The Guest Papers, Add.Mss. 57934-57941
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THE GUEST PAPERS, ADD.MSS. 57934-57941 ROBERT A. H. SMITH MONTAGUE JOHN GUEST (1839-1909), Liberal M.P. for Youghal 1869-74, ^^id for Wareham 1880-5, presented his papers to the British Museum in 1906; they were trans- ferred to the Department of Manuscripts from the Department of Prints and Drawings in 1973. Guest was the third son of Sir Josiah John Guest, Bart., of Dowlais, the iron- master, and Lady Charlotte Guest (later Schreiber), the Welsh scholar and celebrated collector of china, fans, and playing-cards. J.J. Guest was a dissenting industrialist who married into the aristocracy, obtained a baronetcy and a seat in Parliament, and became accepted by Whig Society. His eldest son, Ivor, succeeded in 1852 to the baronetcy, to Canford Hall in Dorset and estates in Dorset and Wales; in the 1880s he possessed over 17,000 acres in Dorset alone;' in 1868 he married the eldest daughter of the Duke of Marlborough; another brother, Merthyr, married the youngest daughter of the Marquess of Westminster, and Guest was to number among his brothers-in-law the future eighth Earl of Bessborough and A.H. Layard the archaeologist, diplomat, and Radical M.P. Guest therefore possessed wealth, status, and good connections; he had the means to pursue a number of interests, to become a keen yachtsman and fisherman, and a frequent visitor to country estates in the shooting season; he became a shooting companion of the Prince of Wales; he was also 'an enthusiastic and discreet collector of Georgian and other engravings and antiques'; furniture, porcelain, and the works of Rowlandson also aroused his interest,^ and he presented his collection of badges, tokens, and passes to the British Museum in 1907. His papers reflect his wide range of interests and social contacts, con- taining letters from authors, artists, and sculptors such as Thomas Hardy, G.F. Watts, Sir Oswald Brierley, Sir Frederick Leighton, and Sir Edgar Bohun, from men of the press, including Sir Francis C. Burnand, A. Borthwick, W. H. Russell, Linley Sambourne, and others, and from Winston Churchill, Lord Shaftesbury, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Thorold Rogers, Thomas Gibson-Bowles, Colonel Pitt-Rivers, and Sir Henry Cole. Guest also collected autographs, and his papers include letters of Landseer, Thomas Moore, Tennyson, Browning, Darwin, and Disraeli, along with three letters of William Barnes, the Dorset poet, whom Guest later sought to honour with a memorial statue. The single letter from Winston Churchill is dated 24 November 1898 and is a reply to one from Guest praising the latter's first book. The Story of the Malakand Field Force: *I was delighted to get your letter. You cannot think what pleasure such praise gives 29 a young author and I myself am peculiarly susceptible. It is a refreshing encouragement to me in the new book I am writing - "The River War" and I hope you will therefore allow me to send you a copy of it when it is published in April.' Hardy's letter, dated 15 May 1892, touches upon the real place-names behind the place-names he used in his Wessex novels: '. "Marlott" bears some resemblance to Marnhull or East Stower; and Trantbridge Cross may be supposed to be where the road from Shaftesbury to Cranbourne crosses the road from Blandford to Salisbury: Cranbourne having suggested "Cheeseborough". "Kingsbere" is, as you may know, Bere Regis.' These two letters are probably the most interesting single items in the collection. Guest also left some personal and political correspondence and papers. His education and undistinguished career in the Rifle Brigade (1855-9) ^^^ ^lot covered by any surviving letters. He disliked the army and failed to return to his regiment from leave in 1859.^ He wished to join the family firm but apparently then abandoned this plan, seeming to have found it difficult to settle in any career. Perhaps his inherited wealth made it unneces- sary for him to choose a profession, just as it made it inevitable that he should seek a seat in Parliament. He and his brother Merthyr inherited his father's Whig opinions, but the Guest family was by 1868 politically divided; Lady Charlotte Schreiber retained her Whig convictions but disliked Gladstonian Liberalism; her second husband Charles Schreiber had been a Palmerstonian Conservative but was now a supporter of Disraeli ;"* Guest's other brothers, Arthur and Ivor, were also Conservatives. Ivor, the eldest brother, contested several seats for his party and was created Lord Wimborne in 1880 for his efforts; his considerable influence as a landowner enabled him to return Arthur as Con- servative M.P. for the neighbouring borough of Poole in 1868 and to place Schreiber in the same seat in 1880. Family considerations influenced Montague Guest's choice of a seat; he was obliged in 1868 to refrain from contesting Poole as a Liberal, to please his brother,-'^ but succeeded in being returned in 1869 for the notorious borough of Youghal,^ a traditionally Nationalist seat, whose former Member had been unseated for corrupt practices at the 1868 election; it could be reasonably expected that he would claim the seat at the next General Election. Guest's position was weak; his influence with the Gladstone Ministry was further weakened by his being the younger brother of a leading opponent of Gladstone in the county of Dorset. The Whiggish element in the Gladstonian Liberal party was in any case increasingly restive, believing that Gladstone was neglecting their interests. Guest received few favours from the Government; his requests for local patronage and support for local interests had scant success. He did not shine in his first Parliament, rather displaying the independent spirit he was to show later, in voting against the Government's Irish University Bill; the latter were defeated by three votes. Guest 'voted quite at the end - G. C. Glyn [a Government Whip] did all he could to turn me'."^ Guest voted with his brother Arthur, and so presumably in accordance with his eldest brother's opinions; family considerations may have influenced him, although he did not always vote to please Ivor. He apparently faced pressure from his constituents. Glyn wrote to Guest that he knew of 'the great pressure put upon Irish representatives but hoped that in your case it would not succeed'.^ Guest was not cast out into a political 30 wilderness for this vote- he was one of many discontented moderate backbenchers at this time - and no doubt it seemed likely that he would continue his political career as an independent Whiggish Liberal. Party discipline in and out of Parliament was gradually becoming tighter however. Guest retired from Youghal in 1874, leaving the former Member once more in posses- sion, and was next returned to Parliament in 1880 for the small borough of Wareham, which lay close to his own home at Bere Regis. He soon clashed with the Government of Gladstone once more, and acquired the unfortunate reputation of being a man 'who generally votes wrong when his vote is in real requirement'.^ He opposed Gladstone's Irish Land Bill of 1880 and Liberal policy over Tunis in 1881, defaulted on the Egyptian vote of censure in February 1884, absented himself from Parliament during some impor- tant Irish debates, and was in Dorset when Gladstone resigned in 1885, 'a circumstance that was used against him in the county'. His conduct seems to have been unpredictable; he supported the Liberal Government on many points, including Reform, the Sudan, Afghanistan, the Bradlaugh question, and Irish coercive legislation,'^ yet carried political independence to extremes at a critical time for the Government and the Whips. Guest differed in opinion from the Government on some important issues. With other moderate men he was disgusted with Gladstone's conduct concerning the Kilmainham Treaty, especially in the light of the Phoenix Park murders. In 1882 he clearly wished Gladstone would resign; he believed that the crisis could only be weathered if England had a strong leader, recruited from either political party.'^ He was opposed to all legisla- tion tending to weaken Ireland's links with England. He also paid attention to the needs of the agricultural labourers. To some extent this was enlightened self-interest; labourers in his large rural constituency had the vote, and more would obtain the vote under any future plan of Parliamentary Reform. Guest told Gladstone that he put his election success in 1880 down to the votes 'of the Agricultural labourers, who have to thank the Ballot act for protecting them against the displeasure of the powerful landed interest, which put forth all their energies and exerted all their influence to obtain a contrary result in this Agricultural district Borough, and have in cases where they have been able to find out vented their wrath upon the supporters of the Liberal cause - they look to you as the man that has done more for the labouring Classes in this country than any other that ever lived'.'^ He had earlier criticized the low wages of labouring men. In 1885 he went further and gave £10 towards the election expenses of Joseph Arch, the founder of the National Agricultural Labourers' Union, who stood for North-west Norfolk.'^ Gladstone's Government had done little for the agricultural worker, beyond giving them the vote by 1885; Guest seems to have felt that they should now, in a time of agricultural depression, have their own Parliamentary representatives. Guest was moved to oppose the Government over their handling of the Tunis crisis. France from April to October 1881 had assumed control of the country, sending in troops purportedly to quell disorder among tribesmen on the Tunisian frontier with the French protectorate of Algeria; in fact they had intended to crush an Italian challenge to French economic and political interests in Tunis.