Thomas Willis Fleming (C) 342 Adhurst St Mary. George John Shaw-Lefevre (L) 230 In this atmosphere politics were conducted at a high level, By-election vice East resigned with public issues foremost, and 10 February 1864 Thomas Willis Fleming (C) hardly a suspicion of electoral 12 July 1865 John Bonham Carter (L) 459 corruption,5 although aristo- William Barrow Simonds (C) 366 cratic patronage may have been Thomas Willis Fleming (C) 336 a subtler surrogate. The high standing and influence of local By-election vice Carter appointed a Lord of the Treasury leaders was reflected in the char- acter of the candidates. They 4 June 1866 John Bonham Carter (L) 361 were overwhelmingly men of C Lempriere (C) 46 higher social status than were 17 November 1868 William Barrow Simonds (C) 840 normally to be found contesting John Bonham Carter (L) 727 borough seats, and bore more Arthur Jervoise Scott (L) 548 similarity to the usual aspirants in a county division. Almost all 3 February 1874 William Barrow Simonds (C) 949 of them, successful and unsuc- Maj Arthur Robert Naghten (C) 763 cessful, were members of Hamp- John Bonham Carter (L) 649 shire landed families, and it was 31 March 1880 Francis George Baring, Viscount Baring (L) 979 unusual for one who was not to Richard Moss (C) 808 poll well. Local ties and family prestige William Barrow Simonds (C) 773 had a stronger pull than party 25 November 1885 Arthur Loftus Tottenham (C) 1,153 loyalties, because of the absence Francis George Baring, Viscount Baring (L) 982 of any formal party organisation. Extremism was not favoured, and frequently a bipartisan approach was adopted. For example, Sir James East (1789– 1878), who was Conservative

14 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 dishing the whigs in winchester member for twenty-nine years, not be relied on to vote the Tory the other hand, had undergone usually gave general support ticket, out of respect for the long an even greater transformation, to Liberal governments when connection with the city of the and had voted with the radi- Palmerston was Prime Minis- Mildmay family, some of whom cals for complete and immedi- ter.6 The effect of these influ- were themselves Tories.9 Escott ate repeal.14 They faced a single ences was that the representation made an appeal to them, saying Whig candidate, though Escott was generally shared between that some people had difficulty reaped the unpopularity of a the parties. Only in the post- in acting on their principles turncoat, and could count on the reform landslide of 1832 were because of the claims of friend- support only of the most radical the seats monopolised by the ship, but that they should not Liberals. Many of East’s support- Liberals, and in the Tory recov- make a bargain between friend- ers gave their second votes to the ery of 1841 by the Conservatives. ship and patriotism.10 This was Whig, and the representation This was by no means the result of no avail, and the poll returned again reverted to one of each of an arrangement, however, East and Mildmay. party.15 since every general election was The election of 1841 was the The new Whig member was contested. It arose because there only one under the first Reform John Bonham Carter (1817–84), were few four-cornered con- Act in which the Tories monop- of Adhurst St Mary near Peters- tests, much cross-voting, and olised the seats. This was due field. He was the son of John for long periods no formal coa- partly to the general political Bonham Carter senior (1788– lition between candidates of the reaction, and the well-organ- 1838), the veteran Whig MP same party. To some extent this ised exertions of the Tories in Local ties for Portsmouth between 1818 can be seen as the survival of the the registration of their elec- and 1838. The latter’s protégé as electoral influence of the great tors in 1840.11 But it also resulted and family junior member for Portsmouth landed families,7 and of church from a split among the Whigs. prestige since 1826 was Sir Francis Baring and college, all of whom were Mildmay, a moderate Whig, had (1796–1866), of Stratton Park. It major patrons of the trades- annoyed a section of his sup- had a was he who gave a classic defi- men and professional classes porters by not going the whole nition of Whiggery in the 1830s: who made up much of the new way in support of repeal of the stronger ‘A body of men connected with electorate. . The free-trade wing high rank and property, bound The reforming Whigs elected of the Liberals demanded his pull than together by hereditary feel- in 1832 were Paulet St John withdrawal, which he conceded, party ings, party ties, as well as higher Mildmay, one of the retiring leaving them with the problem motives, who in bad times keep members, and William Bing- of finding a replacement. Una- loyalties, alive the sacred flame of freedom, ham Baring. They had substan- ble to find candidates locally, and when the people are roused tial majorities, but even so nearly they turned to James Coppock, because stand between the constitution ninety voters split their votes national election agent of the and revolution and go with the between Mildmay and East for Reform Club,12 who sent down of the people, but not to extremities.’16 the Tories. When the same can- two young and unknown nomi- absence He held high office as Chancel- didates were nominated again in nees of party headquarters, to lor of the Exchequer (1839–41) 1835, Mildmay publicly declared whom many Liberals were indif- of any for- and First Lord of the Admiralty that he would use his second ferent. In these circumstances (1849–52), and retired from the vote for the other Whig candi- there was a fierce contest. For the mal party House of Commons in 1865, to date, Baring, which led to his first time there were rumours be created first Lord North- downfall. It suggested a rejec- of bribery,13 and on polling day organi- brook. There was also eventu- tion of all non-party ties, and a powerful team of canvassers sation. ally a family link, as in 1864 John as a result about sixty Tories was brought in, including Fran- Bonham Carter junior married, who would have been happy to cis Baring, MP for Portsmouth Extremism as his second wife, Northbrook’s split their votes between East and Chancellor of the Excheq- daughter, Mary Baring. and Mildmay plumped for East uer. But this was not effective, was not The effects of the 1847 elec- alone and withheld their second and East and Escott were elected tion left their mark for many vote from any candidate, so that with large majorities. favoured, years. The prestige built up by Mildmay trailed in third place.8 They came forward again and fre- East and Bonham Carter made Mildmay took up the Whig in 1847, when politics had been their position secure. In subse- cause again in 1837, against East transformed nationally by the quently a quent elections they received an and a second Tory candidate, repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, almost bipartisan vote, regard- Bickham Escott, an outsider which had split the lead- bipartisan less of what other candidates from Somerset. Once again ership from the rest of the Con- there were.17 The polls indicate there was a conflict between servative Party. East had at first approach that there were between 250 and party and local ties. The Tories voted against repeal of the Corn was 350 electors for each party who were numerically strong, but Laws, but later identified him- would vote the full party ticket thirty or forty of them could self with the . Escott, on adopted. or plump for a single candidate

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 15 dishing the whigs in winchester

if there were only one, and Nineteenth- to use the by-election to contest unchanged. Under the new between 60 and 150 more who century election the vacancy in the city’s single franchise, its 1865 electorate of would split their votes between hustings Conservative seat, and the new 963 underwent an increase to East and Bonham Carter.18 Conservative candidate was 1,557, fairly modest by compari- Indeed, in 1852 Whittear Bul- elected unopposed. But in 1865 son with the four- and fivefold pett, a Winchester banker, came the Conservatives nominated increases in some large indus- forward as a ‘no-party man on two candidates, although there trial towns. The Liberals had the Liberal interest,’19 implying was a split among Conservative hopes of capturing both seats, almost an independent challenge electors, who each tended to and nominated a second candi- to the bipartisan establishment, vote for their own man alone; date. However, the sitting mem- regardless of party labels. Much one of them, William Simonds, bers triumphed again, showing the same went for Wyndham also gained some radical votes, that the tradition of bipartisan- Spencer Portal, of Laverstoke, and was elected along with Bon- ship had survived reform. There who came forward in 1857 as a ham Carter.22 appear to have been about 180 Peelite, with a progressive policy In 1866 Bonham Carter was voters who split their votes of extension of the franchise, the also faced with a by-election on between the successful candi- ballot, relief from church rates, his appointment as a government dates, and while this bipartisan and state education.20 whip. As in 1864, the local lead- vote had not increased propor- Not until 1859 was there an ers of the opposing party were tionately with the electorate as a election in which the local par- not disposed to seek a monopoly whole, it was enough to ensure ties stirred themselves from in the representation by taking the survival of the sitting this bipartisan attitude and advantage of the by-election. members. nominated two candidates each. But a small group of Conserva- In 1874 it was the Conserva- Although the contest was more tives persuaded the tives who were on the attack; partisan and the number of elec- to send down a candidate;23 he they adopted a second candi- tors who split their votes was polled only a fraction of the date, while the Liberals nomi- reduced, there were still seventy- usual Conservative strength, nated only Bonham Carter. The seven who split between East and which mainly preferred not to bipartisan vote was about the Bonham Carter, while sixteen upset the city’s tradition of pres- same size as in 1868, but with the others, mostly clergy, plumped tigious bipartisanship. increased party vote in the new for East and withheld a vote Under the second Reform electorate, and a general swing from the second Conservative, Act, no borough with a popula- to the Conservatives, it was no so that the established members tion less than 10,000 retained a longer sufficient to preserve were once again returned.21 second member. With a popula- Bonham Carter. Despite his When East resigned in 1864, tion of 14,776 in 1861, Winches- high reputation, and his posi- the Liberals were not disposed ter’s representation remained tion as Deputy Speaker, which

16 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 dishing the whigs in winchester he had held since 1872, he was 1868 and 1874, although a mere 2 spokesman on Foreign Affairs in unceremoniously defeated, and per cent in 1880. the House of Lords, and his daugh- ter Jane, Baroness Bonham-Carter retired, disillusioned, from poli- This was not quite the end of Yarnbury, currently Liberal 24 tics – a plain example of ‘dish- of the story, for the Whigs had Democrat spokesperson on broad- ing the Whigs’. one final success in 1880. The casting in the Lords, while his sister, So Winchester was not a clear- Conservatives defended both Laura Bonham Carter, married Jo cut example of the survival of seats, while the single Liberal Grimond, Liberal leader 1956–67. 4 Reform League Papers (1867) in the patronage under reformed elec- ­candidate was Viscount Baring, George Howell Collection, Bish- tions. Major patrons certainly the grandson of Lord North- opsgate Institute. continued to exercise influence, brook, the former MP for Port- 5 28 March 1857. but they were not always politi- smouth, and Bonham Carter’s 6 Roy and John Lewis, Politics and cally united. On the principal nephew by marriage. The bipar- Printing in Winchester 1830–1880 (Richmond: The Keepsake Press, political issue of the later 1830s tisan vote which had subsisted for 1980), pp 37–47. and 1840s, that of agricultural more than thirty years was con- 7 The Times 10 January 1835. protection, while strong views siderably eroded; Baring headed 8 The Times 17 July 1837. were held, they were not always the poll, but mainly because of 9 The Times 7 July 1837. cohesively expressed, and in plumped votes and the general 10 The Times 22 June 1841. 11 The Times 21 June 1841. the aftermath of the repeal of swing to the Liberals. 12 The Times 22 June 1841. the Corn Laws, the 1847 elec- Under the further electoral 13 The Times 2 March and 5 March tion was characterised by major reform of 1884, Winchester lost 1846. changes of opinion and some one of its Parliamentary seats, 14 The Times 31 July 1847. degree of political confusion. and barely survived losing both; 15 Quoted in Donald Southgate, The Passing of the Whigs 1832–86 (London: The bipartisan tradition which as it was, it was among the ten Macmillan 1965), p. 21. had preceded reform was able smallest boroughs in England 16 Hampshire Advertiser 19 June 1852, 10 to survive in a double-member to survive with separate rep- July 1852. constituency, but it was weak- resentation. Viscount Baring 17 Hampshire Advertiser 9 April 1859; ened by these political divi- contested the new constituency for the method of calculating cross- voting, see W. A. Speck, Tory & sions, and also by the collapse of in 1885, but it proved safely Con- Whig – The Struggle in the Constitu- the Buckingham and Chandos servative, and remained so until encies 1701–1715 (London: Macmillan interest. It would be tempting to it lost its parliamentary borough 1970), p. 125. think that the enlarged elector- status in 1918, and became simply 18 The Times 8 July 1852. ate might have been more inde- a county division of Hampshire. 19 The Times 28 March 1857. 20 Hampshire Advertiser 7 May 1859, and pendent from influences which Indeed, Baring himself became a the Winchester Poll Book 30 April 1859 had shored up the sharing of the Unionist in1886, with the Liberal (Hampshire County Record Office seats, but there is no strong evi- split over Irish home rule. The W1/122). dence for this. Winchester division remained 21 Hampshire Advertiser 15 July 1865 and On the other hand, it is well safe Conservative territory, supplement. 22 W. H. Jacob, Winchester Scrap established that growing elec- apart from going Labour in the Book vol. I p. 93 (Winchester City torates required increasingly landslide of 1945. It was not until Library). Jacob was a part-proprie- well-organised political parties, 1997 that a Liberal Democrat was tor of the Hampshire Chronicle. both centrally and locally, to to recapture Winchester. 23 Ibid. manage them,25 and this may 24 H. J. Hanham, Elections and Party Management – Politics in the time have increased the party-politi- Robert Cook studied at the London of Disraeli and Gladstone (London: cisation of elections. Until the School of Economics and spent his Longmans 1959) pp. 125, 233, 347 ff. 1860s, candidates in Winchester working life in the National Audit 25 The Times 2 September 1865. seemed to come forward entirely Office. He has also written on the on their own initiative, even if electoral history of Portsmouth. ostensibly of the same party. Not until 1865 do we find evidence 1 Quoted in Norman Gash, Politics in of John Bonham Carter presid- the Age of Peel (London: Longmans 1953), p. 7. ing over a meeting of Liberal 2 Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, Email mailing list leaders with a view to securing The History of Parliament: The House In common with many other organisations, we are 26 two Liberal members. It is per- of Commons 1754–90 (HMSO, 1964). increasingly using our email mailing list to communicate haps a surprise that bipartisan- 3 The Times 8 January 1835. news of events and publications in good time. ship survived so long. While it 4 This latter family had been Whig leaders in Portsmouth since the If you would like to receive up-to-date information on the approached 20 per cent of those eighteenth century, and remained Liberal Democrat History Group’s activities, including voting on occasions in 1832, 1847 prominent in Liberal politics until advance notice of meetings, and new History Group and 1857, it could still account the present, with Mark Bonham publications, you can sign up to our email mailing list. Carter, MP for Torrington 1958–59, for nearly 13 per cent of voters in Visit the History Group’s website (www.liberalhistory. and later, as Lord Bonham-Carter org.uk) and fill in the details on the ‘Contact’ page. of Yarnbury, Liberal Democrat

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 17 Liberal Post-war By-elections the Inverness Turning Point

The by-election he 1951 election is widely broad front of 475 in 1950, inevi- accepted as the low point tably meant a drastic reduction victories at Torrington in Liberal general elec- in the total number of votes in 1958 and Orpington tion performance. It cast for the party. The Liberals’ saw the party’s lowest share of the vote collapsed to in 1962 confirmed Tshare of the total vote, lowest 2.5 per cent, down from 9.1 per that the Liberal Party’s number of candidates and a fall cent in 1950. The party polled in the number of MPs elected only 730,556 votes, compared to recovery from its to its lowest level at a general 2,621,548 in 1950. election.1 At the following gen- The most high-profile casu- low point of the 1951 eral election in 1955 the average alty among the Liberal MPs at general election – only share of the vote per Liberal the 1951 election was the party’s candidate increased slightly, to Deputy Leader, Megan Lloyd about a hundrded 15.1 per cent from 14.7 per cent. George, who lost Anglesey to candidates, only six Fewer deposits were lost in 1955, Labour by 595 votes, after hav- despite an increase of one in ing represented the constitu- of whom were elected the number of candidates. All ency without a break since 1929. – was under way. But six Liberal MPs who fought the Emrys Roberts lost Merioneth, 1955 election were returned – the also to Labour. The other two when did the recovery first election since 1929 when losses were both to the Con- start, and was there an the party did not suffer a net loss servatives: Edgar Granville lost of seats. These figures suggest Eye in Suffolk, having repre- identifiable turning that a recovery may have started sented the constituency since point? Fifty years between 1951 and 1955. 1929, and Archibald Macdon- ald lost Roxburgh and Selkirk, on, Alun Wyburn- only eighteen months after first Powell examines The 1951 general election capturing the seat. The Liberals’ and its aftermath one gain in the 1951 election was how the Liberals’ The Liberals had entered the at Bolton West, won by Arthur 1951 general election with nine Holt. Here a pact had been little-remembered 1954 seats; five were held, four were agreed with the Conservatives, by-election near-miss lost and one new seat was cap- who did not contest the constit- tured, resulting in a new low uency in return for the Liberals’ at Inverness marked of only six. The party had only standing aside in neighbouring a step-change in the been able to field109 candidates Bolton East. and, of these, only 45 were fight- In 1951 only eleven Liberal Liberal Party’s electoral ing the same seat as in 1950. The candidates managed to achieve fortunes. severe pruning of the number second place. Even this figure of Liberal candidates, from the flattered the real achievements

18 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 Liberal Post-war By-elections the Inverness Turning Point

and gave little optimism for cross-section of society: it com- of mind and may be quite illogi- future breakthroughs, as four prised five lawyers and a hosiery cal. However, there it is.’4 But of them were the sitting Liberal manufacturer.3 All were men; Davies’ curious statement may MPs who had been defeated. half were Welsh. Only one of the have been based on more than Another two, Frank Byers and Liberal MPs, Jo Grimond, had mere wishful thinking. His Dingle Foot, were former Lib- faced a Conservative opponent own position as party leader eral MPs from earlier parlia- at the election. In the space of six had, perversely, been strength- ments attempting to return.2 years and three general elections ened by the bad result of the Another, Violet Bonham Carter, all except one of the MPs had election.5 For the first five years came second out of two in Colne changed. The party leader, Clem of his leadership from 1945, his Valley, where the Conserva- Davies, was the only Liberal MP predecessor, Archie Sinclair, had tives had stood aside. Only four who had sat continuously in the been expected to return to the other Liberal candidates man- Commons since before 1945 and Commons and retake the helm. aged second place in 1951. John he had only returned to the Lib- Sinclair was by now extremely Halse achieved this in Honiton, erals in 1942, having been out- unlikely to stage a comeback, but was over 17,000 votes away side the party for eleven years, as having failed to regain his seat from victory. Roy Douglas an Independent and, before that, in 1950 and then not having came 15,595 votes behind the a Liberal National. stood again in 1951. The 1951 Labour victor in Bethnal Green, election had removed from the a constituency which had been Commons the three left-wing represented by a Liberal MP, Sir Any hope for the future? MPs who had been most vocal Percy Harris, as recently as 1945. In the aftermath of the 1951 in their opposition to the par- Stuart Roseveare came slightly general election, Clem Dav- ty’s leadership and direction closer, but was still nearly 10,000 ies wrote: ‘Curiously, I am – Megan Lloyd George, Edgar votes adrift of being elected less depressed today than I was Granville and Emrys Roberts. in Bodmin – the constituency in 1945 or 1950. I cannot give a Megan Lloyd George’s and which had been held by Din- reason for this. It is just a state Violet Bonham Carter’s defeats gle Foot’s father, Isaac, for the Liberals until 1935. Lastly, John Liberal Party general election performance 1945–1964 Junor, the journalist, achieved a strong showing in Dundee West Election date Number of Liberal Number of Liberal MPs Liberal share of total candidates elected vote (%) in the absence of a Conservative opponent, gaining over 25,000 1945 306 12 9.1 votes but still falling 3,306 short 1950 475 9 9.1 of victory. 1951 109 6 2.5 The Parliamentary Liberal 1955 110 6 2.7 Party which emerged after the 1959 216 6 5.9 1951 election could hardly have claimed to represent a broad 1964 365 9 11.2

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 19 the inverness turning point

By-elections contested by Liberals, Tories and Labour 1945-1959 motives for making the offer. He was indebted to Clem Dav- By-election date Constituency Liberal share of vote Change in Liberal (%) share of vote ies for the part he had played from last general in Chamberlain’s downfall in election (if fought) May 1940, which had cleared (%) the way for Churchill’s pre- 14 Nov 45 Bromley 11.3 –9.7 miership. Churchill wanted 15 Nov 45 Bournemouth 19.5 –3.4 to shore up his parliamentary majority of eighteen seats and 19 Nov 46 Bermondsey 22.6 was keen to bring the Liberal 11 Sep 47 Liverpool Edge Hill 4.4 Party into his government. He 25 Sep 47 Islington West 16.0 also hoped to include the sons 27 Nov 47 Howdenshire 10.5 –4.4 of Asquith and Lloyd George 27 Nov 47 Edinburgh East 10.1 in his team. Former Liberal MP, Gwilym Lloyd-George,8 had 4 Dec 47 Surrey, Epsom 7.5 –4.7 by then become a Conservative 28 Jan 48 Glasgow Camlachie 1.2 MP and was appointed Minis- 11 Mar 48 Croydon North 9.4 –9.4 ter of Food, but Cyril Asquith, 8 Dec 49 Bradford South 6.3 –8.1 a lawyer, rather than a politi- 30 Nov 50 South East 8.1 –1.4 cian, declined the Woolsack on 6 Feb 52 Bournemouth East 10.1 –1.5 health grounds. Although Clem Davies realised that Churchill’s 6 Feb 52 Southport 9.5 –5.5 offer would almost certainly 13 May 53 Sunderland South 5.3 provide his last opportunity to 30 Jun 53 Abingdon 7.1 serve in government, he knew 19 Nov 53 Holborn & St Pancras 2.3 –1.7 that it would not be in his par- 3 Feb 54 Ilford North 7.9 +1.4 ty’s interests to accept. Davies 30 Sep 54 Croydon East 8.0 was desperately tempted but decided to decline, as long as his 21 Dec 54 Inverness 36.0 party managers agreed with his 15 Dec 55 Torquay 23.8 +9.6 decision.9 Davies called a meet- 14 Feb 56 Hereford 36.4 +11.6 ing of his twelve most senior 14 Feb 56 Gainsborough 21.6 colleagues, explained the posi- 1 Mar 56 Walthamstow West 14.7 tion to them and left the room while the group debated the 15 Nov 56 Chester 12.1 +0.4 decision. Eleven of the twelve 29 May 57 Edinburgh South 23.5 felt that Davies should decline 27 Jun 57 Dorset North 36.1 +3.7 the offer. Only Violet Bonham 12 Sep 57 Gloucester 20.1 Carter was minded to press for 24 Oct 57 Ipswich 21.5 acceptance.10 It later became 5 Dec 57 Liverpool Garston 15.2 clear that, in addition to her per- sonal admiration for Churchill, 12 Feb 58 Rochdale 35.5 she also believed that she would 27 Mar 58 Torrington 38.0 have been offered a junior min- 12 Jun 58 Ealing South 17.2 +7.6 isterial post.11 12 Jun 58 Weston-Super-Mare 24.5 In 1951 the Liberal Party 12 Jun 58 Argyll 27.5 could have been taken over by 20 Nov 58 Aberdeenshire East 24.3 the Conservatives or have been obliterated, but instead it sur- 29 Jan 59 Southend West 24.2 +9.2 vived this testing time intact. 9 Apr 59 Galloway 25.7 After Clem Davies’ renunciation of Churchill’s offer, the divi- removed the potentially disrup- than had been the case in the sive debate within the Liberal tive prospect of the daughters previous parliaments.7 Party over potential pacts was of Asquith and Lloyd George Immediately after the 1951 calmed.12 However, no imme- sitting together as Liberal MPs. election Clem Davies turned diate signs of recovery followed. The newer MPs were more down an offer of a cabinet Figures for the party’s share amenable to being managed as a post and a coalition. The offer of seats won in local elections party,6 and the Liberal MPs’ vot- came from Churchill, who fluctuated between 1951 and ing patterns after 1951 began to had narrowly won the election. 1953, but if there was a trend, it show a much higher consistency Churchill had several coinciding was still downwards.13 Post-war

20 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 the inverness turning point opinion poll ratings from Gallup 1954. The first indicator of the for £20. Topical issues in the show a fluctuating pattern from change in the trend appears in constituency at the time were month to month with the Lib- the result of the Ilford North the problems of depopulation, eral share of the vote generally by-election in February 1954. transport and midges.19 around the 10 per cent mark.14 At first sight the Liberals’ per- The by-election was called at However, if a running average formance in obtaining 7.9 per short notice by the Conserva- of the polls is taken to smooth cent of the vote does not look tives, whose sitting member had out short-term variations, there impressive. However, this was resigned. Conservatives used is a discernible downward trend the first time in a post-war by- the label Unionist, rather than from 1945 to 1954. Between 1955 election contested by all three Conservative, in Scotland at the and 1956 there is a slight upturn, main parties that the Liber- time. Their incumbent MP was which accelerates from 1956 to als improved their share of the Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamil- 1958. From the (not very reliable) vote compared to the previous ton. ‘Lord’ was a courtesy title: party membership records, it general election.18 No other he was the third son of the thir- appeared that membership con- by-election since the war had teenth Duke of Hamilton and tinued to fall, probably reaching shown this – the previous ten not a member of the House of its lowest point in 1953, before had all shown a decline. But Lords. He had first been elected beginning to recover.15 There from this date onwards, in every to the Commons in 1950 and was was also firmer evidence that this single one of the next twenty- re-elected in 1951, but in 1954 he reflected a real recovery. This four by-elections fought by the resigned his seat, causing the by- can clearly be seen from the Lib- Liberals, Labour and Conserva- election. No Liberal had stood erals’ by-election performance. tives, where all three parties had in Inverness at the 1951 general contested the previous general election and the Unionists had election, there was an improve- beaten Labour by over 10,000 Post-war by-elections ment in the Liberals’ share of votes. After the war, the Liberal Par- the vote. Ilford showed a slight, Lord Malcolm Douglas- ty’s decision on whether or not but significant shift in the trend, Hamilton’s resignation had been to contest a by-election usually but before the year was out, anticipated within his party. The depended on the vagaries of there was to be a dramatic step- Inverness Courier reported that local conditions and personali- change in performance. The in ‘December 1952, following ties. By-elections routinely went event which marked the change differences of opinion with the by default, due to problems such was the Inverness by-election of Inverness-shire Unionist Associ- as a derelict local constituency After the December 1954. ation, Lord Malcolm intimated organisation, or its total absence, that he would not be seeking lack of funds, lack of a candidate war, the re-adoption as the Association’s or the selected candidate ‘sav- Turning point – Inverness candidate at the next General ing her energy for the general Liberal by-election 1954 Election, and in April 1953 he election’.16 The Liberals only Party’s In 1954 the constituency of Inver- severed his connection with the contested about one by-election ness contained just under 51,000 Association’.20 Lord Malcolm’s in five between 1945 and 1955. decision electors, spread over an area of first marriage, to Pamela Bowes- Some hopeless contests were 4,000 square miles, stretching Lyon, had been dissolved and joined, resulting in embarrass- on whether from the county town of Inver- he had remarried. His new ments such as sixth place out of ness in the east right across to wife, Mrs Natalie Paine, was an six with just 1.2 per cent of the or not to the west coast and including the American widow.21 Although votes in Glasgow Camlachie contest a Isle of Skye and surrounding still committed to raising funds in January 1948. The following smaller islands. However, half of for investment in the Highlands, month, Air Vice-Marshal Ben- by-election the electorate lived in the town Lord Malcolm was spending an nett, a former Liberal MP, lost of Inverness or its immediate increasing proportion of his time his deposit at Croydon North usually surroundings. The constituency in the US and, having decided to and in Holborn and St Pancras was described in The Times as leave parliament before the next South the party polled 2.3 per depended a land of deeply religious ‘Free general election, he had tele- cent of the vote in the Novem- on the Kirk’ tradition, where coal and phoned from New York to apply ber 1953 by-election. However, bread were expensive but fish for the Chiltern Hundreds. despite the disorganised pat- vagaries of and game were cheap, and a By the time that the by-elec- tern of by-election participa- crofter’s cottage could be bought tion was called, a prospective tion, a clear trend in the results local con- 17 is discernible. ditions and 1951 Inverness general election result The pattern which emerges Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton Unionist 22,497 is one of a continuing slide in personali- TA Macnair Labour 12,361 post-war Liberal support, until a sudden change in fortunes in ties. Unionist majority 10,136

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 21 the inverness turning point successor Unionist candidate The Liber- not receive such an offer and he a kilt offered limited protec- had been in place for eight- did not put himself forward, but tion against stings!26 During the een months; the 36-year-old als quickly reports of the disunity in the election campaign Bannerman Eton and Sandhurst educated Labour ranks appeared in the became suspicious over undue Lt Col. Neil Loudon Desmond managed press. His successor as Labour influence being exerted on vot- McLean. He had seen military candidate, Paterson, had fur- ers when he came across ten- service in Egypt, Syria, Turkey to agree ther difficulties in presenting ants who had their postal votes and the Balkans. His wife was on an a united Labour front when he organised for them by their the daughter of a Yugoslavian was questioned about his support Unionist-voting landlords. One shipping magnate.22 McLean excellent for the dissident former Labour Liberal supporter told Banner- had moved up from Glouces- minister, Nye Bevan, who was man that ‘the lady’ was getting ter Square in London to a new candidate by now openly in conflict with a postal vote for her 96-year- home outside Beauly, ten miles his party leader, Attlee. Pater- old mother and ‘she was afraid west of Inverness.23 He had local – John Ban- son claimed to have admiration it would be Tory’. Her aged connections and as a youth had nerman, a for Attlee and Bevan, but went mother was completely unaware lived at Aviemore. on to say that he was ‘Proud that of the election.27 Bannerman The last day for nominations gregarious, the Labour Party had men who based his campaign on his sup- was set as Saturday 11 December would defy the whip, and take port for home rule and increases 1954, with polling on Tuesday 21 Gaelic- the risk of expulsion’.24 in old age pensions. December. The short notice and By contrast, the Liberals Prior to Lord Malcolm Doug- mid-winter timing of the by- speaking quickly managed to agree on an las-Hamilton’s election in 1950, election were designed by the broadcaster, excellent candidate – John Ban- the constituency had been repre- Conservatives to wrong-foot nerman, a gregarious, Gaelic- sented in parliament for twenty- their opposition. The amount potato speaking broadcaster, potato eight years by the independently of time available for the cam- developer25 and former Scottish minded National Liberal, Mur- paign was further curtailed, as developer Rugby international, whose doch Macdonald.28 During the all parties felt obliged to observe mother was from the Isle of Skye. by-election campaign Ban- a Sunday moratorium on elec- and former He managed the estate of the nerman was accused by the tioneering, out of respect for Scottish Duke of Montrose and also ran Unionists of ‘trying to give the local religious sensitivities. his own farm on the shores of impression that he is a National The short notice of the poll Rugby Loch Lomond. Bannerman had Liberal because of his support of certainly disadvantaged Labour, contested neighbouring Argyll Sir ’.29 In fact, who did not have a candidate in interna- in 1945 and had stood in Inver- in 1950 the retiring Murdoch place. The Labour contestant ness at the 1950 general elec- Macdonald had discussed the from the previous general elec- tional. tion, when he had come third, idea of Bannerman’s succeeding tion, a bookseller named Alex- 8,033 votes behind the winning him as a National Liberal candi- ander Macnair, had resigned his Unionist and 3,213 votes adrift of date, but Bannerman had chosen candidature shortly before the the second-placed Labour can- to stand as a Liberal. Bannerman by-election was called, citing didate. Although Bannerman and Macdonald were still friends, business and financial pressures. had not fought the 1951 election, but Macdonald objected to Ban- Once the contest was announced he was the only one of the three nerman’s support for home rule he changed his mind and offered by-election candidates who had and instead sent a message of to stand again, but was rejected previously contested Inverness. support to the Unionist candi- by his party in favour of Dundee The Unionists drew their date, McLean. engine driver and union offi- main support from Inverness The Earl of Home and Patri- cial William Paterson. Macnair, town. Labour had pockets of cia Hornsby-Smith came to the resentful at the dismissal of his support in the smaller towns of constituency to address meetings offer to fight again, complained Kinlochleven and Fort William. on behalf of the Unionist can- about the ‘rigging of the selec- But in the outlying areas of the didate, as did Guy Senior, who tion of candidates, the selling constituency the voters tended had resigned as Chairman of the of nominations to union funds’ to empathise with the kilt-wear- Inverness Liberal Association and ‘nepotism’. He threatened to ing, Gaelic-speaking Liberal earlier that year.30 Labour sent stand as an independent and at a candidate. However, Banner- Margaret Herbison and Mal- public meeting raised the possi- man later recalled that there colm Macmillan to support their bility that Lord Malcolm Doug- were times when he doubted if candidate. John Bannerman las-Hamilton might be ‘waiting his kilt was an asset. When he received support from within outside with his Highland Fund was campaigning in Inverness the Liberal Party in the form of to induce him to go forward as town he felt he encountered Frank Byers and Jo Grimond.31 an example of private enterprise’. some prejudice against his attire To broaden his appeal (and add- In the event, Macnair’s threats and when he was introduced ing to the confusion over party turned out to be hollow. He did to bee-keeping he found that labels) Bannerman also had the

22 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 the inverness turning point

whose supporters had a higher 1954 Inverness by-election result level of car ownership than their NLD McLean Unionist 10,329 rivals. Their point about Labour JM Bannerman Liberal 8,998 voters switching to the Liberal candidate was recognition of W Paterson Labour 5,642 tactical voting. It was also an Unionist majority 1,331 implicit acknowledgement that some people locally believed National Liberal, Sir Andrew Inverness – fifty years on that the Liberal candidate, Murray,32 and the Leader of Unfortunately for the Liber- unlike his Labour rival, did have the home rule campaign, the als, the announcement of the a chance of winning, implying Scottish Covenant, Dr John Inverness result on Christmas at least some measure of a Lib- McCormick, to speak on his Eve meant that they received eral revival. behalf.33 The three candidates relatively little national public- Within the entrails of the each addressed an eve-of-poll ity for their good performance. Inverness by-election were the meeting at a local cinema. The The headline in the Christmas seeds of serious future threats, venues had been selected by Eve edition of the Inverness Cou- from which the Conservatives drawing lots. The Liberals went rier read ‘Unionist Victory in were to suffer and their oppo- to La Scala, Labour to the Play- Inverness-shire – Labour at Foot nents to benefit. Rising levels house and the Unionists occupied of Poll’; but coverage in Inver- of car ownership among their the Empire. ness had generally been low- opponents and increased use So remote were some of the key. Throughout the campaign, of radio and television elec- 102 polling stations that by the reports on the by-election had tion campaigning deprived the time the ballot boxes had all to share a page in the local press Conservatives of their earlier been brought to Inverness for with stories with headlines such car-owning advantage. The the count, the result could not as ‘Inverness Rabbit Show’ and Conservative Party was to suffer be announced until 23 Decem- ‘Baker’s eve-of-wedding Mishap’. in the following decades from ber at the earliest.34 Newspapers The Conservatives dismissed the effects of growing support could therefore not carry the their weakened showing at the for home rule, later translated results until Christmas Eve.35 polls, partly blaming it on the into support for the Scottish Even this timetable relied on weather and the size of the con- National Party and a rise in sup- reasonably good weather. In fact, stituency. They drew the con- port for the Liberals and Labour. for mid-winter in Highland clusion that ‘the result shows The 1950s marked the begin- Scotland, the weather remained neither a resurgence of the Lib- ning of a long-term decline in relatively good during the cam- eral Party nor support for Home Conservative support in Scot- paign. Generally the candidates Rule’ and that ‘much of the Lib- land. In 1954 the Conservatives had managed to reach most of eral vote is a personal vote’. They Inverness and Labour each held thirty-five their planned campaign meet- blamed the Liberals for spread- turned out Scottish seats, with the Lib- ings in schools, village halls and ing stories ‘to the effect that erals holding only Orkney & other local venues, although on McLean is a Roman Catholic, not to be Shetland. At their lowest ebb one occasion the Unionist can- which he is not; and that he has in the 1997 general election the didate had become stuck in a been involved in a divorce case, just a flash Conservatives failed to win any snowdrift near Loch Ness. Poll- which he has not’. He was also Commons seat in Scotland.37 ing day dawned stormy, but the seen as ‘not yet well known and in the pan Inverness turned out not to wind abated later in the day and he is not yet very familiar with for the be just a flash in the pan for the the ballot boxes made their jour- local conditions and local prob- Liberals, but rather an enduring ney on time. lems’. The party further con- Liberals, step-change in their by-election John Bannerman’s energetic cluded that ‘Some people in the performance. Before Inverness, and charismatic campaign con- habit of voting Labour switched but rather the Liberals’ average share of the tributed to the highest Liberal their vote to Bannerman when vote in the nineteen post-war share of the vote (36.0 per cent) they realised that the Labour an endur- by-elections fought by all three in any by-election contested by candidate could not win’.36 ing step- parties was 9.3 per cent. In the all three parties since 1932. Ban- In the aftermath of the by- following nineteen by-elections, nerman gathered a total of 8,998 election, the Conservatives’ con- change starting with Inverness, the par- votes to come second, falling clusions did appear superficially ty’s average share of the vote only 1,331 behind the Unionist justified; after all, they had won. in their nearly tripled to 25.2 per cent. candidate and pushing Labour However, the size of the con- After Jo Grimond succeeded into third place. stituency was in fact more likely by-election Clem Davies as Liberal leader to have favoured the Unionists, perform- in November 1956, the pattern whose support was concentrated of by-election results estab- in the town of Inverness and ance. lished by the party at Inverness

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 23 the inverness turning point

­continued. The Liberals’ aver- the Liberal candidate for Inver- to Clem Davies, 2 October 1956, age share of the vote in by-elec- ness and won the seat in 1964, Clement Davies Papers, J/3/83, National Library of Wales. tions in Clement Davies’ last holding it at the following eight 11 Mark Pottle (ed.), Daring to Hope: two years in office, from Inver- elections, until his retirement. Diaries and Letters of Violet Bonham ness to the end of his leadership, As a result of boundary changes, Carter 1946–69 (Weidenfeld and was 26.5 per cent. Under Jo Gri- parts of the 1954 constituency Nicolson, 1996), p. 386. mond the comparable figure for of Inverness now fall within 12 Local electoral pacts between the Liberals and Conservatives contin- his first two years was virtually Charles Kennedy’s seat of Ross, ued into the 1960s in Huddersfield unchanged at 24.7 per cent. Skye & Inverness West. The and Bolton. The reasons for the initial general pattern for the party to 13 David Butler and Jennie Freeman, improvement in the by-elec- perform better in by-elections British Political Facts 1900–60 (Mac- tion results from 1954 to 1956 than in the preceding general millan, 1964), p. 193. 14 Ibid., pp. 133–135. included a combination of election has held true since 15 John Stevenson, Third Party Politics high-quality candidates stand- Inverness and has resulted in since 1945 (Blackwell, 1993), p. 37. ing in potentially promising thirty by-election victories in According to Alan Watkins in The Liberal territory, supported by the past fifty years, up to and Liberal Dilemma (Macgibbon and Key, an improved party organisation including Dunfermline & West 1966), pp. 71–82, the party’s General 38 Director, Herbert Harris, reported and an initial slight shift in pub- Fife in February 2006. ‘that in 1954 party membership had lic opinion towards the Liber- gone up by 50 per cent’. However, it als. The recovery was sustained Alun Wyburn-Powell is the author of is not clear on what basis this claim from 1956, even though by-elec- Clement Davies – Liberal Leader, was made, or if it referred to the tions occurred in generally less published by Politico’s in 2003. He number of new members joining or to the total membership. promising seats for the Liberals. is currently researching MPs who 16 Liberal Party Executive, Minutes 14 The reasons for this included Jo defected to or from the Liberal Party January 1955, Liberal Party Papers, Grimond’s reinvigoration of the and Liberal Democrats since 1918 for British Library of Political and Eco- party leadership, the problems a PhD at Leicester University. nomic Science, London. faced by the Conservatives after 17 By-elections which were not 1 When the Liberal MP Sir Rhys contested by all three parties are Suez and a further improvement excluded from the calculations. Only in Liberal opinion poll ratings. Hopkin Morris died in 1956, the total number of Liberal MPs was Kensington South in November In March 1958 a 38 per cent reduced to five. At the resulting 1945 and Carmarthen in February share of the vote at Torrington by-election in Carmarthen, Megan 1957 are thus excluded. Information – just 2 per cent more than that Lloyd George, who had left the Lib- extracted from Chris Cook and eral Party and joined Labour in 1955, John Ramsden, By-elections in British achieved at Inverness – was suf- Politics (Macmillan, 1973). ficient to deliver the Liberals’ contested the seat for Labour and won. 18 This change does not appear to be first post-war by-election vic- 2 Frank Byers was contesting his accounted for by extraneous factors tory. The Liberals’ average share former seat of Dorset North and The gen- such as significant changes in sup- of the vote in all by-elections Dingle Foot, former Liberal MP port for the other major parties, or for Dundee, was fighting Cornwall by the changes in the base figures at during Grimond’s leadership eral pat- successive general elections. remained fairly consistent at 22.8 North. 3 Clement Davies, Jo Grimond, tern for 19 The Times, 11 December 1954, p. 3. per cent, but during his tenure Roderic Bowen, Rhys Hopkin 20 Inverness Courier, 3 December 1954, p. further gains were made at Orp- Morris and Donald Wade were law- the party 5. ington in 1962 and Roxburgh, yers and Arthur Holt was the hosiery 21 Highland News, 4 December 1954, p. manufacturer. 1. Selkirk & Peebles in 1965. to perform 22 Inverness Courier, 7 December 1954, p. John Bannerman went on to 4 Letter from Clement Davies to Gilbert Murray, 16 November 1951, 3. contest and narrowly lose two Clement Davies Papers, J/3/67, better in 23 Conservative Party Records, Bod- further elections in Inverness, National Library of Wales. leian Library, CCO 1/10/567/1. reducing the Tory majority still 5 Alun Wyburn-Powell, Clement Dav- by-elec- 24 Inverness Courier, 10 December 1954, further in 1955, followed by two ies – Liberal Leader (Politico’s Pub- p. 7. tions than 25 The Arran Banner potato was named contests at Paisley. Although lishing, 2003), pp. 205–06. 6 Rhys Hopkin Morris, although apt after him. he failed to be elected to the to be very inflexible and sometimes in the 26 John Fowler (ed.), Bannerman: The Commons after a total of eight difficult, was always polite and did Memoirs of Lord Bannerman of Kildo- attempts, he did eventually enter not indulge in plotting against the preceding nan (Impulse Books, 1972), p. 90. Parliament as Lord Bannerman party leadership. 27 Ibid., pp. 107–108. 28 Macdonald had been elected as a of Kildonan in 1967, though he 7 Matt Cole, Analysis of Voting Records general of Liberal MPs 1951 to 1959, unpub- Liberal in 1922, had joined the Lib- died less than two years later. lished research paper, Birmingham election eral Nationals in 1931, but had with- However, family persistence University. drawn from the Liberal National paid off when his daughter, Ray 8 By this time he included a hyphen in has held group in parliament in 1942, whilst Michie, won Argyll & Bute his surname. remaining in the party. 29 Inverness Courier, 17 December 1954, for the Liberals in 1987, at her 9 Interview: author with Stanley true since Clement-Davies, 18 May 2002. p. 7. third attempt. Russell Johnston 10 Letter, Lady Violet Bonham Carter 30 Inverness Courier, 7 December 1954, p. ­succeeded John Bannerman as Inverness. 3.

24 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 the inverness turning point

31 Inverness Courier, 10 December by the Leith Liberal Association 8. Unionist Party of Scotland and 1954, p. 7. in 1954. He later became a Vice- 35 In Scotland Hogmanay was a the Prime Minister’s Secretary. 32 Murray was described in the President of the Scottish Liberal more significant festival than 37 In 1997 the Scottish Nationalists local press at the time as a Party and ‘Liberal’ candidate Christmas. Local newspapers won six, the Liberal Democrats ‘National Liberal’. He had in for Leith in 1959. Entry by Mark appeared on 25 December in ten and Labour fifty-six seats. fact previously been a National Egan in Dictionary of Liberal Inverness, but not in England. 38 Including seats captured by Liberal, but had been ‘Unionist’ Biography, ed. Duncan Brack, 36 Conservative Party Records, Liberal, Liberal Democrat and prospective parliamentary can- (Politico’s, 1998), p. 274. Bodleian Library, CCO SDP candidates, but excluding didate for Central Edinburgh in 33 Highland News, 18 December 1/10/567/2, Memo of telephone seats which were retained at 1951. He had then been adopted 1954, p. 5. conversation between Col. by-elections. as an ‘independent’ candidate 34 The Times, 6 December 1954, p. Blair, Political Secretary of the RESEARCH IN PROGRESS If you can help any of the individuals listed below with sources, contacts, or any other information — or if you know anyone who can — please pass on details to them. Details of other research projects in progress should be sent to the Editor (see page 3) for inclusion here.

Hubert Beaumont MP. After pursuing candidatures in his native The Liberal Party in the from December 1916 to Northumberland southward, Beaumont finally fought and won the 1923 general election. Focusing on the fortunes of the party in Eastbourne in 1906 as a ‘Radical’ (not a Liberal). How many Liberals Birmingham, Coventry, Walsall and Wolverhampton. Looking to explore in the election fought under this label and did they work as a group the effects of the party split at local level. Also looking to uncover afterwards? Lord Beaumont of Whitley, House of Lords, London SW1A the steps towards temporary reunification for the 1923 general 0PW; [email protected]. election. Neil Fisher, 42 Bowden Way, Binley, Coventry CV3 2HU ; neil. [email protected]. Letters of Richard Cobden (1804–65). Knowledge of the whereabouts of any letters written by Cobden in private hands, Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935. autograph collections, and obscure locations in the UK and abroad Aims to suggest reasons for defections of individuals and develop an for a complete edition of his letters. (For further details of the Cobden understanding of changes in electoral alignment. Sources include Letters Project, please see www.uea.ac.uk/his/research/projects/ personal papers and newspapers; suggestions about how to get hold of cobden). Dr Anthony Howe, School of History, University of East Anglia, the papers of more obscure Liberal defectors welcome. Cllr Nick Cott, Norwich NR4 7TJ; [email protected]. 1a Henry Street, Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE3 1DQ; N.M.Cott@ ncl.ac.uk. Cornish Methodism and Cornish political identity, 1918–1960s. Researching the relationship through oral history. Kayleigh Milden, Life of Wilfrid Roberts (1900–91). Roberts was Liberal MP for Institute of Cornish Studies, Hayne Corfe Centre, Sunningdale, Truro TR1 Cumberland North (now Penrith and the Border) from 1935 until 1950 3ND; [email protected]. and came from a wealthy and prominent local Liberal family; his father had been an MP. Roberts was a passionate internationalist, and was Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Focusing particularly on Liberal a powerful advocate for refugee children in the Spanish civil war. His anti-appeasers. Michael Kelly, 12 Collinbridge Road, Whitewell, parliamentary career is coterminous with the nadir of the Liberal Party. Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim BT36 7SN; [email protected]. Roberts joined the Labour Party in 1956, becoming a local councillor Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Andrew in Carlisle and the party’s candidate for the Hexham constituency in Gardner, 17 Upper Ramsey Walk, Canonbury, London N1 2RP; the 1959 general election. I am currently in the process of collating [email protected]. information on the different strands of Roberts’ life and political career. Any assistance at all would be much appreciated. John Reardon; The Liberal revival 1959–64. Focusing on both political and social [email protected]. factors. Any personal views, relevant information or original material from Liberal voters, councillors or activists of the time would be very Student radicalism at Warwick University. Particulary the files gratefully received. Holly Towell, 52a Cardigan Road, Headingley, affair in 1970. Interested in talking to anybody who has information Leeds LS6 3BJ; [email protected]. about Liberal Students at Warwick in the period 1965-70 and their role in campus politics. Ian Bradshaw, History Department, University of The rise of the Liberals in Richmond (Surrey) 1964–2002. Interested Warwick, CV4 7AL; [email protected] in hearing from former councillors, activists, supporters, opponents, with memories and insights concerning one of the most successful local Welsh Liberal Tradition – A History of the Liberal Party in Wales organisations. What factors helped the Liberal Party rise from having no 1868–2003. Research spans thirteen decades of Liberal history in councillors in 1964 to 49 out of 52 seats in 1986? Any literature or news Wales but concentrates on the post-1966 formation of the Welsh cuttings from the period welcome. Ian Hunter, 9 Defoe Avenue, Kew, Federal Party. Any memories and information concerning the post- Richmond TW9 4DL; 07771 785 795; [email protected]. 1966 era or even before welcomed. The research is to be published in book form by Welsh Academic Press. Dr Russell Deacon, Centre for Liberal politics in Sussex, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight Humanities, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Cyncoed Campus, 1900–14. The study of electoral progress and subsequent Cardiff CF23 6XD; [email protected]. disappointment. Research includes comparisons of localised political trends, issues and preferred interests as aganst national trends. Any Aneurin Williams and Liberal internationalism and pacificism, information, specifically on Liberal candidates in the area in the two 1900–22. A study of this radical and pacificist MP (Plymouth 1910; general elections of 1910, would be most welcome. Family papers North West Durham/Consett 1914–22) who was actively involved in especially appreciated. Ian Ivatt, 84 High Street, Steyning, West Movement, Armenian nationalism, international Sussex BN44 3JT; [email protected]. co-operation, pro-Boer etc. Any information relating to him and location of any papers/correspondence welcome. Barry Dackombe. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Chris 32 Ashburnham Road, Ampthill, Beds, MK45 2RH; dackombe@ Fox, 173 Worplesdon Road, Guildford GU2 6XD; christopher.fox7@ tesco.net. virgin.net.

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 25 last of the Midland radicals Sir Geoffrey Mander, Liberal MP for Wolverhampton East 1929 – 45

Geoffrey Mander (1882–1962) was the last in the line of Black Country nonconformist radical politicians; as his onituary put it, ‘he was supremely a man of causes’. He held his parliamentary seat in Wolverhampton East for the Liberal Party against all comers from 1929 until 1945. His cousin, Nicholas Mander, recounts his career as a Liberal MP, industrialist, art collector and Geoffrey Mander philanthropist. (1882–1962)

26 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 last of the Midland radicals Sir Geoffrey Mander, Liberal MP for Wolverhampton East 1929 – 45

ir Geoffr ey Le ­Wolverhampton a durable clus- From a endowments, a test case which Mesurier Mander ter of businesses as manufactur- was heard by Lord Chancel- (1882–1962) 1 was a ers of chemicals, gas, japanware noncon- lor Eldon and was to lead to an Midland industrial- and (mostly successfully) var- act of parliament by 1844. In ist, an art collector nish, and printing ink. By formist 1817, Charles Mander rode to Sand impassioned parliamentar- 1827 they already operated ‘one London to petition the Home ian, the Liberal specialist on for- of the largest chemical elabora- and radi- Secretary, Sidmouth, for the eign policy between the wars. tories in the kingdom’, trading cal back- reprieve of two innocent sol- From a nonconformist and radi- from China and the East Indies diers condemned to death for cal background, he held a strong to the Americas. As the busi- ground, stealing a shilling coin. It was patrician sense of public service ness prospered with the Indus- a romantic incident which and philanthropy. As a politician trial Revolution, they became Mander appealed to the imagination he spoke up as an anti-appeaser established as the varnish of contemporaries and became and a crusader for the League of kings of the Empire, and were held a the inspiration of a forgotten Nations between the wars. He given the means and leisure to strong Methodist novel by Samuel made a reputation as an oppo- become active and progressive Warren.3 It led, with the help of sitionist, for his determined use philanthropists. patrician Samuel Romilly in Parliament of parliamentary questions; a In the early nineteenth cen- (the Manders’ first counsel in gadfly who never spared to wing tury, they campaigned against sense of their litigation), to the repeal into the attack whenever sloppy the slave trade, lobbied for the of the Blood Money Act (1818), thinking and deceit threatened reform of the criminal code, public ‘one of the worst acts ever to to obscure the issues of the day. and set up a union mill to pro- service disgrace the Statute Book’. The He represented Wolverhampton vide cheap flour and bread in family founded chapels, foun- East from May 1929 until the the difficult aftermath of the and philan- tains, free libraries and schools, 1945 Labour landslide. Napoleonic Wars. Four Man- and became progressive may- Geoffrey Mander came ders at the same time were thropy. ors, filling nearly every public from a strong Liberal tradition. Town Commissioners in Geor- office in the county. Geoffrey’s The Mander family were in gian Wolverhampton. They younger brother, the Holly- the vanguard of the Industrial pursued a twenty-two-year wood actor and novelist Miles Revolution in the Midlands.2 chancery suit for the protection Mander (who married an From 1773 they established in of nonconformist chapels and Indian princess), summarised

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 27 last of the midland radicals

the background, writing ‘to 1895, he was offered the Mid- measures at odds with his back- [his] son in confidence’ (1934): Worcester seat in parliament. ground and private interests.6 William Woodings of the Mid- The Manders have nobly vin- land Liberal Federation wrote Like most members of the fam- dicated themselves. At the time to him: ‘Your name would be ily, he became a magistrate, in of writing, they have produced well known and you have almost his case at the age of twenty- one baronet, one Member a local connection … The con- four, and in due course Chair- of Parliament, High Sheriffs, stituency is Liberal in tendency man of the Bench, serving for Deputy Lieutenants and several and is not difficult to work.’ He fifty years. By the time of the of the lesser municipal digni- was still committed to munici- Kingswinford by-election in taries such as Mayors, Magis- pal affairs, however, and did not 1905, the press was describing trates and Councillors. In fact, live long enough to contest the him as ‘a Liberal member of a we are quite obviously worthy seat. He was a successful Mayor distinguished local Conserva- people … Your Canadian great- of Wolverhampton at the turn of tive family’. He supported the grandfather was in the Ottawa the century, but died in office in Labour candidate for West Wol- Parliament, your grandfather, 1901, following an operation on verhampton in the 1906 elec- Theodore, was one of the his kitchen table. He was aged tion against a family friend, Sir most prominent Liberals of his just forty-seven. Alfred Hickman. As he wrote day, your Uncle Geoffrey is at Geoffrey was sixteen and later: ‘My action caused great present a Liberal Member, and still at Harrow at the time of his indignation in Conservative cir- I am hoping to be in the House father’s death. His mother Flora cles in the neighbourhood and I shortly myself.4 died soon after, in 1905, leav- found myself cut in the hunting ing him to assume the responsi- field by some of them.’ His sec- Geoffrey Mander was the eld- bilities of his father’s estate early. ond wife Rosalie described how, est son of Theodore Mander He was a prickly, cross-grained like many radicals who refused (1853–1900), a Gladstonian Lib- youth, described by the pater- to conform to the conventions eral and strict Congregation- familias, his father’s cousin, the of the ‘county’ pattern, he was alist. Theodore married Flora staunch Tory Sir Charles Tertius looked upon askance by many Paint, a Canadian from Nova Mander, as ‘an impossible young families. This attitude only Scotia of Guernsey extraction cub … It is time we brought changed after the Second World (from whose forebears Geof- him up with a round turn … he War, ‘both because party bit- frey derived his second name), is very self opinionated, has no terness in general had died out whose father was himself, as judgment or tact & is much too and because Geoffrey Mander’s Miles states, MP for Richmond big for his boots, & has been ever sincerity and his devotion to the county in the Dominion Parlia- since his father died.’ causes in which he believed won ment in the 1880s. Theodore was He went up to Trinity, Cam- respect all round’: a man of refined tastes and sym- bridge, where he followed fam- pathies, a collection of whose ily tradition by reading Natural A tolerant ‘man of goodwill’ diaries and letters was published Sciences. At Cambridge, he soon himself, who never spoke or in 1993 as A Very Private Herit- continued in the mould of pub- acted out of malice or spite, he age.5 He is remembered today lic service, now with a radical was glad of this development as the builder of slant. He joined the Union and and appreciated being invited Manor (1887–93), a half-tim- the University Liberal League, to social functions in the neigh- bered aesthetic house of exqui- and ‘a thing called the Cam- bourhood – more perhaps than site craftsmanship and detailing, bridge University Association he enjoyed attending them. with outstanding William Mor- for promoting Social Settle- ris furnishings and Pre-Rapha- ments. I have not the remotest ‘The Man- He cut his teeth as a Liberal elite collections. idea what it’s about, but I hope member of the Wolverhampton Theodore in own his day was it’s not socialism.’ He founded a ders have Borough Council (1911–20). He known as a Liberal and a phi- dining and debating club called nobly vin- shocked the councillors, show- lanthropist. As a young man, ‘The Dabblers’. As Stephen Pon- ing a foretaste of later interests, he was active in public life in der writes: dicated when he proposed a minimum the arts and education and was wage of 23s. for all municipal one of the founding benefactors From an early age he had a themselves employees. of Mansfield College, Oxford, strong sense of social responsi- He was High Sheriff of Staf- which was the first nonconform- bility and interest in public life … we are fordshire in 1921. He again cre- ist college in the university. He … He was typical of a particular quite obvi- ated a stir when he proposed a described Henry Fowler, first sort of English radical, a man woman as his successor, Lady Viscount Wolverhampton, as of wealth and position who ously wor- Joan Legge, daughter of Lord ‘his political mentor’, chairing devoted himself to public serv- Dartmouth. The Privy Council his election committee. In June ice, supporting and proposing thy people.’ wrote to her father to inquire

28 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 last of the midland radicals whether she had the necessary Along with and rousing shocking laughter. to speak out against the dictators. property qualifications, and she No good a Chamberlain using He tabled the International Eco- was not appointed. But he did Churchill, the iron hand from Birming- nomic Sanctions (Enabling) Bill secure the selection of the first ham. Sharp as a game-cock and of 17 May 1933, which made him woman to serve on the grand Eden and as perky, Mr Mander dashes in ‘one of the first to call attention jury, Mrs Kempthorne, the wife for some more of the fight. to the German danger publicly of the Bishop of Lichfield. Sinclair, in Parliament and at the same Mander was active in the Mander His special interests in Parlia- time make definite proposals Liberal Party organisation from ment were industrial relations, for dealing with it’; supporters the early 1920s, as a member of became a on which he spoke with author- included Sir Austen Chamber- the Executive Committee of ity and sympathy as a manufac- lain. The Peace Bill of 23 May the National Liberal Federation vehement, turer through the Depression, 1935 (and subsequently) incor- and a frequent speaker at party and foreign affairs. Between porated machinery embodied assemblies. He stood unsuc- articulate the wars he became the Liberal in the Covenant of the League cessfully as a Liberal candidate critic of expert on international rela- of Nations for the settlement of for the Midland constituencies tions, peace and disarmament, international disputes. of Leominster in 1920 and then Neville and the most ardent defender of Along with Churchill, Eden Cannock and Stourbridge, and the League of Nations system and Sinclair, Mander became then in 1929 he finally realised Cham- of collective security; ‘the most a vehement, articulate critic his early ambition by entering persistent speaker and ques- of ’s pol- Parliament as Liberal MP for berlain’s tioner on foreign affairs in the icy of . He later East Wolverhampton, policy of 1930s and altogether a zealot for said that it would remain ‘one He made a reputation as a the League’.7 He was one of the of the regrets of my life that parliamentarian by his skilful appease- first to foresee the consequences I did not make some sort of use of ‘awkward’ parliamentary of not taking a firm stand against speech … when Mr Chamber- questions. The journalist Percy ment. the Japanese invasion of Man- lain announced his intention Cater recorded his memories of: churia in 1931. Into a House of flying to Munich … If the of Commons debate mainly Debate had been kept up, the … the pinkly pugnacious Mr devoted to currency, commerce, spell would have been broken Mander waving above the industry and tariffs, typically … Others would have followed battle of question-time like he intruded Manchuria and put and the dangers inherent in the banner of some cause forward the League position: what was happening would have or another, accompanied by been exposed.’9 His polemic was orchestral splurges of derisive It is a test question. We have set forth in his book, We were laughter or ‘Sit down’ … one to decide whether war is to not all Wrong (1941), arguing of the hornets or gadflies who be permitted … We have that many people and parties animate the political scene, the whole of the League plus foresaw the disaster to which infuriating the stung and keep- America on the one side and errors of policy in dealing with ing the unstung in a lively state Japan on the other. [I hope ‘the Nazi menace’ in the 1930s of tension. Baldwin once said, the Council for the League would inevitably lead: in one of those shrewd epi- would] use all the moral force grams which come from him they possibly can … and if that Municheers should never again as easily as blowing the smoke were not enough use financial be allowed to control our des- from his pipe, that Mr Man- and economic pressure and, if tinies. It is too ghastly to think der would ‘tread honestly and that will not do, use pressure of the same unimaginative, conscientiously on every corn in the way of a blockade in isolationist, naïve, complacent from China to Peru.’ preventing goods from going attitude, however well meant, Mr Mander … is not pomp- into or coming out of Japan being adopted after the war. ous. A mild and benevolent … We have to take a bold and Absolute national sovereignty eye darts from sandy brows in courageous view and, without has outlived its usefulness in a face which is conspicuously using any physical force – that the world in which we now equable and good humoured. will not be necessary – mobi- live, just as has the Divine He is a good, if not a great man. lise all the different methods of Right of Kings internally. Old He is a sort of pocket edition economic, financial and moral loyalties, deep-rooted, historic of noble indignation. See him pressure which are available to and admirable, remain – It is pouncing up to ask a question. force Japan to realise that war our responsibility as it is in our There you see fire, purpose, an is not going to be permitted to power in the great adventure inextinguishable soul. break out again …8 we must lead: England cannot No good a Baldwin bobbing afford to be little, she must be up and answering Mr Mander As war again threatened again in what she is – or nothing.10 briefly and completely, ‘No, sir,’ the 1930s, he was one of the first

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 29 last of the midland radicals

When Mander spoke up in the House of Commons in support of sanctions against Italy after the invasion of Abyssinia, Mus- solini fired off a personal dia- tribe against him in his paper, the Popolo d’Italia. In 1938, in a climate of international tension, Il Duce took reprisals against the Milan branch of ‘Fratelli Man- der’ and asked customers to boy- cott their goods. He was far sighted in many of his peace campaigns. He was one of a handful of MPs who inveighed against Hitler’s terri- torial ambitions in the Ukraine in 1935. As war broke out in 1939, he pleaded the Jewish cause, telling Parliament in July that government immigration policy was leaving Jews with no escape from Germany ‘other than by illegal immigration into Pales- tine’. In April 1941, he wrote in the Jewish Standard: ‘The cause of the Jews throughout the world is the cause for which Great Brit- ain and her allies are fighting.’ During the war, when the Liberals were asked to join the government coalition under Churchill, Mander became Parliamentary Private Secre- tary (1942–45) to their leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair (later Lord Thurso), the Minister for Air.11 He lost his seat in the Labour landslide of the 1945 general election and was knighted in the same year (KB). His was a great loss to Parliament. Thurso regretted the ‘massacre’ of so many ‘able, experienced and popular’ candidates such as he.12 There was a rumour for a time of his being given a peerage, and the press proposed he be gazet- ted with the equivocal title ‘Lord Meander’, in commemora- tion of his tireless crusades and pertinacious questions, seamless diatribes and string of private member’s bills in the House. In 1948 Mander joined the Labour Party, arguing in his 1950 pamphlet, To Liberals, that it had become the logical suc- cessor of the Liberal tradition. In due course he became a Labour member of the County Council.

30 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 last of the midland radicals

To many members of a fam- week. The historic agreement, quick thinking and always ily whose traditions stretched the first of its kind in Britain, was exquisitely dressed; she was also to radical Whiggery, this was brokered and signed by Ernest ‘the last of the militant atheists’. beyond the pale. But he did say Bevin, general secretary of the Her husband, Frank, who took privately that, if he had not lost Transport and General Work- Schools on the desk beside her, his seat, he would have remained ers’ Union, in September 1932.15 was taken by ‘the exceptionally a Liberal, and most likely have ‘Bevin was very proud of sign- pretty young girl whose arrival been appointed Chief Whip of ing that agreement’, said Mander was always heralded by the tap the Liberals in parliament. later: ‘He used often to refer to of elegant shoes’. Geoffrey Mander the politi- it when were both in the House Like Geoffrey, Rosalie also cian was not quite forgotten by of Commons.’ The press wrote: entered politics, as a prospective an older generation. The first ‘In the history of industrial wel- Liberal candidate for Reading, question asked me fare, Manders may claim a high when the party was enjoying its when I followed Cousin Geof- place’, where welfare had been late 1920s revival. She was nearly frey to Trinity, Cambridge was ‘part and parcel of the outlook twenty years younger than he, ‘How are you related to that of Manders as employers almost of course, and was secretary to b***er, Geoffrey?’13 My own since the company’s foundation the Liberal MP, Edgar Gran- memories are of a fusty, Edward- in [1773]’. Mander was reported ville. Before the time came for ian patriarch, small in stature, summarising: her to face the electors, she mar- with a watch chain, who called ried Mander in the crypt of the in after church with his politi- My ancestors were very reli- House of Commons. She was cal friends like Clem Attlee. gious people. They always used eyed with suspicion as a blue- Apart from his public service in to open the day’s work with stocking in the wider family, and politics, his Liberalism is vividly prayers and lead hymn-sing- soon became known to them exemplified in his career as an ing at the end of the day. Those – who tended to pious disap- industrialist and an art patron. religious principles which col- proval of divorce and remained The family company, Mander oured their dealings with the wary of radical politics – as ‘The Brothers, was known between then small number of work- Secretary’. the wars as a model company. people were the forerunners of Rosalie never lost her interest Geoffrey Mander, as the eldest welfare principles as we know in progressive politics. However, of his generation, was chairman, them today. In the history of she went on to pursue her liter- while his cousin, Charles Arthur industrial welfare Manders ary interests as a highly regarded (the second baronet), was man- may lay claim to a great deal of biographer, lecturer and scholar, aging director. Sir Charles was pioneering work. particularly of the Shelley/God- ‘wet’ as a Tory, active in local win circle and the ‘Pre-Rap- government and Midland affairs, As an art patron and conserva- haeladies’. With her knowledge and deeply interested in every- tionist Mander’s contributions to and encouragement, Mander thing that touched the human have been his began in the 1930s to develop side of industry.14 In parliament most secure legacy. His taste was and extend the collections at Geoffrey had pushed through decisive in creating the ensem- Wightwick and they became the Joint Industrial Councils and ble we see today, improving and pioneers and authorities in the Work Councils Bills. Together deepening not only the collec- overdue reassessment of Victo- they implemented typically tions, but also the garden. rian art. They were among the progressive initiatives in indus- Mander first married, in1906 , first collectors to take a serious trial welfare, to foster peace Florence Caverhill, a Canadian interest in the art and literary in industry. These included a like his mother. His second manuscripts associated with this joint works’ council providing marriage in 1930 was to Rosa- late Romantic flowering, com- a workable system of joint con- lie Glynn Grylls (1905–88).16 ing to know the survivors and sultation (1920), a welfare club She was an early female gradu- successors of the circle of art- (1920), profit-sharing schemes ate of Oxford, elegant, intel- ists, designers and writers them- for employees, holiday schemes, lectual and talented. Elizabeth selves. They fostered links with suggestion schemes (1925), Longford was one of the last the romantic Utopian socialism works pensions (1928), a house to remember this exceptional preached by , magazine, staff pensions (1935), ‘Cornish’ girl at Lady Margaret (Left) Geoffrey and many of the radical politi- Mander at and a ‘contributory co-partner- Hall reading Modern Greats, Wightwick with cians and thinkers of the day ship scheme’ setting aside shares ‘brown eyed, dark haired, with Anthea, John visited what became a Midland for employees, with provisions teeth really like pearls … who and Rosalie (at political fortress. In 1947, Man- to pay for shares by instalments. went on from strength to typewriter), c. der intervened to save William Most notably, Manders was strength’. She described her as 1948; Wightwick Morris’s Red House, at Bexley Manor; Wightwick the first company in the coun- amusing and amused, full of – postcard from in , offering to present it to try to introduce the forty-hour anecdotes, a vivacious speaker, Geoffrey, 1932. the for the nation

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 31 last of the midland radicals if a body such as the Trades’ ‘There was with an endless stream of ques- 6 Wightwick Manor, National Trust Union Congress could be per- tions in the House of Com- guide (1993). mons, to the irritation of his 7 R. A. C. Parker, Chamberlain and suaded to take it as their head- never a Appeasement (1993), pp. 40, 52, 54. 17 quarters building. opponents and the admiration 8 259 HC Debs, cols. 1189, 45, 60, 201– In December 1937 the future more self- of his friends. 02; Parker, pp. 40–41. of Mander’s own house at In all the developments 9 Geoffrey Mander, We were not all Wightwick, with its collec- less poli- leading up to the establish- Wrong (1941), pp. 87–89. tion, was finally secured when ment of the United Nations 10 Ibid., p. 118. tician … 11 Archibald Sinclair (1890–1970), first he presented it to the National and throughout the years that Viscount Thurso (1951). Trust, with an endowment of Perhaps he followed, his staunchness 12 G. J. de Groot, Liberal Crusader: The 20,000 Manders shares. He was and energy in the struggle for Life of Sir Archibald Sinclair (1993), encouraged by the Trevelyans should not peace never flagged. It was the p. 227. (‘of another Liberal and eccen- greatest of pities that he was 13 The answer, like a four-move chess be thought problem, is that I am his first and tric family’, wrote Rosalie, who without a seat in either House second cousin, twice removed. gave their house Wallington to of as a pol- during the post-war years. But 14 He was president of the local Con- the Trust shortly afterwards) whether in his own Midlands servative Party association for many and Professor W. G. Constable.18 itician at or in the national and interna- years, but resigned in 1946 when tional politics he continued to he came out publicly in agreement Rosalie Mander wrote: ‘He with Labour Party housing policy. never regretted it, for he liked all, for all find ways of rendering service He was involved with a number of to think that the public should that counted. ‘liberal’ causes; for example, as vice enjoy what had been his pri- his love of chairman of the National Savings vate property.’19 He delighted the House Committee, working closely with Nicholas Mander is first cousin twice the Liberal peers, Lords Mottistone in showing visitors round the and Kindersley. house, and insisted on keeping of Com- removed of Geoffrey Mander. He 15 The agreement is quoted verbatim no quarters barred from pub- was co-founder of Mander Port- in The History of . lic view, his dressing room and mons and man Woodward, a group of tutorial See also Mander Brothers Ltd., An bathroom included. schools in London. He has recently Account of the Internal Organisation of the politi- published Varnished Leaves, a the Business of Mander Brothers, Ltd., Mander had installed a squash Wolverhampton, In its relationship to biography of the Mander Family of court in 1928 and continued cal life. the Employee (Approved by the Joint to play tennis until just shortly Wolverhampton 1750–1950. He lives Works Committee), 1925, revised 1934, before he died, aged nearly He was at Owlpen Manor in the , 1939. eighty, in 1962. Lord Longford a romantic Tudor house open to the 16 See obituaries in The Times (4 Nov. supremely public with Arts and Crafts associa- 1988); (in part by (then Frank Pakenham) wrote , 4 Nov. 1988); tions. He is an FSA and the fourth in his Times obituary that he was a man of and Martin Drury (National Trust an ‘issue man’: Mander baronet. Magazine, Summer 1989). causes.’ 17 The National Trust turned down There was never a more selfless 1 The fullest account is a booklet life, the offer, as they doubted a tenant prepared by his widow mainly for could be found in such a rum area politician … Perhaps he should sale at Wightwick: R. G. G. Man- (see Jane Marsh, William Morris and not be thought of as a politi- der, Geoffrey le Mesurier Mander (1882– Red House, 2006, and the National cian at all, for all his love of the 1962), Donor of the House (Oxford, Trust archives in Swindon). House of Commons and the n.d.). He left an autobiographical 18 Director of the Courtauld Institute, political life. He was supremely fragment (1924–57) in the National London, and Slade Professor of Fine Liberal Association archives at Bris- Art at Cambridge. Another kindred a man of causes. Abyssinia, tol University Library (DM668). spirit in the League of Nations, Czechoslovakia, anti-Fas- 2 For an account, see Geoffrey Man- connected (distantly) by marriage cism, Collective Security – he der (ed.), The History of Mander through the Turnbull family, was preached them indefatigably Brothers (1955) and the author’s own Roger, ninth Lord Stamford; the and inflexibly, though with Varnished Leaves: A Biography of tenth Earl presented Dunham Mas- the Mander family of Wolverhampton sey to the National Trust in 1976. unfailing good humour, and (2004) – with bibliography. 19 M. Waterson (ed.) The Country what he preached he practised. 3 Now and Then (1848). House Remembered (1985). He was the most modest 4 , To my Son – in Con- of men and would have dis- fidence (Faber, 1934). Lionel (‘Miles’) claimed the slightest compari- and his brother Alan both mar- ried daughters of the Maharajah of son with Lord Cecil; yet even Cooch Behar (see Sunitee Devee, Lord Cecil did not embody Maharani of Cooch Behar, The more completely the idealism Autobiography of an Indian Princess See page 2 for more details of the League of Nations and all (1921), pp. 43, 203–04). of Varnished Leaves, the 5 Patricia Pegg (ed.), A Very Private it stood for. His horror of the biography of the Mander family Heritage: The Family Papers of Sam- whole policy of appeasement of Wolverhampton, 1750–1950, uel Theodore Mander of Wolverhamp- written by Charles Nicholas culminating in Munich led ton, 1853–1900 (Malvern, Images Mander. him to harry the government ­Publishing, 1996).

32 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 LAST OUTPOST OF URBAN RADICALISM: WOLVERHAMPTON EAST, LIBERAL SEAT 1832–1945 Jaime Reynolds examines the last redoubt of traditional Midland Radicalism

eoffrey Mander half comprising a cluster of eight votes at a by-election in was elected as Lib- independent surrounding vil- 1908. Thorne, who was MP until eral MP for Wol- lages and towns. This explains 1929, was a Wolverhampton verhampton East in the relative weakness of Liberal- man, qualified as a solicitor, an 1929 and held the ism in Wolverhampton, where ‘Inland Revenue collector’ and seatG until his defeat by Labour between the wars the party was Alderman and Mayor. He was a in 45. It was one of the last rem- in fourth place on the borough Baptist and served as president of nants of urban Liberalism in the council, with about five or six the West Midlands Federation of 1930s. By 1935 there were only seats in the 1920s and three or Wolver- Evangelical Free Church Coun- three other urban seats where four in the 1930s. By 1945, when cils. He was the Asquithian Lib- Liberals were able to withstand Labour finally wrenched control hampton erals’ Chief Whip from 1919 to the combined challenge of the of the borough from the anti- 1923. Labour and Conservative Par- socialist majority, the Liberal East was Inter-war Wolverhampton ties: Birkenhead East, Middles- councillors had been eliminated one of the East comprised the St James’, St brough West, and Bethnal Green entirely. Peter’s and St Mary’s wards of South-West. Wolverhampton Liberals held the old two- last rem- Wolverhampton borough, plus East was the last of the party’s member borough of Wolver- Heath Town ward which was radical nonconformist Midland hampton continuously from nants of incorporated into the borough in strongholds to fall.1 1832 to 1885, and also monopo- 1927, and several smaller towns The constituency name was lised the East division from its urban Lib- and villages on the periphery somewhat misleading, as only establishment in 1885 until 1918, eralism in of Wolverhampton: the Urban half of it lay within Wolver- although George Thorne, in District Councils of Willen- hampton proper, with the other his first contest, held on by only the 1930s. hall (population in 1931: 21,000),

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 33 last outpost of urban radicalism

Wednesfield (9,300), and Short Election results 1918–45 (% of poll) Heath (5,000). This was the cra- 1918 1922 1923 1924 1929 1931 1935 1945 dle of the Industrial Revolution in the Black Country. The area Lib 51.8 45.9 unop 42.1 44.8 44.1 48.5 30.1 was criss-crossed by canals and Lab 12.2 19.8 25.7 18.7 15.2 47.7 railways, and many large and Con 37.3 38.1 29.5 37.2 36.3 22.2 small older businesses remained Note: 1918: Coalition National Democratic Party 48.2%; 1922: National Liberal 4.6% there, including iron works and metal-trade factories, the chemi- cal industry and small engineer- Wolverhampton borough council – party representation 1919–46 ing, and the Mander factories in 1919 1922 1925 1928 1931 1934 1937 1946 Heath Town and Wednesfield. Lib 6 6 5 6 5 3 4 0 Willenhall was the capital of the Lab 6 9 12 11 9 13 14 26 lock-making industry in Britain, and Wednesfield was also a cen- Con 18 17 17 17 17 16 17 11 tre of lock and trap-making. It Ind 6 4 2 5 8 13 10 8 was a predominantly working- class district with extensive slum of Wolverhampton, with a Heath Town, the councillors areas of shabby terraced housing. working-class area in the north. were Independents with Liberal Liberalism was sustained by It was a Conservative strong- or Conservative support. the strength of nonconform- hold, which Labour began to There was considerable coop- ity across most of the constitu- break down only after 1945. St eration between the Tories and ency, and the personal appeal Mary’s ward was an industrial Liberals in Wolverhampton. of Thorne and Mander. It was and working-class area of large They both stood as Independents also helped by the relatively slow and small factories and terraced in local elections (although their advance of Labour among the houses. In the 1920s it contained national party allegiances were poorer unskilled working-class some of the worst slums in the well known). From 1927 there voters, who were less organised town. Labour first won the was a formal anti-socialist elec- into trade unions than in the ward in 1920 and it remained toral pact under which the Lib- more modern lighter industries a safe Labour area into the erals concentrated their efforts of Wolverhampton. One Labour 1950s. The Catholic Church (St in the east of the town. The candidate in the 1920s remem- Patrick’s) was influential and Tories were strong in the West bered that ‘the slums of the town there was a significant Irish vote. division, where the Bird family were the worst I had seen any- Many elected councillors were (of Bird’s custard powder) pro- where in my life. The slum vote Catholics. vided the MPs from 1918 to 1945, was unreliable. It was among St James’ ward was also indus- except for a short break in 1929– the better-paid artisan type that trial and working-class. From 31 when W. J. Brown won the I [had to] look for solid sup- 1896 to 1945, however, the ward seat for Labour. Brown carried port’. Some of the working class was a Liberal stronghold. The continued to look to the Radi- Conservatives rarely stood in cal Liberals for their defenders the inter-war period and Labour Key statistics against the local industrialists, never gained over 38 per cent many of whom were Conserva- of the poll. The pre-1945 Lib- Wolverhampton boundaries in 1922: tives on account of their sup- eral councillors were mainly • Nonconformist 1922: 6.1% port for protective tariffs against local traders and shopkeepers foreign competition in the iron and very largely nonconformist. The following refer to the present-day boundaries of and steel trades. Mander culti- Many of them worshipped in the Wolverhampton: vated the working-class vote; for Mount Zion Primitive Method- • Working in manufacturing 1931: 46% (national: example, he was one of the few ist Chapel. 29%) Liberals to oppose the unem- Heath Town was an inde- • Unemployed 1931: 18% (national 12.5%) ployment benefit cuts in 1931 pendent Urban District until • Middle-class (professional, managerial) 1931: 11% when desertions from Labour to 1927, and retained its own com- (national 15%) the Liberals seem to have saved munity feeling until the 1950s. It • Clerical/skilled manual 1931: 53% (national 49%) his seat – a rare and remark- was largely working class with • Working-class 1931: 36% (national 36%) • Households with one or more persons per room able achievement in that gen- extensive terraced housing, but 1931: 23% (national 20%) eral election. Very unusually he also some large privately owned managed to squeeze the Labour houses. It was industrial with Modern constituency counterpart: vote further in 1935 to increase large and small engineering, his majority. vehicle and electrical manufac- Wolverhampton North-east includes parts of St Peter’s ward was the com- turing and a Mander factory. Wolverhampton, Heath Town and Wednesfield. Willenhall mercial and professional centre Until 1945 in both St James’ and is in Walsall North.

34 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 last outpost of urban radicalism much of the Labour vote with The non- constituency (1950–70), as did erals until 1924 and by the Liberal him when he stood as an Inde- Wednesfield until 1955 when Nationals from 1931–45 was another pendent in 1931 and 1935 (he sat conformist it was transferred to Cannock. example. as Independent MP for Rugby These were comfortably Labour from 1942–50). Wolverhampton and old seats with little sign of any resid- Sources Bilston was a Tory/Labour mar- ual Liberal tradition. • G. W. Jones, Borough Politics: ginal that swapped hands during working- A Study of the Wolverhampton the inter-war period. The Lib- Dr Jaime Reynolds studied at LSE class roots Borough Council, 1888–1964 erals generally kept out of both and works for the European Com- (Macmillan, 1969). seats and in 1924 a number of mission. He has written extensively of Liberal • W. J. Brown, So Far… (Lon- prominent local Liberals openly on Liberal history. don, 1943). supported the Conservative in support in the West division. In 1929, under 1 Nearby Walsall, held by the Lib- pressure from younger members, the area Liberal candidates were nomi- were fast nated, polling 10.7 per cent in West Wolverhampton, and 12.2 withering per cent in Bilston. The Conservatives continued away. to put up candidates in Wolver- Letters hampton East but their organi- sation was very weak, with only a couple of dozen members. In Electoral support 1929 it was even proposed to by then become) was an abso- In his review of four academic close down the association there. lute ‘prancing proconsul’ like studies of the 2005 general A less radical and left-lean- Lord Lugard in Nigeria. But election ( Journal of Liberal His- ing MP than Geoffrey Mander under the Government of South tory 52, autumn 2006), Tom would have probably been given Africa Act 1909 South Africa Kiehl writes that the Lib Dems a free run. became a fully self-govern- received the backing of ‘a quar- Mander still held on to 30 per ing Dominion, and to blame ter, or thereabouts, of the elec- cent of the poll at the 1945 gen- Gladstone for its actions is like torate’ in 2005. In fact, the party eral election, but Labour won by holding responsible received the votes of only 13 per over 6,000 votes. The noncon- for the actions of Asquith’s cent of the electorate (although formist and old working-class government. 22 per cent of those who actu- roots of Liberal support in the Gladstone’s extensive cor- ally voted). This figure casts area were fast withering away. respondence with the Colonial further light on Kiehl’s com- The Liberals had lost all their Secretary, Lewis Harcourt, is in parison between the 1983 and councillors in Wolverhamp- the Harcourt papers in the Bod- 2005 election results, as in 1983 ton borough by 1945–46 and leian Library, Oxford. Theses the Alliance won the support of although a few ex-Liberals sur- sons of famous fathers (Lewis 18 per cent of the electorate (25 vived as Independent councillors was the son of the Sir William per cent of those who voted). for a time, by 1952 both St James’ who unsuccessfully contested Hence, in terms of support and Heath Town wards were the succession to W. E. Glad- throughout the country – not safely Labour. The Liberals gave stone), Gladstone and Harcourt, just among those who actually up fighting municipal elections feared that their total lack of voted – the 2005 result is some in a systematic way; they had influence over Botha’s govern- way short of 1983. no candidates between 1950 and ment would be used as an argu- John Meadowcroft 1956. They resumed contests on a ment against Irish home rule. sporadic basis from 1962. There In my youth I raged at how was an active Liberal association the 1909 Act laid the founda- Herbert Gladstone and in Wolverhampton South-West tions for apartheid and asked South Africa (’s seat) in the early how our great government of Re-reading Lawrence Iles’ arti- 1960s, concentrated in the mid- 1906–14 could have passed it. cle on Herbert Gladstone ( Jour- dle-class wards, but with strong My mature conclusions is that nal of Liberal History 51, summer residual links to nonconformity. they expected public opinion 2006) I found myself wondering The constituency was dis- always to be progressive, and to about his treatment of Glad- persed in the 1949 redistribu- improve the weaknesses of the stone’s time as Governor-Gen- tion. The four Wolverhampton 1909 Act; unfortunately with eral of South Africa. wards were allocated to the new minority settler public opinion The reader might suppose North-East division. Willen- that is not the dynamic. that Lord Gladstone (as he had hall became part of Wednesbury Peter Hatton

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 35 Tom Horabin remembered

n issue 28 of the Journal, GH Kay Ltd, a general import TomHorabin stand up to Hitler. His friendship Jaime Reynolds and Ian and export merchants, in 1947. (centre, above with Dick Acland secured his Hunter assessed the career The name was derived from crest) at election selection as Liberal candidate for declaration of Tom Horabin, MP for the initials of Grinstin, Kissin’s North Cornwall. I can remem- North Cornwall from 1939 brother-in-law, Horabin and ber us staying in the Acland fam- Ito 1950 and Liberal Chief Whip Kissin himself. Kissin was the ily home before Francis Acland from 1945 to 1946, who later managing director and Clem- died. We retained the use of the defected to the Labour Party. In ent Davies also sat on the board. chauffeur who had taken the December 2004, Robert Ing- In the 1950s, GH Kay acquired family round Germany during ham interviewed Tom’s daugh- the majority shareholding in the the campaign. ter, Mary Wright, about her commodity brokers Lewis and ‘The by-election was very memories of her father. Peat, which Kissin later trans- exciting. Feelings were running formed into a vibrant concern. high, meetings were packed ‘My father was a very personable, My father and Kissin were close night after night, and even Lloyd charismatic, big-hearted man. friends and Kissin was extraor- George came to speak for the He had a varied career in busi- dinarily upset by his death. My Liberals. Churchill helped devise ness and was very generous. He father was also chairman of the line my father repeated every lived life to the full although he Lachrinoid Products Ltd, a plas- night about Chamberlain: “the made sure my mother was well tics firm, from 1943 until his man who lets the bull out of provided for after his death. His death. the field is as responsible as the business interests brought him ‘His interest in pursuing a bull for the damage done”. One into contact with a number of political career was sparked by night, a member of the audience Liberal and Conservative poli- the Chamberlain government’s challenged the imputation of ticians in the 1930s, including appeasement policy. He went any responsibility on Chamber- Churchill. He was always quite on holiday to Germany in 1938. lain’s part for the international left wing, a champion of the Through first-hand experience situation. My father, never one underdog. of what was happening there, to duck a challenge, replied that, ‘My father’s main business and contact with the ordinary in his view, Chamberlain was venture was the establishment population, my father became as guilty as Hitler. The meet- with Harry, later Lord, Kissin of more convinced that we should ing erupted in uproar and the

36 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 tom horabin remembered ­platform party, including me, ‘My father political career had effectively flight crew as well as four of the was forced to flee and our car been ended by the plane crash eleven passengers were killed. was stoned as we left. was always in Romney Marsh in which he ‘My father sued BOAC for ‘My father combined his par- broke a leg and was badly burned. £11,000 loss of earnings and the liamentary duties with his busi- a radi- He was wheelchair-bound for a case came to court in 1952. The ness interests, as was common in year and never physically robust company claimed that, under those days, but was also a con- cal, and I thereafter. the Carriage by Air Act 1932, scientious constituency MP. I think he ‘The crash was not due to their liability was limited to worked in his office for a time engine failure, as stated in your £3,000 unless “wilful negli- and remember him dealing with joined the article, but to negligence on the gence” could be proved. The casework and holding surgeries part of BOAC. The flight crew jury failed to reach a verdict and in Cornwall. His nickname in Liberals lacked experience of the route my father was forced to accept the House was “Honest Tom”. being taken, from London to the lower level of compensation. I can remember seeing the fire- because Bordeaux. They had not been He would have preferred to fight works to celebrate the end of the they were supplied with the relevant maps on, but couldn’t afford to do so. War in Europe from the House and made a series of bad deci- His death, in 1956, was directly of Commons Terrace. My father the people sions when poor weather con- attributable to the nature of the was delighted with Labour’s ditions forced them to seek an burns he suffered.’ victory in 1945. Bumping into he tended alternative place to land. They Churchill in the House shortly nearly got all the way back to Mary Wright is the daughter of afterwards, the deposed Prime to mix with Manston but the pilot did not Tom Horabin. Robert Ingham is a Minister said “you’re not such a before the appreciate how little fuel was left. historical writer, and Biographies fan of me now, Horabin!” Four of the five members of the Editor of the Journal. ‘My father was always a radical, War.’ and I think he joined the Liber- als because they were the people he tended to mix with before the War. He was close to Clem- ent Davies, but in Parliament he also became friendly with Labour MPs such as Nye Bevan, beveridge in Jennie Lee and . W. J. Brown, who became MP for Rubgy, was another friend who helped in the by-election. My father was person never ambitious to achieve high office in any party. He was more n issue 34/35 of the Journal ­carriages to the first-class sec- interested in achieving results (spring/summer 2002), a tion. In the corner of his more than in gaining position for biography of Ivor Davies opulent apartment sat a bespec- himself. I think he left the Lib- was published, written by tacled, white-haired man with erals because he thought Labour his son, John Davies. The a pile of papers on his knee. My followingI was found amongst father introduced me: ‘John, this were more likely to implement the radical policies in which he Ivor Davies’ papers. is Sir William Beveridge’. My believed, given that they were subsequent conversation with in power. He was offered a peer- him was inevitably limited, but age in 1947 or 1948 but refused. A note on Lord Beveridge I left with the impression that In those days there were no life I first met William Beveridge I had been in the presence of a peerages and my father didn’t when I was but four years old. very important old man. want to pass a title on to his eld- Immediately after the Second Beveridge was himself a est son without the backup of World War, my father, an avid high-flying Scotsman. Born not financial independence. Liberal, was released from the in the country of his ancestors ‘He was part of the “Keep Royal Air Force to fight the but in Rangpur, India, he was Left” group, which included Parliamentary constituency a child of empire, from a family Bevan. They used to meet in of Central Aberdeenshire. We sufficiently well off financially our London home. When he left were travelling north on the to send him to Charterhouse the Liberals, my father decided ‘Flying Scotsman’ when we School and to Balliol College, not to contest North Cornwall were told that Beveridge was Oxford, where he proved to again as he didn’t wish to oppose also on the train and would be a brilliant scholar. A spell at old friends. He stood in Exe- like to meet us. We were ush- Toynbee Hall in London awak- ter in 1950 for Labour, but his ered along from the third-class ened his social conscience. He

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 37 In semi-retirement, he chose translated as ‘The whole future’ to return to Oxford, settling at or ‘All that is to come’) must Staverton House in Summer- be regarded as ironic. Death is town to the north of the city. portrayed as mere oblivion. The Here our paths crossed again. only hope of immortality lies in My father had been the Lib- the remembrance of our actions eral candidate in Oxford at the and words by those still living ‘Munich by-election’ in 1938 on earth. All in all, this is an and was in the 1950s reinstated unusual and slightly controver- as the candidate for the constitu- sial message to convey, particu- ency. Beveridge was an impor- larly at Christmas. Beveridge’s tant backer, much in demand for visions belonged strictly to this chairing meetings, providing world. picture opportunities, opening fetes and Christmas fairs. Regu- lar visits were made to Staverton Christmas 1960 House. I hope that you will care to have There were large numbers this Christmas card, the last to of other visitors, too, from the be of a long line of such greet- many walks of life that Beveridge ings that Janet and I sent to our had inhabited. Some were not friends. The good wishes that always entirely welcome. Bev- I send with it will continue so eridge was a man of consensus; long as I do, even though the he did not relish confrontation. cards have stopped. I recall that on one occasion his Samuel Butler’s sonnet is printed wife Janet said: ‘I am afraid that as I copied it out on its first you will find us rather out of appearance in the Athenaeum of sorts today. That silly ass Bertie January 4th, 1902. Russell has been here, arguing with William and upsetting him’ – a somewhat peremptory dis- Μέλλοντα Ταΰτα missal of the Nobel Prize-win- Not on sad Stygian shore, nor in ner, generally acknowledged to clear sheen have possessed one of the finest Of far Elysian plain, shall we mathematical and philosophical meet those minds of his generation. Among the dead whose pupils became a dedicated Liberal and William Beveridge I still have the last Christmas we have been, a recognised expert on unem- in 1938 card sent by Lord Beveridge to Nor those great shades whom ployment insurance. As such, my parents, in 1960, shortly after we have held as foes; he participated vigorously in Janet had died. Inside the card, No meadow of asphodel our feet the radical reforms of the early over the simple signature of shall tread, twentieth century, but, with the ‘William Beveridge’, is a photo- Nor shall we look each other in rise of the Labour Party and the graph of him looking skyward. the face decline of the Liberals, he moved Opposite that is printed a sonnet To love or hate each other being back to the groves of academe, by Samuel Butler, which Bev- dead, first as Director of the London eridge recalled copying on its Hoping some praise, or fearing School of Economics and then first appearance in theAthenaeum some disgrace. as Master of University College, magazine in 1902. We shall not argue, saying ‘’Twas Oxford. Beveridge died in 1963. The thus’ – or ‘thus’, In 1941, he was recalled by the choice of this poem as his nunc Our argument’s whole drift we Coalition Government to super- dimittis is a curious and intrigu- shall forget, vise the production of the report ing one. Butler, like Bertrand Who’s right, who’s wrong, will on Social Insurance and Allied Russell, was an avowed athe- be all one to us, Services that made his name as ist. In these verses, he dismissed We shall not even know that we a household word. He became the grand expectations of after- have met. Member of Parliament for Ber- life enshrined in Christian and Yet meet we shall, and part, wick-upon-Tweed. When we classical religion. Lofty poetic and meet again, met him in 1945, he alighted at concepts of heaven and hell are Where dead mean meet, on that station to embark upon an similarly rejected. The Greek lips of living men. unsuccessful defence of this seat title of the piece, ‘ Μέλλοντα Samuel Butler, 1902 in the House of Commons. ’ (which may be broadly Ταΰτα 38 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 over the policy of appeasement. Richard therefore welcomed Report the theme of the meeting, examining how a foreign pol- icy question played out in the The Suez crisis domestic politics of the 1950s. Peter Barberis started by Liberal Democrat History Group evening meeting, 3 July questioning the proposition that is often made for Suez, 2006, with Professor Peter Barberis that it represented a watershed Report by Graham Lippiatt for British foreign policy and the role of Britain in the world. This was too grand a claim, in n July 1956, the Egyptian present day and that conse- Professor Barberis’ view, and President, Colonel Nasser, quently it was no surprise that the best that could be said was nationalised the company there was a renewed interest in I that Suez brought home to sec- owning the Suez Canal, to the Suez, over and above the fact tions of the British elite and anger and frustration of the of the fifteith anniversary of public opinion that Britain’s British and French govern- the crisis, as a result of the war role in the world was a dimin- ments, who were the major- in Iraq. ished one. And, despite much ity shareholders. The British While some would argue historical revision and re-inter- Prime Minister, Anthony that this perspective distorted pretation about Suez, particu- Eden, reached a secret agree- our view of the past, Rich- larly around who knew what, ment with France and Israel ard felt there was a balance to when, and the role of the Brit- to provoke hostilities through be redressed. The dominant ish government, Suez could not an invasion of Sinai by Israeli issues in British politics from really be compared as an issue forces, using this as a pretext the 1940s to the 1980s were in British foreign policy with for Anglo-French military economic and social, with the reassessment which had intervention in Egypt. The great debates, for example, been taking place around the decision to send British troops over whether particular indus- One of the policy of appeasement and the to occupy the Canal Zone tries should be nationalised role of Neville Chamberlain led to the downfall of Eden, or privatised. Although there places in in the 1930s. Historians have affected the development of were significant foreign policy not yet begun to claim that the British foreign policy and rep- questions, such as possible Brit- which the Suez adventure was justifiable. resented what one historian of ish membership of the EEC, impact of However, one of the places the Liberal Party has called a people’s positioning on politics in which the impact of Suez watershed for Jo Grimond and was more likely to be dictated Suez rever- reverberated clearly at the time his party.1 by their stance on economic was within the ranks of the The fiftieth anniversary of and social issues. Looking berated Liberal Party, producing divi- the Suez crisis and its impact back at the political histories sions and posing dilemmas for on opposition politics was the of the inter-war years writ- clearly at Jo Grimond and the party. This topic for the History Group ten in the period from 1945 the time was not, however, too surpris- meeting at the National Lib- to the 1980s, it is not surpris- ing as within the Liberal tradi- eral Club on Monday 3 July, ing to find that they tend to was within tion there are points of moral chaired by Richard Grayson.2 emphasise how the parties tension in the area of foreign Sadly one of our speakers had were debating economic and the ranks policy going back to Glad- to cancel because of a domestic social questions. For example stone and incorporating issues emergency but we welcomed looking back to the 1920s it is of the Lib- around the international rule Peter Barberis, Professor of the General Strike rather than eral Party, of law and support for the role Politics at Manchester Metro- the Treaty of Locarno that is of supranational organisations politan University and author seen as the more defining issue producing such as the League of Nations of Liberal Lion, the recent biog- for the political parties. As an or the United Nations. Against raphy of Jo Grimond, to give us historian who had written in divisions these internationalist ideas his analysis of the importance the late 1990s about the inter- stand Liberal support for the of Suez to Grimond, the Liber- war years, Richard felt that key and posing self-determination of nations als and British foreign policy. issues dividing the parties, and dilemmas and the anti-colonial move- Richard Grayson introduced providing them with distinc- ment, and these competing the subject by reminding us tive ideological positions at that for Jo Gri- principles were soon at play in that historians often like to time, were in fact more to do the developing crisis over Suez, focus on the issues of the past with international rather than mond and as they had been, for exam- which have a resonance in the domestic politics, especially the party. ple, during the Boer War with

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 39 report

­perfectly respectable Liberal with the points Gaitskell made, crisis was still under consid- arguments on both sides. emphasising Britain’s unique eration by the UN Security Nasser became president of position in which to broker an Council, Eden announced a Egypt in 1954 and the British international resolution to the 12-hour ultimatum to Nasser. government concluded an crisis. This represented a turning agreement with him to with- However, events moved on point for Liberal opinion with draw all British military forces swiftly. The British govern- criticism of the government for from the Canal Zone by 1956, ment decided to act against pre-empting or ignoring the while the canal company Egypt and concluded the UN. This was led by Clem- would continue to operate the secret agreement with France ent Davies, no longer Liberal waterway itself until 1968. Lib- and Israel to cover an Anglo- leader but with Grimond out of erals were divided over both French invasion with the main the country on a pre-planned the substantive issue and the purpose of ‘regime change’, i.e. six-and-a-half week tour of timing of withdrawal. At this the removal of Nasser and his the United States. Profes- time Grimond was warning government. The next major sor Barberis said he believed the government that failure to debate in the House of Com- Grimond must have been withdraw on an early timetable mons came on 12 and 13 Sep- thankful that his trip took him ran the risk of alienating world tember 1956. At this point the away from Britain during this opinion and bringing Britain Parliamentary Liberal Party period because by the time he before the ‘court’ of the United was not yet resolved to oppose returned, it had become clear Nations. However, Nasser’s the government. On the con- which way opinion in the party nationalisation of the Suez trary all five Liberal MPs eligi- was leaning and the direction Canal company in July 1956 ble to vote (Davies, Grimond, in which he must take it. At the initiated a much more heated Bowen, Holt and Wade) voted end of October 1956, however, debate about what should be with the government against an there was still some sympa- the nature of Britain’s response, opposition motion condemn- thy for the government from leading to a polarisation of ing its approach (the sixth MP, Clement Davies along the lines opinion. Hopkin Morris, was Deputy that while Liberals preferred a A stormy Liberal Party Speaker and chaired the ses- UN-led solution, if that could meeting took place on 31 July sion). Clement Davies did, not be found then Britain and 1956, before any debate on the however, base his position on France had the responsibility to issue in Parliament. Lady Vio- the need to maintain Britain’s act, having an accepted posi- let Bonham Carter noted in her moral authority in the face of tion in the world as ‘policeman diary that it had been a terrible international opinion. of the Middle East’. On the meeting with many differing By the time of the Liberal It was the same day, former Liberal leader positions and a failure to reach Assembly in September the Herbert Samuel addressed a any agreement with Jo Gri- mood within the party was start of Liberal Council meeting, mak- mond taking an extreme stance beginning to change. The the British ing an impassioned plea for in favour of going it alone and President-elect, Leonard Beh- intervention from a pro-Israel landing troops in the Canal rens, used his address to the and French standpoint. At this time, of Zone. On 2 August, the House Assembly to launch an attack course, no one except those in of Commons debated the ques- on the government’s handling bombing the tight circle around Eden tion, with the Labour leader of the crisis. A number of was aware of the British collu- making a motions, mostly but not all campaign sion with France and Israel. major speech. Gaitskell did not critical in varying degrees of on 31 It was the start of the British oppose the government out- the government, were received and French bombing campaign right, sympathising with the for debate from constituen- Octo- on 31 October that pushed dilemma it faced and denounc- cies but it is interesting to note the Liberal MPs into outright ing Nasser’s nationalisation of that requests for debates on the ber that opposition to the government. the canal in light of it being Friday ‘foreign affairs’ session Surprisingly it was Roderic an international matter, not included more non-Suez than pushed Bowen (not normally a great one just for the Egyptian gov- Suez issues. the Liberal intervener in Commons ernment. Gaitskell also drew The position changed fur- debates) who made a speech an analogy between Nasser’s ther during September and MPs into condemning military action action and those of Hitler and October, however, with fur- and blaming the government Mussolini, which he may well ther international initiatives outright for effectively frustrating UN have later regretted, but he and the realisation towards efforts to produce a diplomatic rejected unilateral action and the end of October that Brit- opposition solution. Bowen, Davies and proposed an international solu- ish and French troops were in to the gov- Wade all voted against the tion through the UN. Liberal the process of mobilisation. government; Holt did not leader Clement Davies agreed On 30 October, while the ernment. and Grimond was still out of

40 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 report the country. In the House of Grimond Commenting on one histo- out the period of his leadership Lords, the Liberal leader Lord rian’s analysis of the Suez crisis of the Liberal Party. Only in Rea announced that while the used the in relation to the Liberal Party, 1966 (the year before he stepped party had supported the gov- Professor Barberis had to disa- down as leader) did Grimond, ernment, albeit with increas- example gree with Roy Douglas’ con- in an article in , ing degrees of reluctance, they clusion that Suez redounded to admit that it might be time now felt that Eden had stepped of Suez the good of the party. One of to ‘lay the ghost of Suez’. By over the line and Herbert to make the first electoral tests for the the time of the Nigerian civil Samuel became one of the first Liberals following Suez was war (the Biafran conflict) in politicians to raise the ques- political the Carmarthen by-election 1969, Grimond was prepared to tion of the true importance of of February 1957. There were denounce it as the worst epi- the Suez Canal to British or capital special circumstances obtain- sode of British foreign policy international interests against ing here, as this was Hopkin since the Second World War, the background of Com- against Morris’ old seat and the local even worse than Suez. monwealth, American and Conserva- Liberal association had cho- In conclusion then, Professor other international criticism of sen an openly pro-Suez, pro- Barberis could not support the Anglo-French action. tive and government candidate. His claim that the long-term effects By the time Grimond opponent was former Liberal of Suez for the Liberal Party returned to Britain on 5 Labour for- MP Megan Lloyd George, represented a watershed, with November to take up the reins who had defected to Labour a swing of support and opin- as party leader, it was very clear eign policy in April 1955. Grimond felt the ion behind the party. Neither that the direction the Liberal virtually need to support the Liberal would he accept the view that Party wished to take was one candidate despite his stance on Suez was a key turning point in of outright opposition to the throughout Suez, although Grimond later British foreign policy itself; he government. Notwithstanding regretted this and recorded in felt, rather, that the effects of this, there remained pockets the period his memoirs that he felt it had the crisis simply brought to the of support for the govern- been one of his greatest errors surface trends – such as Brit- ment within the Liberal Party. of his lead- of judgment. According to ain’s diminished role in world Arthur Holt (one of two MPs ership of Professor Barberis, in other affairs and the importance of holding their seats as a result by-election contests, Liberal American influence – which of a local arrangement with the Liberal support does not show any sig- were already established, and the Tories) wrote a letter to nificant upturn until early1958 , made the implications of these his local newspaper as late as 8 Party. with Rochdale (February 1958) developments clearer to public November accepting that the being a very good result. It is and elite opinion. government had no option doubtful, however, that the but to take military action. increased Liberal vote at Roch- Graham Lippiatt is Secretary of the Shockingly to some Liber- dale can be attributed to the Liberal Democrat History Group. als, Gilbert Murray3 wrote to party’s stance on Suez. There The Times in support of the was nevertheless some evidence 1 David Dutton, A History of the Lib- government’s stance. It later from the soundings that the eral Party in the Twentieth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 187. transpired that another leading party itself had taken that some 2 Lecturer in politics at Goldsmith’s 4 Liberal, Gladwyn Jebb, who new members, particularly College, former Director of was throughout the period of middle-class supporters, were Policy for the Liberal Democrats the Suez crisis British Ambas- being attracted to join as a and speechwriter for Charles sador to France, had been a result of its position on Suez. Kennedy; author of Liberals, Inter- national Relations and Appeasement: strong advocate of robust joint What was true, however, The Liberal Party, 1919–39 (Frank action against Nasser within was that Grimond and the Cass, 2001). the Foreign Office, though he party leadership cited Suez as 3 George Gilbert Murray (1866– was not aware of the full details an example of the failure of 1957), Liberal parliamentary of the Anglo-French collusion. government policy and used candidate, pro-Boer radical, cam- paigner for the establishment of a Interestingly, according to it to attack the Conservative League of Nations and President Professor Barberis, Jebb did not approach on a range of foreign of Liberal International 1947–49. play a central role in the devel- policy questions and the failure 4 Hubert Miles Gladwyn Jebb opment of the crisis, despite of the Foreign Office to learn (1900–96), diplomat and Liberal his key diplomatic posting to and implement the relevant peer after 1965. Paris, because he was disliked lessons about Britain’s new and ignored by Eden. In his position in the world. Grimond memoirs Jebb apparently took used the example of Suez to a critical position against the make political capital against Eden government and its action Conservative and Labour for- over Suez. eign policy virtually through-

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 41 ­conference in 2005, for example, was amended, not thrown out. reviews And Hurst didn’t find out quite all the details of the resignation drama – missing, for exam- The reluctant leader ple, the fact that although the Chief Whip, Andrew Stunell, Greg Hurst, Charles Kennedy: A Tragic Flaw (Politico’s, knew that more MPs than had been identified by Davey 2006) and Teather were prepared to Reviewed by Duncan Brack express their lack of confidence in Kennedy’s leadership, he did not use the information to iberal Democrat nerves revealing how reluctantly they persuade Kennedy to go before were on edge this summer were forced into their actions, the Davey/Teather letter was L over the anticipated publi- and with so much justification. released to the press. cation of Times journalist Greg Overall the book is well Hurst has also bought a Hurst’s biography of Charles written, perceptive and com- couple of Kennedy myths, Kennedy. What would it reveal prehensive. Hurst appears to including the assertion that the about his drunkenness and have talked to all the key fig- ‘Meeting the Challenge’ policy about his colleagues’ behaviour ures involved at every stage review exercise of 2005–06 was in forcing him from office? To in Kennedy’s life, with the a Kennedy initiative; it was not, what extent would it disturb the exception of Kennedy himself although Kennedy claimed it ghosts of the traumatic period – and even there he managed to was. Similarly, Hurst takes at from November 2005 to Janu- interview most of Kennedy’s face value the argument, con- ary 2006, in which two attempts key staff and advisers. The book tained in Kennedy’s post-2005 were made to persuade him to is a little light on Kennedy’s election speech, that the party resign? early political career in the SDP, suffered from attacks on policies In the event, the serialisa- but covers everything there- that were not included in the tion of parts of the book in The after, including his brave lone manifesto but had been passed Times in August 2006 gener- stand, amongst the SDP’s MPs, by conference ‘on the basis of ated few ripples – and was in in favour of merger in 1987, his a brief, desultory debate in a any case overshadowed in the faltering career under Ashdown, largely empty hall’. In reality, media by Labour’s own suc- and his six years as leader of the cession crisis, as a number of Liberal Democrats. junior ministers resigned in The book is not without its an attempt to put pressure on problems. Hurst has an irritat- Blair. There was one genu- ing habit of using everyone’s full ine revelation, of an abortive name, with the result that one press conference in July 2003, gets tired of reading, repeat- called, and then cancelled, to edly, ‘Charles Kennedy’ when reveal Kennedy’s problems just ‘Kennedy’ would usually with alcohol and a promise do. In good thriller style, the to seek treatment. In fact the book starts with the most dra- book has probably done the matic part of the story – the two Lib Dem leadership a favour, months leading up to Kennedy’s by revealing Menzies Camp- resignation – but then has to bell’s scrupulous distancing return to the same topic at the of himself from the successive end, as the rest of the text is attempts to persuade Kennedy arranged chronologically. The to resign, aware of the conflict author uses some lazy journal- of interest between his role as istic shorthand – for example, deputy leader and his position repeatedly describing the Lib as a potential successor. Thus it Dem conference as ‘anarchic’, was some of the younger MPs, because, presumably, very occa- particularly Ed Davey and sionally it dares to vote against Sarah Teather, who were left its leadership (‘democratic’ to take the lead in the second, might be another descrip- successful, attempt to persuade tion). There are a number of Kennedy to go. The book errors; the contentious motion should also do them a favour, on Europe at the Blackpool

42 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 reviews almost all the subjects of the There is ­consequent on the birth of his had sometimes displayed. The attacks were drawn from policy son a few days before (in reality, decision to oppose the Iraq war papers approved by the Fed- much in he was badly hung over as well is often cited as the best exam- eral Policy Committee under as unprepared). ple of this judgment, but that Kennedy’s own chairmanship. the book During the 1999 leader- is unconvincing; what other These shortcomings do not, ship contest the West Highland course could Kennedy – or however, detract too much to make Free Press, one of Kennedy’s anyone else, with the possible from what in general is an accu- one feel local constituency newspapers, exception of Ashdown – have rate and detailed account of the remarked that people in London chosen at the time? His deci- party’s recent history, deserving desper- were beginning to ask what sion to take on the Tories over to be read by anyone wanting to they had been asking for fifteen immigration, in the Romsey by- understand the Kennedy leader- ately sorry years: what exactly did Charles election in 2000, and his refusal ship and why it failed, and the Kennedy stand for? The book to join the Butler Inquiry events that led up to the leader’s for Charles exposes how little we still know, into the intelligence on Iraqi departure in such dramatic Kennedy. six years later. Kennedy had weapons of mass destruction, circumstances. no agenda, no real reason to be are better examples. In reality Hurst is scrupulously leader other than simply filling – although this is not argued in fair, pointing out Kennedy’s the position. This may partly the book – the Iraq war was a strengths along with his weak- be a side-effect of the style of godsend to Kennedy, giving nesses. This only serves to Highland politics, which tends him the agenda he needed to make the overall verdict even to the personal rather than the carry him through to the 2005 blunter: Kennedy was simply ideological, but even without election; without it the hollow- not fit to be leader, although this the book leads the reader ness at the centre of his leader- that is an implicit rather than to the conclusion that Kennedy ship might have been exposed an explicit conclusion. The fact was essentially a dilettante, much earlier. that despite this, he can fairly be interested in style and technique There is much in the book to described as ‘the most success- (his abandoned PhD was on make one feel desperately sorry ful third-party leader for more political rhetoric) but hardly for Charles Kennedy. Hurst than eighty years’, based on the ever in substance. The one does a good job of revealing election outcomes of 2001 and exception seems to be Europe, the enormous strains of leader- 2005, only serves to suggest how which was one of his motiva- ship, ones under which even much more could have been tions for switching from Labour Paddy Ashdown, with his far achieved had he been more to the SDP in 1981. greater stores of self-reliance capable. Together with his failures and self-belief, buckled at times The book brings out the at party management, which – as we know from reading his real tragedy of Kennedy’s story, included insisting on chairing diaries. There is a sense that that the talents that had served the Federal Policy Committee Kennedy the politician was a him so well before he became (like his predecessor Ashdown) persona protecting Kennedy leader – a gift for communica- but completely failing to give the man. In many ways a shy tions, as a conference speaker, it any lead or direction (unlike person, as Hurst points out, he on a one-to-one basis or on Ashdown) this led directly to nevertheless enjoyed acting television chat shows, and a real the 2005 manifesto, a compre- at school and debating at uni- ability to come over as a human hensive listing of things the versity – not natural activities being, the antithesis of spin party was against, but with no for a shy boy, unless he could – either deserted him or were underlying narrative tying it submerge his reserve under not appropriate as leader. His all together and giving voters an outward shell of self-con- native wit and speaking ability a sense of what the party was fidence. The strain of playing led him to rely too heavily and for. As a number of journalists such a role was bearable, even too often simply on busking it; observed at the time, Kennedy’s enjoyable, until it became his he was not, in general, disposed own campaign in 2005 was sim- whole life – which it necessar- to do the hard work and prepa- ilarly negative and uninspiring. ily did after he became leader. ration required in the much Kennedy hated confronta- The enormous stress which more high-profile position tion, and generally avoided resulted reinforced Kennedy’s of leader. Combined with his taking decisions, preferring lack of self-esteem and self- habitual indifference to policy to leave his options open until confidence, and tended to lead detail, this led to disasters such the last moment – or beyond. to inertia, particularly when as the 2005 manifesto launch, When forced to make a choice, there was no activity, such as where he was lucky to have however, he often displayed an election campaign, to give been able to attribute his inabil- good judgment, and had a more him a clearly defined role into ity to explain party policy on accurate feel for what the party which he could fall. He had no local income tax to exhaustion would stand for than Ashdown agenda of his own to follow

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 43 reviews when one was not provided for and without his drunkenness, The under- nant concern for generations of him by external events. Kennedy might still be leader. I modern Liberals, from Mill and One of the book’s chap- think this is wrong. lying prob- Gladstone to Grimond. The ters, called ‘Reluctant leader’, Kennedy’s first two years in alternative, they thought, was explores this theme to a certain the job, from 1999 to 2001, were lem with a ‘bare ballot-box democracy’ extent. But what is never made quite successful, but primarily and a more or less plebiscitar- terribly clear is why Kennedy this is because he was not Ash- Kennedy ian regime. In the twentieth wanted to be leader in the first down; his lack of an agenda, was not century, the latter has been the place. Perhaps his main prob- and his approach to managing fate not only of Communist lem is that he never really had his party – which was not to alco- countries and ‘banana republics’, to fight for anything. Once he – came as something of a relief but, to some extent has also managed to be selected as SDP after Ashdown’s hyperactivity hol. The characterised Western democra- candidate for Ross, Cromarty & and insistence on trying to lead cies. Even in Britain since 1951 Skye in 1983, his political career the party in a direction (closer underlying ‘[t]he problems of virtue and followed almost effortlessly. His links with Labour) in which problem corruption within the market candidacy for the leadership it did not want to go. Since [have] … given way to the in 1999 can be seen as simply no one expected the Liberal was that problems of avoiding a major following the line of least resist- Democrats to do well in the slump in demand and employ- ance; at the time it would been 2001 election, Kennedy and he couldn’t ment, or later with maintain- more difficult for himnot to the party were not subjected ing full employment and stand, since everyone expected to particularly searching scru- lead. stable prices. These problems him to, and many actively tiny, unlike in 2005. But after appeared to demand an efficient wanted an alternative to the 2001, everything fell apart. The management of the economy by potentially dangerous Simon absence of any meaning to his mandarins of the Treasury and Hughes. leadership, his inertia and drift, the Bank of England … It was Unsurprisingly, given the his failures at party manage- a necessarily elitist and statist nature of Kennedy’s departure, ment, and his lack of self-belief, approach, against which the the book devotes a chapter to were all increasingly and cruelly republican demand for citizen ‘Demons and drink’. Obviously exposed. The underlying prob- participation appeared irrel- his binge drinking, although lem with Kennedy was not alco- evant.’ (p.11) not consistently an issue, was hol. The underlying problem The social manifestations hardly conducive to effective was that he couldn’t lead. of the republican tradition leadership. Yet Hurst leaves the in modern Britain have been reader with the impression that Duncan Brack is Editor of the explored by a number of schol- alcohol was the main problem, ­Journal of Liberal History. ars, including Jose Harris and Frank Prochaska. Here Foote is interested not in the social dimension, nor merely in the history of political thought, but rather in the interplay between Citizenship and democracy political thought and intel- lectual traditions. In this sense Geoffrey Foote, The Republican Transformation of he goes beyond Quentin Skin- Modern British Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) ner’s ‘text in context’ approach, and explores the complexity Reviewed by Eugenio Biagini and confusion ‘caused by the emergence of a new politics ere Geoffrey Foote, the mon good’ are essential to within an old language’ – as in author of the magisterial healthy democratic life. For the case, for example, of repub- The Labour Party’s Politi- Thomas Jefferson, the ‘mother lican ideas emerging from the H rd cal Thought (3 ed. 1997), identi- principle’ of republicanism was Marxist language of New Left fies and explores a central factor ‘a government by citizens in Review. From the late 1950s E. P. in the development of the ideo- mass, acting directly and per- Thompson, John Saville, Alas- logical and political framework sonally, according to the rules dair MacIntyre, Raphael Sam- of today’s politics in Britain. established by the majority’ (cit. uel and others began to extol ‘Republicanism’, in Foote’s p.4). While this was completely the virtues of ‘culture’ against sense of the word, has nothing feasible only in the ancient city- Marxist determinism, and of to do with anti-monarchism. It states, such as Athens, or in the ‘community’ against the rigid is, rather, the political tradition medieval republics of Italy and national assumptions of ‘class’. which insists that participatory Germany, self-government by What they most feared was apa- citizenship and a sense of ‘com- active citizens has been a domi- thy – non-participation – in an

44 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 reviews increasingly complacent age of and occupation of factories in property-owners’ (p.116). A consumerism. Utilitarianism France in May 1968. republic of property-owners – the cornerstone of the central- In parallel, republican ideas was the Thatcherite campaign ised welfare state – was identi- were studied and adopted by which attracted support from fied as a philosophy of passivity other groups. Political theorists the ageing Grimond. In the and corruption, ‘the Western such as Carole Pateman and early 1980s he criticised the equivalent of the Stalinist Dennis Thompson explored politics of the Alliance and enemy’ (p.28). This had pro- the participatory dimensions their continued reliance on found implications in the sphere of liberty in the thought of J. Keynesian corporatism and of economic policy and revealed S. Mill, which they contrasted championed what he regarded a real difference between with Isaiah Berlin’s emphasis as ‘the positive side of Hayek’, the New Left and traditional on ‘negative’ freedom. Signifi- which he wanted to see ‘mar- Labour on the question of pub- cantly, it was in the context of ried to a defence of the common lic ownership. While the Bev- the historic Liberal Party that interests’. ‘While he supported anites stressed nationalisation the new republicanism deliv- the denationalisation of indus- and relegated industrial democ- ered its most interesting fruits. try, he was critical of the man- racy to a mere consultative role, As Foote writes, ‘[w]here the ner in which pension and trust ‘the New Left … denied that socialist politics of the New Left funds …. were allowed to take a the State was somehow in itself prevented them from moving controlling share of ownership; the embodiment of the res pub- beyond a Keynesian-corporatist as an alternative he sought the lica because it did not represent approach to the management of fostering of workers’ coopera- genuine citizens’ (p.32). They the economy, the Liberal circle tives. Similarly, his opposition detested Communist planning around Jo Grimond were able to an incomes policy was based in the USSR, but also hated to develop a fuller republican not on a simple free-market paternalism and bureaucracy in conception of the economy, opposition to state intervention England. Their ideas influenced based on a politics of citizen- in the labour market, but on a the Institute of Workers Con- ship participation … without concern over the collapse of the trol (1964), and the the need to reconcile it with “common feelings, the bonds of Left Militant, especially in the public ownership of a centrally a liberal society” which should aftermath of the general strike directed apparatus. The idea make such centralised restric- of an unservile society, where tions of liberty unnecessary.’ citizenship was based on prop- (p.171) erty, was also distinct from the The republican transformation laissez-faire approach of other is an important contribution Liberals who saw the market as to the study of modern Brit- the crucial mechanism for indi- ish politics and political ideas. vidual choice, irrespective of Pace Quentin Skinner, Foote an antagonism to the res publica’ shows that republicanism does (p.89). not embody any particular The latter was also going self-contained, coherent notion to be crucial to the appropria- of liberty which can be taken tion of republican ideas by the as a progressive alternative to Conservative right. Powell, and liberalism. Instead, republi- eventually Thatcher, insisted canism consists of a family of on the notion of individual ideologies and concepts which property and resurrected the have been used to serve dif- old republican suspicion against ferent and even contrasting ‘corruption’ of the elite and social and economic interests related institutions. ‘The sales of and visions of society. In the shares in publicly owned com- age of Tony Blair, the language panies and of council housing, of citizenship and community both at massively discounted has been firmly established as prices to ensure popular accept- the idiom of the new political ance and participation, could consensus, although its rhetoric hardly be fitted into a strict has often proved empty and market approach to society’, but illusory in a context which has was a dimension of Thatcher’s continued to be dominated by ‘interlacing of liberal econom- a centralised state, the irrele- ics, social authoritarianism, and vance of local government and commitment to a republic of the celebration of managerial

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 45 reviews

­values and market imperatives, Dr Eugenio F. Biagini is Reviews process, women felt politically in contrast to civic responsibil- Editor of the Journal of Liberal empowered and legitimised ity and the normative function History and a Fellow of Robinson and rank-and-file female Liber- of the common good. College Cambridge. als were gradually won over to suffragism. Ursula Masson has produced a splendid edition of the papers of one of the best documented local organisations, the Aber- dare Women’s Liberal Asso- ‘Women’s rights and women’s duties’ ciation. The latter was formed in 1891–92 and at its peak had Ursula Masson (ed.), ‘Women’s Rights and Women’s a membership of 500, includ- Duties’: the Aberdare Women’s Liberal Association, 1891– ing eminent nonconformists such as Anne Griffith Jones and 1910 (South Wales Record Society, 2005) Maria Richards, herself a pio- Reviewed by Eugenio Biagini neer of women in local govern- ment (she served as a Poor Law Guardian from 1894–1929). ocal Women’s Liberal ­Gladstone’s haunting rhetoric Especially in its first ten or Associations began to and the dictates of the ‘noncon- fifteen years, the Association be established in various formist conscience’, they also L attracted suffragists and cam- parts of the country from the became central to national party paigners for women’s rights, early 1880s, but it was the 1886 politics. Exploiting the newly- issues so hotly debated that they home rule crisis which gave blurred divide between public led to a nationwide split within new impetus to local initia- policy and the private sphere, the WLF as a whole in 1892 (a tives and generated a national women started to expand their minority of anti-suffragists left movement culminating in claims to political rights, hith- the Federation). But the Aber- the formation of the Women’s erto limited to local authority dare WLA was also passionately Liberal Federation (WLF) in affairs. Feminine Liberalism involved in a range of other 1887. The WLF counted 20,000 developed a distinctive agenda, issues, especially those pertain- members by 1888 and continued which was formally consistent ing to the humanitarian agenda to grow in the following years. with contemporary conven- of contemporary Liberalism There were several reasons for tions about women’s duties in – such as the campaign to stop this development, including the society, and yet subversive of the massacre of Armenian and democratisation of the UK elec- such roles and tasks. As one other Christians in the Otto- toral system in 1883–85 (which leaflet proclaimed, ‘religion man Empire (1894–97) and the required larger numbers of is not more important to our ‘pro-Boer’ agitation to stop party workers for tasks at which spiritual wants than politics to British brutalities against civil- women excelled) and the intrin- our material wants … Religion The ians in South Africa (1899–1902). sic nature of the issues under tells us we should be helpful to These Gladstonian issues were discussion from 1886. For Home one another, and politics shows Women’s closely related to a parallel con- Rule was more than merely us how to be helpful, wisely cern for human rights at home, the cause of Irish Nationalism. and effectively.’1 This line of Liberal which inspired the Association’s It was also about participatory argument was effectively sum- Federation campaigns on behalf of work- citizenship, civil rights, the end marised by Lady Aberdeen ing-class women and children. of authoritarian rule from Dub- when she declared that ‘Liber- counted For Masson, Liberal women’s lin Castle and the plight of the alism was the Christianity of associations ‘considered them- evicted tenants and their fami- politics’.2 There was no longer 20,000 selves to be working, above lies. Thus, supporting Glad- any legitimate room for the all, for women, rather than stone’s Irish policy soon came selfish pursuit of naked national members party’ (p.23), but by so doing to signify a commitment to an interest, because politics had by 1888 they extended the meaning and all-encompassing humanitarian become the arena in which depth of Liberalism as a whole. crusade, with clear implications moral standards were upheld and con- The minute book records the for spheres as diverse as British and religious imperatives meetings of the executive social reform and foreign policy. applied to the solution of social tinued to and general committees and Morality and religion had and constitutional problems. By includes also the reports of long been perceived as the twin the same token, humanitarian- grow in the public meetings and speeches. pillars of the women’s ‘duty to ism, both at home and overseas, following Masson has contributed a society’, but from 1886, under emerged as the defining feature substantial introductory essay the combined pressure of of the Gladstonian faith. In the years.

46 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 reviews

(pp.1–79), which sheds light History and a Fellow of Robinson shortest piece is on the little on the context and meaning of College Cambridge. known Duke of Devonshire, the episodes mentioned in the who held office for just eight minutes. Women’s Rights and 1 From a leaflet of the Warwick and months in 1756–57. But there Women’s Duties is an extremely Leamington Women’s Liberal are also surprisingly brief arti- Association, 1890, cit. in L. Walker, valuable source for both the ‘Party political women: a compara- cles on much more prominent history of modern Liberalism tive study of Liberal women and individuals like Rosebery, Sir and the study of women’s politi- the Primrose League’, in J. Rendall Henry Campbell Bannerman cal activism at the turn of the (ed.), Equal or Different: Women’s and Sir Alec Douglas-Home. century. Politics 1800–1914 (Oxford, 1987), Even Harold Wilson, who p.177. 2 Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen, ‘We Twa’. headed four Labour govern- Dr Eugenio F. Biagini is Reviews Reminiscences of Lord and Lady Aber- ments and dominated the Editor of the Journal of Liberal deeen, vol.1 (London, 1925), p.278. Labour Party for a long time, is accorded no more than four and a half pages. The authors were no doubt constrained by consid- erations of space. All the entries show evidence From Walpole, 1720, to Blair, 2005 of wide, thoughtful and up-to- date reading, and the authors Roger Ellis and Geoffrey Treasure, Britain’s Prime have skilfully woven their find- Ministers (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 2005) ings into a coherent narrative with a succinct, accessible style. Reviewed by Dr J. Graham Jones Their assessments and conclu- sions are unfailingly judicious his impressive, eminently ­determining factor of who was and penetrating. The seams readable tome fills a dis- Prime Minister. of dual authorship are totally Ttinct gap and is to be very The nineteenth century into invisible, and it would be inter- warmly welcomed. We are the twentieth marked a new esting to know the precise divi- presented with splendid bio- shift in emphasis. At the begin- sion of labour. Personal details graphical entries for each British ning of this period, Parliament and political history mingle Prime Minister from Sir Robert was dominated by a land-own- freely. Most of the entries give Walpole, generally considered ing oligarchy, but as the fran- information on the formative the first to occupy the office, chise was gradually extended to influences on their subjects, until the present incumbent, adult male and, finally female, Tony Blair. Writing from the suffrage, the Prime Minis- vantage point of the summer of ter became answerable to the 2005, the authors conclude, ‘It democratic vote. The creation is too soon to hazard a verdict of the welfare state and man- on Blair’s New Labour govern- agement of the economy gave a ments’, although they admit that different emphasis to the role in a risk exists that they may well the second half of the twentieth ‘be written down as the most century. These essays, revealing disappointing governments of how each holder moulded the modern times’ (p. 292). office in response to the situa- Though Walpole never offi- tion of the time, make a valu- cially held the title of ‘Prime able contribution to the current Minister’, his long tenure as debate about the nature of the principal minister of office. and the dominant figure in the The length and detail of the House of Commons effectively individual entries vary consid- established him as Britain’s erably. The average length is first Prime Minister. The cir- about 2,500 words. The longest cumstances of the Hanoverian are reserved for Walpole and succession left him and his Churchill, but several other successors more answerable premiers also receive extended to a majority in Parliament treatments, among them Wil- than to the King. Although liam Pitt the Elder, Pitt the George III sought a more active Younger, the Earl of Liverpool, role in government, leader- Gladstone, Lloyd George and ship of Parliament became the . By far the

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 47 reviews their background, upbringing These that the authors have checked that he was aware of this. Hence and education. Their hobbies, and counter-checked their facts his sensational announcement pursuits and interests outside essays, with scrupulous attention to of his impending retirement in politics are mentioned; Clem detail. It is not, however, true March 1976. Following on from Attlee, we are told, exuded a revealing to say of Lloyd George that, this, was not ‘homely style … He sucked at in his Caernarvon Boroughs generally hale and healthy at the his pipe, did the crossword, was how each constituency, ‘his political time of his voluntary retirement driven to his election meetings holder base was secure’ (p. 194). It was following the coronation of by his wife Vi in their small anything but secure from his George VI in June 1937? car’ (p. 238). The authors also moulded first election to Parliament in This volume has been most have an eagle eye for the short, April 1890 right through until attractively produced by its pub- apt quotation which does so the office the general election of January lishers who are to be warmly much to enliven their writing 1906, and there was throughout congratulated on its appear- (it would be interesting to know in response this lengthy period a very real ance. It provides the ideal, the source of some of them). It to the situ- risk that he might have lost introductory sketch to the lives is notable, however, that the the seat to any one of his Tory and carers of all British Prime subjects’ lives after their retire- ation of the opponents. Churchill returned Ministers. The study succeeds ment from the premiership are to power in November 1951, not in being comprehensive and given very short shrift. Jim Cal- time, make 1952 (p. 231). And is it really true detailed without being at all laghan was defeated at the polls to say that Harold Wilson was superficial. It is certain to appeal in May 1979, but lived on until a valuable the only serving British premier to academics, college and uni- March 2005, yet this lengthy contribu- in the twentieth century to versity students and the general period is dismissed in just five retire voluntarily ‘without the reader alike and will undoubt- short sentences. tion to the pressure of ill-health’ (p. 254)? edly stand the test of time. The preface by Lord Butler, It is now widely believed that who served Harold Wilson and current the cruel onset of Alzheimer’s Dr J. Graham Jones is Senior Ted Heath as Private Secretary, Disease had begun before 1976 Archivist and Head of the Welsh and Margaret Thatcher, John debate and had begun to cloud his Political Archive at the National Major and Tony Blair as Cabi- about the judgement and memory, and Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. net Secretary, adds insight into the current workings of the nature of office of PM. A brief, thought- provoking introduction reflects the office. on the changes which have taken place in the nature of the Churchill reinterpreted office of Prime Minister over the centuries. Each entry ends Richard Holmes, In the Footsteps of Churchill (BBC with a short list of the more Books, 2005) significant biographies and there is a most helpful guide Reviewed by Dr J. Graham Jones to further reading. The text is also enlivened with portraits ithout Churchill, might justifiably question the and photographs of most of the Britain might have need for yet another biography. more eminent and well-known ‘Wbeen defeated. I do Any doubts are, however, at Prime Ministers. The authors not say we would have been once dispelled by a perusal of have quarried well in particular defeated. But we might have this magisterial, highly readable the magnificent resources of been. He was so perfectly suited tome – one of many published the National Portrait Gallery, to fill a particular need; the need to coincide with the fortieth but confine themselves to tradi- was so vital; and the absence of anniversary of Churchill’s death tional head-and-shoulders por- anybody of his quality was so in January 1965. The present traits rather than family groups blatant that one cannot imagine volume was originally produced or pictures of significant politi- what would have happened if he to accompany an eight-part cal occasions and events. Some, had not been there.’1 BBC television series broadcast such as the Karsh portrait of Attlee’s graphic words are during the spring of 2005. Its Churchill and the Bassano pho- a sharp reminder of Britain’s author, Richard Holmes, is Pro- tograph of Baldwin, are already debt to Winston Churchill. But fessor of Military and Security very well known and have been given the spate of biographies Studies at Cranfield University published many times before. and other works covering and the Royal Military College The general standard of accu- Churchill and related themes of Science, a prolific writer with racy throughout the volume is which have poured from the more than a dozen books to his extremely high. It is evident presses over the years, one name, and also a well-known

48 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 reviews

presenter of several BBC televi- such episodes as the famous siege sion series. His predilection for of Sydney Street (pp. 106–07) military history, and immensely and the 1910 Tonypandy Riots (p. detailed knowledge of its 105), when the belligerent Home minutiae, are at once apparent Secretary sent in the troops to from the present tome, with its smash strike action in the Rhon- immensely searching analysis of dda valleys. In his brief conclud- military developments during ing chapter, ‘Death Shall have the Boer War, the First World no Dominion’ (pp. 347–55), the War and the Second World War. author concludes, ‘The explana- But he also has a good aware- tion is that Winston was a natural ness of the political history of liberal forced by circumstances these years and of his subject’s to join the Conservative Party, personal and family life. All which only grudgingly accepted three are intermingled to great him’ (p. 354). effect to produce an unfailingly The outstanding character- stimulating read. istic of the text is the author’s Here we have two books uncanny knack of rolling out rolled into one: a full, thor- an array of absorbing historical oughly researched, well-writ- facts and details about his sub- ten biography, and an in-depth ject’s life and times, all of which study of the character of a truly are apparently at his fingertips, extraordinary man. Richard seemingly subject to effortless Holmes goes right back to recall. We can read fascinating basics, looking at the early detail of the construction of formative influences which the Churchill family’s ancestral shaped Winston Churchill – his home at Blenheim Palace (p. parents, upbringing and educa- 27), while at school the young (caption to picture between pp. tion at . As a Churchill, we are informed, 240–41), while during the war soldier in the Boer War at the was ‘beaten for stealing sugar years he and President Fran- turn of the century, Churchill from the pantry’ and ‘took the klin D. Roosevelt exchanged was twice recommended for headmaster’s favourite straw more than 1700 letters and the Victoria Cross. As a politi- hat and kicked it to bits, know- telegrams, on average almost cian, his career straddled more ing very well that he would one per day (p. 286). In 1951 he than the first half of the twen- be flogged again’ (p.36 ). As shuffled around noisily in his tieth century; he first entered , Churchill’s seat in the Commons during a the House of Commons as the civil uniform had ‘more gold speech by the Labour Chancel- Conservative MP for Oldham lace (and of course more med- lor Hugh Gaitskell, proclaim- in the ‘khaki’ general election als) than anyone else’s. Always ing to bemused fellow-MPs, ‘I of 1900, twice changed parties, a fastidious man, Winston was only looking for a jujube’ serving as the Liberal President bathed at least once a day and (p. 338). Extra fascinating facts of the Board of Trade (as suc- exuded the mingled odours of and delightful snippets of infor- cessor to ) clean linen, cigar smoke and … mation are presented in the and Home Secretary and later as cologne. He was every inch the footnotes which are genuinely Baldwin’s Conservative Chan- young man who had arrived.’ (p. helpful and informative. cellor of the Exchequer, 1924–29, 102) As Chancellor after 1924, he Nor does Professor Holmes and as wartime premier from proudly donned his father Lord always stick to the accepted wis- May 1940 until July 1945 and Randolph Churchill’s official dom. He challenges the accepted later peacetime Prime Minister robes which had been carefully view that Lord Randolph from 1951–55. He remained the preserved in tissue paper and Church fell victim to syphilis Tory MP for Woodford until camphor for more than thirty in 1895, suggesting instead that October 1964, within weeks of years (p. 40). His ever-devoted he probably suffered from a left his ninetieth birthday and sub- wife, Clemmie Churchill, we brain tumour (p. 38). Whereas sequent death. are informed, continued to vote most biographers point up the Readers of this Journal will Liberal throughout her life (p. long-term close friendship perhaps be most interested in the 165), while her husband lost his between Churchill and Lloyd period after 31 May 1904 when substantial life-savings in the George, Holmes quotes his sub- Churchill crossed the floor of the Wall Street crash of 1929 (p. 186). ject’s private opinion of LG in a Commons to sit on the Liberal As one of his many leisure inter- letter written in December 1901, benches. Holmes provides his ests, Churchill was well capa- ‘Personally, I think Lloyd George readers with sparky accounts of ble of laying a brick a minute a vulgar, chattering little cad’,

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 49 reviews then commenting bluntly, ‘It is ‘The expla- certainly no general election ­Churchilliana and will surely unlikely that his assessment ever during 1920 (p. 335). stand the test of time. really changed’ (p. 94). He also nation is But the volume is a marvel- later comments, ‘His [Church- lous, captivating read from Dr J. Graham Jones is Senior ill’s] letters to Clemmie reveal that Win- beginning to end, scholarly, Archivist and Head of the Welsh rising impatience with Lloyd engaging, well written, bal- Political Archive at the National George’ (p. 164). He revises, ston was a anced in its judgements, scru- Library of Wales, Aberystwyth too, the traditional view that natural lib- pulously fair in its assessments, Churchill was ‘in the wilderness’ a really sound reinterpretation 1 Lord Attlee, ‘The Churchill politically during the long 1930s of a great man, warts and all. I knew’ in Charles Eade (ed.) eral forced Churchill, by his Contemporaries (pp. 222–23), and underlines the This book has earned its place (London, 1953), p. 35. considerable long-term reluc- by circum- among the many volumes of tance within both the Conserva- tive Party and the civil service stances to accept Churchill as party to join the leader in 1940–41 (p. 239 ff). The accepted view of Churchill’s Conserva- rule is also questioned; far from being ‘the Dictator’, he generally tive Party, ‘refus[ed] to exercise arbitrary which only archives power’, insisting that none of his orders was valid unless commit- grudgingly ted to writing (p. 249). Generally, the book is accepted Project to catalogue the papers of Richard detailed for a single-volume Wainwright (1918–2003) and Lord David biography, with the author him’. skilfully cramming in as many Steel (1938–) points of detail as possible, but the discussion of the post-1945 by Becky Webster period, including the coverage of the Conservative govern- he collections held by the Papers regarding the admin- ment of 1951–55, is much more Archives Division at the istration of the Liberal Party cursory. These years, accord- TBritish Library of Political refer to central policies, annual ing to Holmes, saw ‘replays of and Economic Science at the assemblies and Wainwright’s familiar themes’ (apart from LSE include a wealth of informa- work for the Liberal Party a marked development of tion regarding modern British Organisation. A significant part Churchill’s skill as a painter (p. political, economic and social of the collection relates to Wain- 336)). He also protests (p. 342) history. The material dates wright’s work as spokesman for his anxiety not to ‘duplicate the mainly from the last quarter of the party on key subjects includ- details of Winston’s physical the nineteenth century to the ing finance, trade and industry, decline’ already delineated so present day and is accessible to the economy and employment. evocatively in the monographs all. As part of a drive to improve Speech texts, press releases and by Lord Moran, his medical access to Liberal collections articles written by Wainwright adviser, and Montague Brown, held by the Archives Division on these and other subjects, his last private secretary. an externally funded project to including local government, The volume is enhanced by catalogue two major collections electoral reform and devolu- liberal quotations from Church- commenced in September 2006. tion, provide a real insight into ill’s many volumes (several The project began with the Liberal policy during this period. from his My Early Life (1930, listing, sorting and re-boxing There are also some smaller reprinted 2002)) and by the of the papers of Richard Wain- series of files regarding the alli- inclusion of maps and a marvel- wright, Liberal MP for Colne ance of the Liberal Party and the lous selection of illustrations Valley 1966–70 and 1974–87. Social Democratic Party, and the and photographs. Richard Hol- This catalogue will now be subsequent formation of the Lib- mes’s mastery of his sources and made available via the Archive’s eral Democrats, with particular knowledge of his subject and online catalogue. The collection reference to the leadership of the his times are awesome. But he comprises fifty boxes covering new party. is probably wrong to assert that aspects of Wainwright’s political Another large series relates Lloyd George by December 1916 career, as well as some interest- to Wainwright’s work within had ‘felt strong enough to make ing files regarding his education, his own constituency. There is a a deal with the Tories to replace personal interests and non-polit- wealth of information regarding Asquith’ (p. 156). And there was ical work. his general election campaigns

50 Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 David Steel the environment, education and and Richard transport. Further papers relate Wainwright to Steel’s constituency of Tweed- dale, Ettrick and Lauderdale in the Scottish borders and Scottish home affairs. The catalogue will be added to a smaller collection of Steel’s papers that were depos- ited at the BLPES in 1989 and should be completed and avail- able online by October 2007. The completion of this project will complement the recent in both Colne Valley and Pud- Luiz Cabral, with minutes and introduction of the catalogue of sey, a seat which Wainwright correspondence by the Trust. the Liberal Party papers to the fought but never gained early Further papers relating to online catalogue. Other signifi- in his political career. Further Wainwright’s non-political life cant collections held by the LSE papers relate to the work of the include a fascinating insight into Archives relating to Liberal his- Colne Valley Division Liberal life and work during the Second tory include the papers of: Association and local elections. World War. After registering as • Paddy Ashdown (1941–) There are also papers regarding a conscientious objector at the • William Beveridge Wainwright’s wife, Joyce, who outbreak of the war Richard (1879–1963) was active in the promotion of joined the Friend’s Ambulance • Leonard Henry Courtney the work of women Liberals. Unit (FAU), a Quaker organisa- (1832–1918) These interesting papers relate tion, first founded during the • Frances L. Josephy (1900–84) to the work of the national First World War to provide a • Liberal Democrats Women’s Liberal Federation, voluntary ambulance service • Liberal Movement the Yorkshire Women’s Liberal across Europe. Wainwright • Sir Andrew McFadyean Federation, where Joyce served served with the Unit throughout (1887–1974) as President and Chairman, and the war, taking him to France, • Juliet Evangeline Rhys Wil- Colne Valley Women’s Liberal Holland and Germany. Papers liams (1898–1964) Council, where Joyce served include an interesting collection • David Vasmer (fl1971 –) as Chairman between 1959 and of correspondence from friends, • Graham Robert Watson 1987, and largely comprise min- family and colleagues regarding (1956–) utes of meetings and publicity life during the war, and papers To view the catalogue of Rich- material. regarding the work of the Unit ard Wainwright’s papers please Throughout his politi- with issues of the FAU’s publica- visit our online catalogue at: cal career Wainwright was an tion ‘The Chronicle’, weekly http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/ active member of a number of information sheets and some archive/Default.htm (ref no: organisations both nationally central administration papers. WAINWRIGHT R). and within Yorkshire, the most In addition to the comple- More information regarding prominent being the Joseph tion of the catalogue of Rich- this project can be found on our Rowntree Reform Trust, where ard Wainwright work has now projects page at: http://www.lse. he worked between 1959 and commenced on the listing of ac.uk/library/archive/projects. 1984. The collection houses a Lord David Steel’s papers. This htm. For further information wealth of information regarding collection comprises some 250 regarding the Archives at LSE the work of the Trust, including boxes relating largely to Lord please have a look at our website correspondence, some minutes Steel’s work as Liberal Party at http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/ and publications, and Wain- leader (1976–88), and covers the archive/ or contact us directly wright’s personal papers. There period c1976–99. The collec- either by email at Document@ are a number of valuable files tion includes important papers lse.ac.uk or at the following regarding a trip made by Rich- regarding the Lib-Lab Pact address: Archives and Rare ard and Joyce to Guinea-Bis- (1977–78), the Liberal-SDP Alli- Books Library, London School sau and Cape Verde in Africa ance and the subsequent merger of Economics and Political Sci- in November 1972, as part of between the two parties to form ence, 10 Portugal Street his work for the Trust. Papers the Liberal Democrats. There London WC2A 2HD include a detailed account of the are also papers and correspond- visit, publications by and corre- ence regarding the work and Becky Webster is Assistant Archivist, spondence with the Party for the policies of the Liberal Party on a Steel and Wainwright papers, Lon- African Independence of Guinea wide range of subjects including don School of Economics. and Cape Verde (PAIGC), led by agriculture, housing, defence,

Journal of Liberal History 53 Winter 2006–07 51 A Liberal Democrat History Group evening meeting liberalism and british national identity When people are asked what makes up Britishness, they often give the notions of ‘fair play’, ‘tolerance’ or ‘personal liberty’ as part of the answer. Liberals regard these concepts as elemental to liberal philosophy, but just how far has liberalism informed the construction of British national identity in the last hundred years and how liberal will new British identities emerging in the Britain of devolution, European Union enlargement, multiculturalism and the ‘war on terror’ be?

Speakers: Robert Colls, Professor of English History at Leicester University, and Professor John Solomos, Head of Sociology at City University. Chair: MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary.

7.00pm, Monday 5 February 2007 (after the History Group AGM at 6.30) Lady Violet Room, , 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1

A Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting think liberal: the dictionary of liberal thought

‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’. Locke, Bentham, Mill, Hobhouse, Keynes, Rawls … Liberalism has been built on more than three centuries’ work of political thinkers and writers, and the aspirations of countless human beings who have fought for freedom, democracy, the rule of law and open and tolerant societies.

Now, in the first-ever such publication, the History Group’sDictionary of Liberal Thought provides an accessible guide to the key thinkers, groups and concepts associated with liberalism –not only British but also European and American. The essential reference book for every thinking Liberal.

This meeting will launch the new Dictionary of Liberal Thought. Speakers: David Howarth MP and Michael Meadowcroft. Chair: Steve Webb MP, Liberal Democrat manifesto coordinator.

8.00pm, Friday 2 March 2007 Charter Suite, Holiday Inn Hotel, Harrogate