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The Forbidden Ground Tony Little Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts J. Graham Jones Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd Biography of Geraint Howells Susanne Stoddart Domesticity and the New in the Edwardian press Douglas Oliver Liberals in local government 1967–2017 Meeting report Alistair J. Reid; Tudor Jones Liberalism Reviews of books by Michael Freeden amd Edward Fawcett Liberal Democrat History Group “ has written what deserves to become the definitive account of the 2010–15 coalition government. It is also a cracking good read: fast-paced, insightful and a must for all those interested in British politics.” COALITION DIARIES 2012–2015

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Journal of Liberal History advert.indd 1 16/11/2017 12:31 Journal of Liberal History Issue 97: Winter 2017–18 The Journal of Liberal History is published quarterly by the Liberal Democrat History Group. ISSN 1479-9642 Liberal history news 4 Editor: Duncan Brack Obituary of Bill Pitt; events at Gladstone’s Library Deputy Editors: Mia Hadfield-Spoor, Tom Kiehl Assistant Editor: Siobhan Vitelli Archive Sources Editor: Dr J. Graham Jones The Forbidden Ground 6 Biographies Editor: Robert Ingham Tony Little examines Gladstone’s role in the introduction and abolition of the Reviews Editors: Dr Eugenio Biagini, Dr Ian Cawood Contagious Diseases Acts Contributing Editors: Graham Lippiatt, Tony Little, York Membery Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd 16 Patrons Biography of Geraint Howells; by Dr J. Graham Jones Dr Eugenio Biagini; Professor Michael Freeden; Professor John Vincent Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the 26 Edwardian press Editorial Board Susanne Stoddart analyses how the Liberal government’s introduction of Dr Malcolm Baines; Dr Ian Cawood; Dr Matt Cole; Dr Roy labour exchanges and maternity benefits was viewed in the press Douglas; Dr David Dutton; Professor Richard Grayson; Dr Michael Hart; Peter Hellyer; Dr Alison Holmes; Dr J. Graham Jones; Dr Tudor Jones; Caron Lindsay; Tony Liberal archives at Record Office 36 Little; Michael Meadowcroft; Dr Tim Oliver; Dr Ian Packer; by Dr J. Graham Jones Dr John Powell; Jaime Reynolds; Dr Emma Sanderson- Nash; Dr Iain Sharpe; Dr Michael Steed; Dr Seth Thevoz Report 39 Editorial/Correspondence Liberals in local government 1967–2017, with Kath Pinnock, Tony Greaves, Richard Kemp, Sarah Bedford, Matt Cole and Ruth Dombey; report by Douglas Oliver Contributions to the Journal – letters, articles, and book reviews – are invited. The Journal is a refereed publication; all articles submitted will be peer- Letters to the Editor 41 reviewed. Contributions should be sent to: Nelia Penman (Graem Peters); Lloyd George and Nonconformity (Kenneth O. Duncan Brack (Editor) Morgan); French elections (Ian Stuart); The 2017 election (Trevor Jones and 54 Midmoor Road, London SW12 0EN Richard Pealling) email: [email protected] All articles copyright © Journal of Liberal History. Reviews 42 All rights reserved. Reekes, Two Titans, One City, reviewed by Philip Davis; Freeden, Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction, reviewed by Alistair J. Reid; Fawcett, Liberalism: The Life Advertisements of an Idea, reviewed by Tudor Jones Prices on application; discounts available for repeat ads or offers to readers (e.g. discounted book prices). To place ads, please contact the Editor.

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Or, send a cheque (payable to ‘Liberal Democrat History Group’) to: Liberal Democrat History Group Patrick Mitchell The Liberal Democrat History Group promotes the discussion and research of 6 Palfrey Place, London SW8 1PA; topics relating to the histories of the Liberal Democrats, Liberal Party, and SDP, and email: [email protected] of Liberalism. The Group organises discussion meetings and produces the Journal of Liberal History and other occasional publications. Cover design concept: Lynne Featherstone For more information, including historical commentaries, details of publications, Published by the Liberal Democrat History Group, c/o 54 Midmoor Road, London SW12 0EN back issues of the Journal, and archive and other research resources, see: www.liberalhistory.org.uk. Printed by Kall-Kwik, Unit 1, 37 Colville Road, London W3 8BL Subscribers’ code for discounted sales from the History Group online shop: mbr07 January 2018 Chair: Tony Little Honorary President: Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 3 Liberal History News Winter 2017–18

Bill Pitt, 17 July 1937 – 17 November 2017 More personal obituaries of Bill Pitt are Williams resigned his Warrington seat Liberal Party Council meeting in Abing- appearing in and in Libera- in order to become a High Court judge. don passed a resolution overwhelmingly tor. I am concerned here with the histori- The Liberals had always struggled to affirming the party’s support for Bill Pitt cal significance of the Croydon North save their deposit in Warrington so it as the by-election candidate. I met David West by-election, on 22 October 1981, was perceived a good seat in which the Steel the Tuesday after the Abingdon and of Bill’s role in it. SDP could test the water. Shirley Wil- meeting and asked him what he intended Bill was a long-serving, popular and liams hesitated and eventually said ‘no’, to do. He replied, ‘I suppose I’ll have to convivial Liberal Party member who whereupon bravely stepped bow to democracy’! Had he chatted up was a member of a number of party com- in and fought an excellent campaign, just the party immediately the seat became mittees. For a time he edited the party’s failing to win by under 2,000 votes. vacant and had he had a better relation- internal briefing paper,Radical Bulletin. Robert Taylor, the Conservative MP ship with it, he would have probably He was the prospective Liberal candi- for Croydon NW, died on 19 June 1981, convinced it – and Bill Pitt – to give way. date for his home constituency of Croy- just one month before the polling day in This incident rankled with Steel ever don North-West which was, technically, Warrington. The informal understand- after.2 a marginal Conservative seat with the ing between the Alliance parties was that Bill duly continued as the candi- Labour Party almost but never quite suc- they should take turns in fighting by- date. and the SDP loy- ceeding in gaining it. By no stretch of elections, hence Croydon was assumed ally campaigned for him and he won a the imagination could the Liberals have to fall to the Liberals to fight. Imme- remarkable victory on 22 October. The envisaged winning it in any ‘normal’ diately doubts were cast on this. First, point was well made that if the Alliance circumstances; indeed, Bill had lost his Bill Pitt was thought to be a pedestrian could win a by-election in a Conserva- deposit at the previous, 1979, general candidate with a poor track record and tive–Labour marginal seat with a non- election, though he polled 23 per cent at incapable of winning. Second, Shirley celebrity candidate, it augured well for the May 1981 Greater London Council Williams indicated her willingness to its electoral future. election in the same constituency – a fact fight. Third, , as Liberal Bill’s tenure was short-lived, how- rarely acknowledged. leader, indicated that he was in favour of ever, and he lost the seat in May 1983. He The Alliance between the SDP and Shirley being the candidate. Typically, moved to Kent and fought, unsuccess- the Liberal Party was envisaged from the he failed to consult his party but tried to fully, Thanet South in 1987 and 1992. He launch of the SDP in late March 1981, bounce it into accepting Williams. Steel then, somewhat perversely, joined the though it was not formally launched always neglected the party, which he did Labour Party. until the two parties’ conferences that not rate as at all important,1 and he paid There was a sub-text to this whole autumn. Late in May 1981 Sir Tom the price on this occasion. The quarterly episode. Some of us in the Liberal Party were determined to protect the party against the SDP. In 1981 and early 1982 there was a real danger that the SDP would dominate the Alliance and, through by-election successes, run away with it to the detriment of the whole status and future of the Liberal Party. Hard on the heels of the Roy Jenkins near-miss in Warrington, an SDP vic- tory in Croydon would have provided a real springboard for other victories and the possible eclipse of the Liberal Party. I was always immensely relieved that sit- ting Labour MPs who defected to the SDP did not resign and fight by-elec- tions, starting with David Owen and Bill Rodgers, to be followed by each of the twenty-six further defectors. In my view

4 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Owen and Rodgers would have won and in honour of Shirley Williams, ed. Andrew Duff http://www.bramley.demon.co.uk/liberal. created a real momentum for most of the (Biteback, 2010), p. 69. html). rest. This was not simply a narrow loy- 3 Social Democracy – Barrier or Bridge? (Libera- 4 Making the Difference – Essays in honour of Shir- alty to the Liberal Party for the sake of tor Publications, 1981) (Available as a pdf via ley Williams, p. 69. it; my philosophical and policy reasons were set out in a booklet published at the time.3 Gladstone’s Library There is also a postscript to Bill Pitt Gladstone’s Library is Britain’s only Good on Friday 26th to Saturday and the Croydon by-election. On 1 Prime Ministerial library and was 27th October 2018, led by Michael October 1981 the MP for Crosby, Gra- founded by William Gladstone in 1896, Northcott ham Page, died. In his chapter in the just before his death in 1898. The library • Understanding Rare Books on 2010 book David Steel states that the Lib- now holds 150,000 printed items – 32,000 Monday 19th February 2018, led by eral candidate, Anthony Hill, ‘graciously of which belonged to Gladstone himself, librarian Gary Butler stood down’ for Shirley to fight and win with nearly 10,000 containing his anno- • The Gladstone Umbrella on Friday the by-election.4 That is not the case. tations. Situated in the Welsh village 13th – Sunday 15th July 2018 When the news of Page’s death became of Hawarden, where Gladstone lived • Gladfest: Summer Literature Festi- public, the rolling SDP conference had for some forty-five years, Gladstone’s val on Friday 7th – Sunday 9th Sep- reached . I was talking to Library is a refuge for liberal values tember 2018 Anthony Hill, the prospective candi- which, under the current climate, feel • Understanding Islam on Saturday date for Crosby, in the bar adjacent to the somewhat under attack. 22nd – Sunday 23rd September 2018 conference hall when we heard Shirley The Library offers a range of courses led by Zia Chaudhry Williams announce from the platform and events every year. At the heart of the • Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Sci- that she intended to fight the by-elec- programme is history and current affairs, ence and Christianity on Friday 17th tion. Anthony, a loyal Liberal of twenty theology, and nineteenth-century liter- – Saturday 18th 2018 led by Don years standing, was simply pushed aside, ary culture – the areas that William Glad- MacGregor but felt that it would be futile to try to stone’s collection of books and journals These are just some of the events and ‘do a Croydon’. itself centres around. The 2018 programme courses taking place at Gladstone’s Michael Meadowcroft offers a variety of evening talks, residential Library in the coming year. The full courses and literary festivals galore. events programme, as well as more infor- 1 See Steel’s autobiography, Against Goliath Here is a taste of the upcoming events mation about the library, can be found (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989), p. 135. for which tickets are still available: on the Gladstone’s Library website: 2 See his chapter in Making the Difference – Essays • Brexit, Trump and the Common www.gladstoneslibrary.org.

On This Day … Every day the History Group’s website, Facebook page and Twitter feed carry an item of Liberal history news from the past. Below we reprint three. To see them regularly, look at www.liberalhistory.org.uk or www.facebook.com/LibDemHistoryGroup or follow us at: LibHistoryToday.

January 3 January 1802: Birth of Charles Pelham Villiers, Whig/Liberal/Liberal Unionist MP for 1835-85 and Wolverhampton South 1885–98. A strong and early advocate of , Villiers initiated debates on the abolition of the before and were elected to parliament. The Times observed in 1853 that: ‘it was Mr Charles Villiers who practically originated the Free Trade Movement’. Villiers achieved ministerial office under Lord Aberdeen and served in the cabinets of Palmerston and Russell as President of the . He left the Liberal Party over Irish Home Rule and joined the Liberal Unionists. He was Father of the House from 1890 and when he died, aged 96, in 1898 he was still an MP and the last MP to have served during the reign of King William IV.

February 26 February 1987: Rosie Barnes wins the Greenwich by-election for the SDP/Liberal Alliance. The by-election was caused by the death of the sitting Labour MP Guy Barnett. Labour had held the constituency since 1945, although their majorities had been declining and at the previous general election in 1983 Barnett had only been 1,211 votes ahead of the Conservatives. Rosie Barnes, the SDP candidate, had strong links with the local area and her husband, who was also her election agent, was a local councillor. The Alliance targeted the Tory vote, which collapsed, and Barnes was elected with a majority of 6,611. She held the seat at the general election four months later but lost it to Labour in 1992.

March 13 March 1791: Re-print and first large-scale publication of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. Paine’s work asserts that when a government does not guarantee people their personal natural rights, a political revolution is permissible. Paine’s book is inspired by the continuing French Revolution and was a response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, which was more sceptical about rapid social upheaval and its consequences.

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 5 Social policy Tony Little examines Gladstone’s role in the introduction and abolition of the Contagious Diseases Acts The Forbidden Ground Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

Despite their fter a Commons debate on military was added to the specified towns. The medical spending in May 1864, Sir John Trelawny, examination could be repeated at regular inter- quiet passage, the Athe Radical MP, recorded in his diary, ‘I vals for up to year. A further Act, in 1869, added took occasion to mention the necessity of provid- six further towns, and raised the maximum Contagious Dis- ing measures to protect soldiers near large towns detention to nine months.6 A number of colonies eases Acts proved from some contagious diseases & several members adopted similar arrangements but Scotland had its confirmed my advice’.1 Three weeks later the gov- own regime. to be some of the ernment chief whip 2 persuaded Trelawny to delay Despite their quiet passage, the Contagious a critical motion for a week to allow the navy Diseases Acts proved to be some of the most con- most controver- minister3 ‘to introduce 2 bills he has prepared & troversial of Victorian laws and the campaign get them read a second time.’ Trelawney assured against them is viewed as a pioneering feminist sial of Victorian him that he ‘was only concerned to see govern- crusade. Gladstone is not usually associated with ment move in the matter’.4 On 18 July 1864 he the Contagious Diseases Acts. But he was Chan- laws and the cam- concluded, cellor of the Exchequer in Palmerston’s govern- ment which passed the initial legislation. When paign against A morning sitting, whereat passed in commit- Russell’s government passed the second Act, he them is viewed as tee the Contagious Diseases Bill. Ayrton made was Chancellor and Leader of the House. By the a long & excellent speech in which he stated final Act, he was Prime Minister. Gladstone was a pioneering fem- numerous objections to the scheme. The com- an informed participant in policy formation. The mittee being in a singular practical state of mind campaign against the Acts was mainly a quar- inist crusade. & determined to abate a nuisance if its abatement rel among Liberals, commanded, on both sides, were possible, went through all the clauses with- by Liberals; the repealers better organised, their out a division.5 opponents better connected. No more than 10.7 per cent of Conservative MPs supported repeal Two days later, the bill received the royal assent. in any division.7 Consequently, it was Gladstone’s The Contagious Diseases Act applied in eight ministries that felt the impact of the campaigns English garrison towns, mostly in the south, and primarily through the activities of their own three in Ireland. A police inspector could bring supporters. a woman before a magistrate as a common pros- Richard Shannon titled the second volume titute, obliging her to be medically examined. of his Gladstone biography Heroic Minister8 and If she suffered from a venereal disease she could heroic leadership is the image that fairly describes be detained in a ‘lock’ hospital for up to three Gladstone’s battles for constitutional and fiscal months. The woman could avoid a court appear- reform. But politics is, often, more concerned ance by voluntarily submitting to examination. with damage limitation than famous victories. When the Act was renewed in 1866, hospital This article re-examines the repeal of the Con- detention was increased to six months with moral tagious Diseases Acts as an exercise in timid if and religious education provided and Windsor not cowardly government. How did Gladstone

6 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 The Forbidden Ground Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) in 1868

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 7 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts manage his government to meet the conflicting reclaiming the ‘unhappy creatures’, as leader of demands of the repealers and of the medical estab- the House, Gladstone cut short the debate, pro- lishment who wished to extend the legislation? posing they leave the details for the commit- tee stage since the measure merely renewed the existing Act. 16 With the additional clauses for the The mischief may be reduced moral and religious education, the bill quickly With some of his university friends, Gladstone passed its remaining stages. had from the mid-1840s undertaken to perform Not satisfied, advocates of regulation founded ‘some regular work of charity’. Gradually this an Association for Promoting the Extension of the developed into rescuing of prostitutes in conjunc- Contagious Diseases Act of 1866 to the Civil Pop- tion with the House of Mercy at Clewer. His wife ulation, backed by the Lancet and the Harveian was fully associated with this work but was prob- Medical Society, the vice-chancellors of Oxford ably unaware of his anxiety about the temptations and Cambridge and thirty MPs.17 ‘The Conta- of the work that he confided to his diaries.9 Pri- gious Diseases Act should be extended to the civil vate concern about a moral evil became a public population’, William Acton argued, ‘for by means responsibility after the Crimean War. of its machinery alone can we discover and detain Following the poor performance of the army till cured the women afflicted with syphilitic dis- in Crimea, in 1857, a Royal Commission on the eases, and in no other way that has occurred to Health of the Army ‘noted the high level of vene- me can the supervision necessary for enabling us real disease among certain troops’.10 The com- to work a gradual improvement in their lives be mission collected statistics, discovering that obtained.’18 roughly one-third of army sick cases were vene- Gladstone’s first government extended regu- real, though for the navy it was only one in elev- lation a final time despite emerging opposition to en.11 At the prodding of , a the legislation. In 1868, Dr John Simon, the medi- departmental committee met, in 1862, and rec- cal officer of the Privy Council advised against ommended the establishment of specialist hospi- extension. The Rescue Society presented A Mem- tals, improved sanitary conditions and ‘innocent’ orandum of Objections to the home secretary, cir- occupations to relieve the tedium of life in bar- culating copies to members of both Houses of racks; but Sir John Liddell, director general of the Parliament, though their secretary feared that naval medical department, advocated a regulatory ‘very little effect was produced. The utmost apa- system to ‘arrest disease at its source’.12 thy prevailed; people would not believe our Gladstone participated from the beginning. words and would not stir.’19 On 25 July 1868 Glad- He disclosed his concerns about prostitution dur- stone read Senior on Ireland and Tracts on Conta- ing the 1857 divorce law debates, ‘I am afraid, as gious Diseases.20 He did not record his reaction. respects the gross evils of prostitution, that there When questioned on the Acts, in February is hardly any country in the world where they 1869, Gladstone responded cautiously ‘that Gov- prevail to a greater extent than in our own’.13 He ernment had under their consideration the course was similarly realistic about military behaviour, to be taken with respect to that Act’.21 ‘Con- doubting ‘the possibility of making a standing With some of his tagious Diseases Act Extension’ was the elev- army a moral institution’.14 enth item on the cabinet agenda for Saturday 24 Responding to Miss Nightingale’s Committee, university friends, April and, in May, they bought further time by Gladstone wrote, in a minute of 18 February 1862: appointing a select committee to consider the Gladstone had Acts.22 This produced the 1869 statute, which … we in this country multiply three or four- received the Royal Assent in August. fold a frightful evil among servants of the State from the mid- whom we induce and invite to place themselves in that class, while we know that by adoption 1840s undertaken The path of evil made more easy of means which are elsewhere adopted under to perform ‘some Opposition now began to mobilise. After the 1869 the direct authority of the Crown, the mischief Social Science Congress, Dr Charles Bell Tay- may be reduced within limits comparatively regular work of lor and Dr Charles Worth launched the National moderate. Anti-Contagious Diseases Acts Association.23 The charity’. Gradually movement took flight at the end of 1869 when the He suggested a parliamentary committee of the Daily News published a letter from 126 women ‘weightiest and most sensible men’ meeting ‘with this developed summarising liberal, moral, feminist and utili- closed doors’ to consider ‘a measure providing tarian objections to the regulations. The women that in the principal garrisons and arsenals of the into rescuing of claimed that: United Kingdom these women should be exam- • The Acts ‘remove every guarantee of per- ined and sent into hospital until cure’. He added prostitutes in con- sonal security which the law has established that ‘soldiers and seamen having the disease junction with the and held sacred, and put their reputation, should be subject to a special stoppage to meet the their freedom, and their persons absolutely in expense of their treatment’.15 House of Mercy at the power of the police.’ When two back benchers opposed the • By registering and inspecting prostitutes ‘the 1866 bill, regretting the lack of provision for Clewer. path of evil is made more easy to our sons’.

8 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

‘Moral restraint is withdrawn the moment ‘It is unjust to unionists, parliamentary and intellectual the State recognises and provides conveni- and outraged Nonconformists’,27 promoted mass ence for the practice of a vice.’ punish the sex meetings, signed petitions, lobbied parliament • ‘It is unjust to punish the sex who are the vic- and subverted the Acts in naval towns.28 Friendly tims of a vice, and leave unpunished the sex who are the vic- MPs orchestrated deputations to ministers, repeal who are the main cause both of the vice and bills and motions to deny funding for the Acts. its dreaded consequences.’ ‘We consider the tims of a vice, and Gladstone, inadvertently, contributed to the liability to arrest, forced surgical examina- leave unpunished repealers’ first triumph. On 18 August 1869, he tion, and where this is resisted, imprisonment explained to Granville his plans for a ministerial with hard labour, to which these Acts subject the sex who are reshuffle including the ‘War Department’ which women, are punishments of the most degrad- Cardwell felt ‘ought to be more fully represented ing kind.’ the main cause in the House of Commons … The way to do this • ‘The advocates of the system have utterly would be I believe to make Storks a political offi- failed to show, by statistics or otherwise, both of the vice cer.’29 Cardwell was about to introduce a series of that these regulations have in any case, after major reforms to the army in response to Prussian several years’ trial, and when applied to one and its dreaded victories in 1866 and reinforced by the defeat of sex only, diminished disease, reclaimed the consequences.’ France in 1870. Major General Sir Henry Storks, fallen, or improved the general morality of Gladstone’s successor as high commissioner of the country.’ the Ionian Islands, had been governor of Malta30 Florence Nightingale, Harriet Martineau, Elisa- where he enforced contagious diseases regulations beth Wolstenholme and Josephine Butler were with ‘severe efficiency’.31 Storks was proposed for the most prominent signatories. Quakers such a spring 1870 by-election at Newark. At the nomi- as Priscilla McLaren, Ursula Bright and Mary nation, ‘about 3,000 persons were present’, accord- Priestman, all related to John Bright, were well ing to The Times, ‘and with the exception of a represented. Many signatories had previously little fighting the crowd was generally good-tem- petitioned for the women’s right to vote. The let- pered. Sir Henry Storks retired from the contest, ter announced the formation of a Ladies’ National his support of the Contagious Diseases Act having Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Dis- damaged his popularity, and rendered his success eases Act (LNA) with Josephine Butler as secre- impossible.’32 tary and Ursula Bright as treasurer.24 Capitalising on their victory, William Fowler, Quaker and Liberal MP for Cambridge tabled a bill to rescind the Acts. Before the We must move in the matter debate, repealers bombarded parliament with Josephine Butler, charismatic, resolute, though petitions totalling 270,000 signatures and one physically frail, was the 41-year-old daughter of MP yearned for an end of ‘that stream of offen- John Grey, Grey’s cousin and an anti-slavery sive literature which has flooded our houses for campaigner. In 1852 she married George Butler several months past.’ 33 Worried, the government (1819–1890) an Anglican clergyman and Oxford bought time. At cabinet on 21 May, Gladstone examiner. Reacting against the sexual double noted ‘Commission in lieu of Mr Fowler’s Bill’.34 standards of the university’s masculine culture, Fowler introduced his bill, on 24 May, beneath Josephine began to rescue ‘fallen women’. 25 Jose- prudishly cleared public galleries. 35 But after just phine’s health forced the Butlers to move, initially two more speakers, the adjournment was moved, to Cheltenham and, then, after her daughter’s almost preventing the government announc- tragic accidental death, to Liverpool where Jose- ing its royal commission. This sparked further phine intensified her rescue work, establishing a debate requiring Gladstone to reassure MPs that small factory to provide alternative employment. the commission would consider the ‘the moral Josephine’s feminism was aroused by the inad- aspect of the question’.36 equate economic opportunities for poorer women and the gender barriers to university education. She signed the 1866 women’s suffrage petition and Due allowances for executive difficulties was president of the North of Council are refused for Promoting Higher Education for Women. Although the royal commission provided respite, Mrs Butler hesitated to act as secretary to the the government remained under pressure. In new committee. Afraid of damaging her hus- November, Josephine Butler sabotaged an band’s career, she wrote for his permission. She attempt to elect Storks at Colchester; a campaign reported: ‘we agreed together that we must move made infamous by the mob which attacked her in the matter, and that an appeal must be made to hotel. ‘Forming the Commission of right mate- the people’. 26 rials’, caused delay and in December Gladstone In her first year Mrs Butler addressed ninety- complained to Bruce ‘But when popular feeling is nine public meetings and published ‘An Appeal excited, due allowances for executive difficulties to The People of England’, the first of many pam- are refused & I am fearful lest attempts should be phlets. Repeal groups were quickly formed in made, if the tide continues to rise, to discredit the most cities. The campaigners, a coalition of ‘trade Commission altogether.’37

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 9 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

Although the LNA regarded the commis- sion as a trap, opponents of the legislation were encouraged to suggest questions and witnesses. It finally began taking evidence in January 1871. The eighty-three witnesses included the police, doctors and military men who implemented the Acts, representatives from rescue missions, John Stuart Mill and Josephine Butler, pitching admin- istrative expertise against moral outrage. Despite feeling like ‘Paul before Nero, very weak and lonely’,38 Mrs Butler stated her position unequiv- ocally: ‘We know that to protect vice in men is not according to the Word of God … We shall never rest until this system is banished from our shores’.39 Mill treated the commission to a philo- sophical discussion. The royal commission disappointed any hopes of creating consensus. In May, Gladstone refused to meet a deputation before it reported but, finally, on 17 July 1871, announcing the imminent publication, Bruce revealed that:

Two-thirds of the Members were in favour of qualified compulsory application of the Acts, one-third – or rather, seven – were in favour of strengthening rather than weakening the Acts; six were in favour of repealing all compulsory legislation, and all were in favour of further legislation, with a view of modifying the law to make it applicable to the whole country.40

It was too late in the session, he concluded, for the government to introduce a bill. The report had been on the cabinet agenda for 1 and 5 July 1871 but postponed. When it was finally considered on 8 July, Gladstone noted ‘Contagious Diseases Act report: signed by 23. Allowances(?) of dissent. In the cabinet – for now repealing the later acts & revising the Act of (18)64 – no one.’41 The cabi- net were unconvinced by the commission’s main recommendation. While at Hatfield the following weekend, Gladstone wrote a memorandum exploring alter- native measures such as strengthening the current ‘repressive’ but effective law on brothels in prefer- ence to the Contagious Diseases Act or, ever the economical chancellor, deducting pay from sol- diers or sailors suffering venereal disease or even adopting ‘what I understand to be the French sys- tem, namely that the vice shall be self-supporting: that the cost of dealing with those who have ill fortune in its practice shall be borne by the mass of those who practice it.’42 Importantly, in the same memo, he con- ceded the moral case: ‘The Acts do not merely fail to corroborate or enforce the existing law: they operate against it; as they tend to establish a class of approved brothels, subsisting under a kind of concordat with public authority, hardly open to any possibility of being put down, and likely to grow, as the French brothels tend to grow, into a vested interest.’43 Over the sum- mer he continued to reflect on the Acts, reading

10 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

From top: Josephine Butler’s address to the LNA, Sursum mainly to a monstrous system of perversion and ‘Voluntary’ inspection Corda.44 exaggeration’.48 under the Contagious Towards the end of September, Gladstone MPs among the repealers argued that ‘the Disease Acts received a letter from Henry Manning, the good that was in the bill must be secured’ and Josephine Butler Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, seeking a used as a ‘lever for obtaining still more’.49 How- (1828–1906) discussion on ‘two social not political subjects’ ever, Bruce’s outburst and the residual detention Poster advertising – education and the Contagious Diseases Act powers led Mrs Butler to the opposite conclusion. a meeting to be where Manning was ‘on broad social, and ethi- ‘Satan might sometimes deceive us, but not when addressed by cal grounds very decidedly against the Act’. In his he hid his cloven hoof so clumsily’,50 ‘I and my Josephine Butler, response from Balmoral, Gladstone concedes the ladies will not in any way countenance Bruce’s Pontefract, 1872 feminist case against the acts: Bill’. 51 Although initially in the minority, Mrs Butler’s intransigence eventually held sway. On … with regard to the Cont[agious] Di[seases] the opposing side, ‘over 2000 doctors … signed Act, you will certainly have no adverse preju- a memorial in favour of the acts now in force.’52 dices on my part. They exist, & the exact mode A deputation of three peers and 147 MPs of both & time of dealing with them are matters of parties, led by Trelawny, encouraged Bruce to considerat[io]n. But I cannot say I regard them preserve the Acts.53 with much favour at any point. In part, I hate When, in July, Gladstone abandoned the bill, and nothing less, this new and flagrant use of there was little surprise but he had lost the best unequal dealing as between men and women. chance of a quick solution. Gladstone gave his Let this be very private. I write to you as an old verdict when he sought Bright’s help for Charles friend.’45 Lyttleton in the 1874 general election: ‘I do not believe him to be an Advocate of the Act: but the party opposed to them refused our Bill of 1871(or 2) which gave them nearly all they asked but A most signal example of bigotry which withheld a little modicum. It was a most sig- The cabinet contemplated the ‘exact mode & time nal example of bigotry on their part’.54 of dealing’ with the commission report the fol- lowing month. On 27 October, Bruce was asked to propose a plan. At this stage ‘Cabinet nearly all She must win her way prepared to give up all compulsory exam[inatio] When approached by yet another deputation in n’. A week later they considered ‘provisions to the late autumn of 1872, the baffled cabinet con- be made if and when Compulsory Examination sidered reintroducing their bill but as Gladstone given up. Proposed and discussed.’ Just before noted ‘Sub(ject) postponed – we are not ready to Christmas, a decision was reached: ‘Ripon [Lord decide the matter yet – Mr Bruce to give a dila- President of the Council] proposed to maintain tory answer to his deputation on Thursday’.55 Just the Acts. Determined: to repeal the Acts. New before Christmas, Gladstone headed north for the provisions considered.’ prize-giving at Liverpool College, where George Following the cabinet meeting of 30 January Butler was Head, and where he met Mrs Butler, 1872, Gladstone advised the chief whip that Bruce possibly, for the first time.56 would introduce a bill on 13 February, four days At the time, Gladstone recorded ‘At 12.15 I after the secret ballot bill, but it was not until the delivered my Address which lasted an hour as I beginning of February ‘that Provision as to deten- meant. The prizes, divers speeches and the lun- tion (was) considered’ and ‘Disposed of.’46 cheon afterwards. 2,700 persons present.’57 Since The bill contained Gladstone’s ‘repressive’ ele- the Tory governors of the school would not pro- ments but not his plan to make sin pay its costs. vide lunch for the Gladstones, the Butlers obliged. It strengthened the law against solicitation, pro- Josephine sought value for their money. As Glad- vided penalties for keeping ‘bawdy houses’, raised stone later recalled, ‘she through Mr , the age of consent to 14 and toughened the law on then my colleague, asked leave to converse with procuring and assault. It proposed ending com- me on the Acts. I begged to be excused. But at the pulsory examination, but extending enforced entertainment which followed the function, I sat hospital detention across the country.47 by her for the best part of two hours, and passed Bruce argued the choice lay between repeal- the bulk of the time in conversation with her. She ers, ‘who, however unreasonable their oppo- never came near the forbidden ground’.58 After- sition might have been, were backed by many wards he noted in his diary: ‘But I am not sure persons of calm and serious habits of thought’ that ever during my life I was so impressed, in a or ‘by far the largest part of the medical, naval, single conversation, with the fine mind, and the and military profession’. Destroying any possi- noble, pure, and lofty character of a woman. She bility of consensus he then characterised repeal seemed to me one who wherever she goes, must campaigners as ‘persons entitled to little belief’, win her way and carry all before her.’59 who were ‘impugning the conduct of those’ Her recollection was that ‘she led him as close administering the Acts, making ‘wild and ran- as she possibly could’, ‘but got no encouragement dom charges’, adding ‘that the agitation was due from Gladstone to go further’ and so she ‘seized

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 11 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

With what must upon related subjects, such as marriage, domes- Liberal, divided the House on a repeal bill. The tic life … Christ’s law of purity as binding on all.’ number of opponents had increased to 310 but have been consid- ‘He seemed struck, and took fire, as it were when I repealers had dropped only two to 128. Disraeli’s spoke. Indeed he would have become so absorbed, opposition confirmed that little could be expected erable restraint, that the guests, I saw, were wondering, and for from the Conservatives. The Liberal ex-Service decency’s sake I twice turned the other way and ministers Hartington and Goschen continued Gladstone talked to the Tory mayor on my other side.’ At to support regulation, but Childers joined for- recorded in his the end of the meal, Gladstone proposed a toast mer ministerial colleagues Stansfeld, Bright and thanking the Butlers. Grabbing the opportunity, Forster in opposition. In voting against the acts, diary for 10 May George Butler responded ‘that it was not merely Gladstone and his eldest son signalled their public as his wife but as his companion in efforts for conversion, boosting repeal morale.68 1874, ‘Read Mrs social reform that he felt thankful & proud to be thus publicly mentioned together with’ Josephine Butler’s remark- by the premier. The stunned silence of the gov- Malsano ernors was broken by Gladstone’s shouted ‘hear, Gladstone’s next, inadvertent, contribution to able pamphlet.’ hear’.60 abolition came when he replaced Stansfeld, as a Some Thoughts on representative Radical in his 1880 government, with Chamberlain. That omission freed Stans- the Present Aspect A silent vote feld to apply his ministerial skills to leading the The failure of Bruce’s bill spurred on the repeal parliamentary repeal campaign, a role labelled by of the Crusade campaign. In 1873 over 250 public meetings were the Sheffield Independent as ‘a hobby too nasty to be held.61 Growing Liberal divisions were exposed touched’.69 Against the State when, in May, Fowler tabled another bill to over- Although the new Liberal government avoided turn the Acts. On 17 May, Gladstone recorded fresh initiatives, its supporters would not permit Regulation of Vice that the cabinet would treat repeal as an open the debate to remain unresolved. Consequently, question. More Liberal MPs voted for repeal in May 1880, Gladstone reappointed a Contagious powerfully urged than against,62 but Fowler lost 130 to 253 over- Diseases select committee, whose government Christians to all. 63 Three cabinet ministers voted for repeal, nominee stalled its report until the summer of five voted to retain the acts, including Bruce, 1882, giving the administration the pretext not organise against Cardwell, at the War Office, and Goschen, at the to debate Stansfeld’s private member’s bill or to Admiralty, three abstained including Gladstone.64 produce its own measure that session. Neverthe- the Acts in every With what must have been considerable less, Stansfeld took the opportunity to remind restraint, Gladstone recorded in his diary for 10 Gladstone and Childers of their support in 1875: constituency. May 1874, ‘Read Mrs Butler’s remarkable pam- ‘I interpret the votes given by the Prime Minister phlet.’65 Some Thoughts on the Present Aspect of the and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State Crusade Against the State Regulation of Vice power- for War as nothing else than an admission that fully urged Christians to organise against the Acts “we cannot stand where we are”.’ Responding for in every constituency, but its opening paragraph the government, Childers preserved their flexibil- proclaimed: ity ‘to decide as we may think fit, after consider- ing that Report and the evidence’.70 Though when A retrospect of the last four years’ work, and Gladstone considered the issue in January 1883, he its effect upon the late general election, cannot cryptically noted ‘Conclave on Contagious Dis- fail to be encouraging. In spite of the sudden- eases Act: Malsano’ – ‘in an unhealthy state’.71 ness of the dissolution, which took us all by sur- Stansfeld concluded that the select committee prise, and gave us no time to increase or organize had undermined the medical case for the Acts and our agencies, our question played a much more thus ‘the neck of this iniquity is broken’ and that prominent part in that general election than ‘it is comparatively child’s play to deal with the most of us had anticipated or dared to hope.66 moral and religious evidence, because they can- not possibly fight us upon that ground’. Simulta- The election had produced the first Conserva- neously, Hartington was writing to Lord Ripon tive majority since 1846, put Disraeli into power that the report ‘evidently points to a future exten- and Gladstone onto the backbenches. Mrs But- sion in the United Kingdom of the Acts in the ler’s later Reminiscences were more downbeat: ‘The direction of increased protection of the civil pop- year 1874 was a period of great depression and ulation …’.72 discouragement for our cause … Our faithful par- A resolution that ‘this House disapproves of liamentary leader, Mr W Fowler, lost his seat in the compulsory examination of women under the the General election … Several of our best friends Contagious Diseases Acts’, was crowded out in in the House also failed to secure their return to February 1883 by the Kilmainham Treaty but was Parliament.’67 With repeal indefinitely postponed, submitted again by Stansfeld in April. Lord Derby Mrs Butler took her campaign to the continent, captured the flavour of the cabinet’s reaction: the heart of state regulated prostitution. Opinion in the new House was tested in 1875 Talk of the C.D. Acts, which are to be an open when Harcourt Johnstone, an undistinguished question: Chamberlain violent against them,

12 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

Gladstone doubtful, Harcourt strongly for. the government considered the Acts discretion- Comic confusion caused by Carlingford being ary and that, following Stansfeld’s resolution, suddenly appealed to: he had not been listening, it believed the Commons would refuse to pay thought the C.D. Acts relating to animals were for enforcement.79 Hartington introduced a bill concerned, & began to talk about slaughtering at abolishing compulsory inspection but preserv- the port of landing, & importation being forbid- ing powers for detaining infected prostitutes. den. A general laugh followed, which I noticed Once again this aroused suspicions among repeal- left the Premier very grave.73 ers and like Bruce’s bill it was withdrawn. Glad- stone’s second government fell in 1885 with the Gladstone’s own diary was rather more laconic: Acts still in limbo but with the climate irrevoca- ‘2 pm Cabinet: 1. Contagious Diseases – Open bly changed by Stansfeld’s resolution and W. T. Question? Yes. R. Grosvenor to make this Stead’s sensational exposure of trafficking in chil- known. Wait issue of debate for further consider- dren headlined ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern ation. Minimise over intervention in the debate.’74 Babylon’.80 The repealers stepped up their lobbying. On 17 The Contagious Diseases Acts died as quietly April, Derby noted that: as they were born, a by-product of the 1886 home rule crisis. On 12 March 1886, the new Secretary At 3.00 Stansfeld brought with him a deputation of State for War, Campbell Bannerman, urged on the Contagious Diseases Acts, which swelled colleagues that ‘In the interests of the Health of from a small number to more than 100: Sir W the Army and the moral conditions of the garri- Lawson, Smith, the new member for Liver- son towns, it is most desirable that the Acts should pool, Dean Butler, & other known names being be repealed.’81 On 16 March, Stansfeld introduced among them … Stansfeld told me privately that a repeal resolution. Gladstone fended off a Con- he knew he would be beaten in the House, but servative amendment obliging the government he thought a strong agitation would spring up in to provide hospitals by defending the existing The Contagious the country.75 permissive regime. 82 His majority of 114 cleared Diseases Acts the way for a new bill which received the Royal On 20 April, as Josephine Butler reported to her Assent on 16 April. In Britain, the Acts were no died as quietly as sister: more. Throughout the debates, the two sides kept up they were born, It was a long debate, the tone of the speeches a contradictory barrage of statistics on the effec- both for and against, was remarkably purified tiveness of the Acts and neither conceded the a by-product of and with one exception they were altogether on case. Infection rates declined in both regulated a higher plane than in former debates. Many of and non-regulated areas but wider improvements the 1886 home us ladies sat through the whole evening till after in hygiene, changing conditions of military ser- midnight; then came the division … When Mr. vice and alternative employment opportunities rule crisis. On 12 Cavendish Bentinck was speaking against us I for women complicate any explanation. More March 1886, the noticed an expression of pain on Mr. Gladstone’s importantly, the medical profession was overcon- face. He seemed to be pretending to read a let- fident about the effectiveness of available treat- new Secretary ter, but at last passed his hand over his eyes and ments. The primary focus was on syphilis but left the House. He returned before Mr. Stans- the infectiousness of its secondary stage was not of State for War, feld made his noble speech, to which he listened fully recognised. The severity of gonorrhoea was attentively.76 underestimated. The bacterium causing syphilis Campbell Ban- was not identified until 1905 and the first proven Gladstone attended parts of the debate but left cure, the arsenic-based Salvarsan, was discovered nerman, urged at half past eleven, having ‘paired for Mr Stans- in 1910. Penicillin, an effective antibiotic discov- feld’.77 Stansfeld’s prediction proved wrong. His ered by Fleming in 1928, was not widely utilised colleagues that resolution was carried by 184 to 112. until the Second World War. ‘In the interests The resolution created rather than solved prob- lems because, as Hartington confirmed in the of the Health of debate, its passing did not change the law. The Kicked into it? cabinet needed to find a fix. On Saturday 21 April, When Stansfeld spoke to his resolution on 16 the Army and the Gladstone noted, ‘Agreed we must move. H[ar- March, he complained, ‘17 weary years had tington]n to ans[wer] on Monday that we have passed, in which many hundreds of persons, both moral conditions taken res[olution] into imm[ediate] cons[ider- men and women, had spent their time, some ation] & will in due time announce result’. A week their lives, and some had broken their hearts, in of the garrison later the cabinet met again. ‘Hartington men- the endeavour to get these Acts repealed’.83 An tioned the conclusions as to Contagious Diseases alternative perspective is that under assault from towns, it is most Act. They were approved: Metropol[itan] Police well-organised campaigners, from a substantial desirable that the withdrawn.’78 The Acts were no longer enforced minority within their own party and with their but the hospitals continued treatment. own ranks divided, Gladstone and his govern- Acts should be Inevitably, the statutes’ defenders reacted ments had delayed for seventeen years the over- strongly, obliging Gladstone to explain that throw of a policy which, their experts believed, repealed.’

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 13 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

In his memoir preserved the health of the country’s defence tempered, for Gladstone, by the necessity of com- forces. promising a ‘little modicum’ for practical reasons. of his grand- The weapons ministers used then would still When Mrs Butler acknowledged the need to com- be recognised by politicians today. Postponement promise a little modicum – accepting that: mother, A. S. G. is so common that the cliché used to describe it Butler suggests has been shortened to a verb – awkward issues In a matter of Parliamentary policy I should are ‘long-grassed’. Gladstone had no such inele- prefer to be guided by our leader, Mr. Stansfeld, that Josephine gant jargon but inertia and prevarication through who certainly proved himself worthy of all con- royal commissions and select committees served fidence; and I should prefer to act so as not to believed ‘that the purpose. Then as now, time created opportu- discourage by any needless hostility, those mem- nities to build consensus or, where that failed, to bers of the Government who may be coming to Gladstone could provide evidence to defend the status quo. Delay our side, although slowly it may …’ also purchased the opportunity for compromise. never see a ques- Bruce’s and Hartington’s bills were realistic offers – repeal became possible. 88 of worthwhile concession. These techniques are Gladstone never became ‘a propagandist’ of tion rightly until not heroic but they are frequently effective and repeal in the cabinet but, just as he had fostered he was kicked into were used in Gladstonian governments more and facilitated the birth of the Contagious Dis- often than historians notice. eases Acts, his known sympathies and cautious, it.’ This tells more Then as now it helps to brand activists as patient management facilitated their painless extremists, as when Bruce characterised repeal demise. about Mrs Butler’s propaganda as a ‘monstrous system of perversion and exaggeration’. The prominence and leader- Tony Little is Chair of the Liberal Democrat History uncompromising ship of women in the repeal movement was itself Group and a regular contributor, mainly on Victorian shocking but the shock was doubled when com- Liberal topics. An earlier version of this article was given persistence than bined with the ‘nauseous’, ‘noisome’ nature of the as a paper at the Gladstone Umbrella in Gladstone’s legislation84 and the fanaticism of the social pur- Library, Hawarden. Gladstone. ists attracted by the campaign. In his memoir of his grandmother, A. S. G. 1 T. A. Jenkins (ed.), The Parliamentary Diaries of Sir John Butler suggests that Josephine believed ‘that Trelawny, 1858–1865, Camden Fourth Series vol. 40 Gladstone could never see a question rightly until (Royal Historical Society, 1990), p. 276. Abbreviations he was kicked into it.’85 This tells more about Mrs have been expanded. Butler’s uncompromising persistence than Glad- 2 Henry Brand. stone. Gladstone started as a convinced proponent 3 Clarence Paget, First Secretary of the Admiralty. of regulation but one who reassessed his position 4 Jenkins, Diaries of Sir John Trelawny, p. 280. in reaction to new evidence. After his 1872 visit to 5 Ibid., p. 302. Liverpool, Gladstone explained to Stansfeld why 6 Derived from William Acton, Prostitution (Macgibbon he had made the Acts forbidden ground: ‘There & Kee, 1968, originally published 1857), p. 232, and J. L. is no use in an arrangement by which a leader of Hammond and Barbara Hammond, James Stansfeld: A any movement warmly presses his views on any Victorian Champion of Sex Equality (Longmans Green & member of the government, who is already well Co., 1932), pp. 121–2. The designated towns were: disposed towards that movement, unless he can, 1864: Aldershot, Chatham, Colchester, Plymouth, Ports- which I cannot, become a propagandist of it in the mouth, Sheerness, Shorncliffe, Woolwich Cork, The Cabinet.’86 Gladstone remained ‘well disposed’ Curragh, Queenstown despite the kicking given to Bruce’s bill rather 1866: Windsor than because of it. When he publicly revealed his 1869: Canterbury, Dover, Gravesend, Maidstone, South- support for repealing the Acts, in 1875, Gladstone ampton, Winchester was out office, not expecting future office and 7 Paul McHugh, Prostitution and Victorian Social Reform certainly not under pressure. (Croom Helm, 1980), p. 235; table 9.1 refers to the divi- After the royal commission was announced, sion on 24 May 1870. Stansfeld wrote to The Times that: 8 Richard Shannon, Gladstone Heroic Minister 1865–1898 (Allen Lane, 1999). Given Shannon’s often critical and Mr. Gladstone authorizes me to add the expres- exasperated assessment of Gladstone, I wonder whether sion of his own personal opinion that it is by the his intention was ironic. ascertained moral tendency of this exceptional 9 See H. C. G. Matthew, Gladstone 1809–1874 (OUP, 1986) legislation that it ought ultimately to be judged. p. 89ff. If the Acts can be shown to be in the words of 10 Cited in Judith Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Soci- your resolution, ‘immoral in their principles and ety: Women Class and the State (CUP, 1980), p. 74. tendency,’ no supposed physical advantages con- 11 Ibid., pp. 49, 75. sequent upon their operation can justify their 12 Ibid., pp. 75–6. Only approximately 7% of soldiers were continuance, and they must be repealed.87 allowed to marry (see Acton, Prostitution, p. 125). 13 Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 147, c. 854 (31 Jul. Gladstone and Mrs Butler shared a moral and 1857). feminist understanding of the legislation, but 14 Cecil Woodham Smith, Florence Nightingale (Reprint

14 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts

Society, 1952), p. 315. 12,841 to Q. 13,115 on 18 Mar. 1871. edu/vwwp/view?docId=VAB7174&doc. 15 Add Ms 44752, f263. Printed in H. C. G. Mat- 40 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 2 May 1871; Han- view=print. thew (ed.), The Gladstone Diaries, vol. 6, 1861– sard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 207, cc. 1886–7 67 Butler, Personal Reminiscences, p. 55. Jacob 1868 (OUP, 1978), p. 183. Henceforth diary (17 Jul. 1871). Bright, another leading repealer, also lost his references are given as date of entry. 41 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 1 Jul. 1871, 5 Jul. seat. 16 Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 182, cc. 1871, 8 Jul. 1871. 68 The Times, 25 Jun. 1875, p. 8. 814–6 (22 Mar. 1866). 42 Ibid., 15 Jul. 1871. 69 Hammond and Hammond, James Stansfeld, p. 17 Trevor Fisher, Scandal: The Sexual Politics of 43 Ibid. 189. Late Victorian Britain (Alan Sutton Publishing, 44 Ibid., 12 Aug. 1871. 70 Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 272, cc. 1995), p. 21. 45 Peter C. Erb (ed.), The Correspondence of Henry 1027–30 (19 Jul. 1882). 18 Acton, Prostitution, p. 27. Edward Manning and 71 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 9 Jan. 1883. 19 Josephine E. Butler, Personal Remi- 1861–1875, vol. iii (OUP, 2013), pp. 276, 277. 72 Hammond and Hammond, James Stansfeld, nisces of a Great Campaign (Horace Mar- Manning to Gladstone, 25 Sep. 1871; Glad- pp. 225, 228. shall & Son, 1910), p. 5, accessed on stone’s response, 27 Sep. 1871. 73 John Vincent (ed.), The Diaries of Edward 11/6/2013 at http://archive.org/stream/ 46 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 27 Oct. 1871, 3 Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (1826–93) personalreminisc00butliala#page/n3/ Nov. 1871, 19 Dec. 1871, 30 Jan. 1872; Memo between 1878 and 1893 (Leopard’s Head Press, mode/2up. to Glyn, Add MS 44541, f. 61, 3 Feb. 1872. 2003), p. 532. 20 Gladstone Diaries, 25 Jul. 1868 47 Hammond and Hammond, James Stansfeld, 74 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 14 Apr. 1883. 21 Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 194, c. 303 pp. 167–8. Contagious diseases (animals) were item seven (25 Feb. 1869). 48 Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 209, cc. on the agenda. The cabinet decided against 22 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 24 Apr. 1869; 330–46 (13 Feb. 1872). prohibiting the importation of live animals. Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 196, cc. 49 C. Hopwood, as quoted in Hammond and 75 John Vincent, Derby Diaries, p. 533. Dean 808–9 (13 May 1869). Hammond, James Stansfeld, p. 173. Butler was Josephine’s husband. 23 Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, 50 Hammond and Hammond, James Stansfeld, p. 76 Butler, Autobiographical Memoir, pp. 134–6. pp. 86, 92. 171. Hansard records Stansfeld speaking before 24 Daily News, 31 Dec. 1869. 51 Josephine Butler to Mrs Wilson, Women’s Cavendish Bentinck. 25 See Keith Thomas, ‘The Double Standard’, Library 3JBL/04/05, c.1 Mar. 1872. 77 Butler, Autobiographical Memoir, p. 135; Mat- Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 20, no. 2, 52 T. A. Jenkins (ed.), The Parliamentary Diaries thew, Gladstone Diaries, 20 Apr. 1883. April 1959, pp. 195–216. of Sir John Trelawny, 1868–73, Camden Fifth 78 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 21 Apr. 1883, 28 26 Jane Jordan, Josephine Butler (John Murray, Series vol. 3 (Royal Historical Society, 1994), Apr. 1883. 2001), p. 109; Josephine E. Butler, An Autobi- p. 455, diary entry for 23 Mar. 1872. 79 Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 279, cc. ographical Memoir (J. Arrowsmith Ltd., 3rd edn, 53 The Times, 13 May 1872. 52–75 (7 May 1883). 1928), p. 69. 54 Letter to J. Bright, 8 Feb. 1874; Matthew, 80 See, for example, Fisher, Scandal, ch. 3–4. 27 Eugenio Biagini, Liberty Retrenchment and Gladstone Diaries, 5 Feb. 1874. Lyttleton lost in 81 J. A. Spender, The Life of Reform (CUP, 1992), p. 160. Worcestershire East. Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman GCB, vol. i 28 Fisher, Scandal, pp. 25–7; Butler, Personal 55 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 26 Nov. 1872. (Hodder & Stoughton, 2 vols., 1923), p. 105. Reminisces, p. 262; Walkowitz, Prostitution and 56 In George Butler’s Dictionary of National 82 Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 303, cc. Victorian Society, p. 151ff. Biography entry, H. C. G. Matthew claimed 981–98 (16 Mar. 1886). 29 Agatha Ram (ed.), The Political Correspondence ‘The Butlers met W. E. Gladstone at Exeter 83 Ibid. of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville 1868–1876, College in 1853, and played some part in the 84 C. Newdegate MP, Hansard, Parl. Debs. Camden Third Series vol. 1 (Royal Historical movement to reform the university’ (accessed (series 3), vol. 201, cc. 1343–5 (24 May 1870). Society, 1952), p. 45. at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/ 85 A. S. G. Butler, Portrait of Josephine Butler 30 He also succeeded Eyre as governor of article/4184?docPos=31 on 17/6/2013) but (Faber & Faber, 1953), p. 99. Jamaica following Eyre’s brutal suppression of writing to Dean Wellesley, Gladstone claimed 86 Hammond and Hammond, James Stansfeld, p. the Morant Bay rebellion, before returning to ‘I never saw her before or since’ (Matthew, 179. the War Office. Gladstone Diaries, 26 Jun. 1882). 87 The Times, 25 Jul. 1871, p. 11; Letter to 31 Fisher, Scandal, p. 23. 57 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 21 Dec. 1872. Edward Crossley concerning resolutions 32 The Times, 1 Apr. 1870, p. 12. 58 Letter to Dean Wellesley, Matthew, Gladstone passed in the Mechanics Hall. 33 Anthony Mundella in the debate on 24 May. Diaries, 26 Jun. 1882. 88 Hammond and Hammond, James Stansfeld, 34 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 21 May 1870. 59 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 26 Jun. 1882. pp. 238–9. 35 The Times, 27 May 1870, p. 9. 60 Jordan, Josephine Butler, pp. 142–3, using a let- 36 Hansard, Parl. Debs. (series 3), vol. 201, cc. ter from Mrs Butler to Henry Wilson of 23 1304–48 (24 May 1870). Dec. 1872. 37 Letter to H. A. Bruce dated 3 Dec. 1870 from 61 Butler, Autobiographical Memoir, p. 93. the MSS printed in Matthew, Glad- 62 McHugh, Prostitution and Victorian Social stone Diaries, 3 Dec. 1870. Reform, Table 9.1, p. 235. 38 Josephine E. Butler, Recollections of George 63 Including tellers. Butler (J. W. Arrowsmith, 1892), p. 234, 64 The Times, 23 May 1873. accessed on 14/6/2013 at http://archive.org/ 65 Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 10 May 1872. stream/recollectionsofg00butluoft#page/n5/ 66 Josephine E. Butler, Some Thoughts on the mode/2up. Present Aspect of the Crusade Against the State 39 Parliamentary Papers 1871 XIX, answer to Regulation of Vice (T. Brakell, 1874), accessed Q. 12,932. Mrs Butler’s evidence was from Q. on 18/6/2013 at http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 15 Biography Dr J. Graham Jones examines the life and political career of Geraint Howells, the Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd (1925–2004) Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd

16 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd

eraint Wyn Howells, later the Lord well-known Manchester-based meat wholesalers Geraint of Ponterwyd (1925–2004), was Wilkinson and Stanier. He was renowned for his Gborn on 15 April 1925, the son of David large flock of Speckled Face sheep. As president of John and Mary Blodwen Howells (née Davies), the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, he proudly of Brynglas, Ponterwyd, Cardiganshire, on the welcomed Queen Elizabeth II to the Society’s slopes of the Pumlumon mountains, where his annual show at Builth on 22 July 1983. family had been Welsh-speaking farmers for The fact that he came from modest, local farm- seven generations. His background and upbring- ing stock automatically ensured for Geraint How- ing were modest and simple, bordering on pov- ells a warm and affectionate place in the hearts of erty. He was educated at Ponterwyd Primary the people of Cardiganshire: ‘I remember farming School, where his strict headmaster was the father 250 acres on my father’s farm when the net takings of Gareth Williams, the future Labour minis- were only £60, and we were paying farm work- ter Lord Williams of ,1 and then at Ard- ers £5 a year’.3 At a relatively young age, How- wyn Grammar School, , before he ells first entered political life as an independent returned to farm full-time with his father. Ger- councillor on the Cardiganshire County Coun- aint Howells and his parents always used Welsh cil in 1962 – at this time it was normal practice in as their first language, and they were closely Welsh rural counties for Liberal members to stand involved in the vibrant cultural life of the small as independents – and he soon became very well village. David John Howells served as secretary of known and respected throughout the county, the Ponterwyd , and his son was proud especially within its substantial farming commu- of the fact that he also later served as its secretary nity. His heartfelt adherence to the Liberal Party right through from 1944 until 2001. was an amalgam of the party’s strong following Geraint Howells earned his living as a hill and traditional power base in the county since farmer at Glennydd, Ponterwyd in Cardigan- the late nineteenth century, the political loyalties shire, a substantial holding of some 750 acres, of his family, and his own reading and personal where he kept about 3,000 sheep, many of them convictions. After , the Liberal The fact that he prize-winning Speckled Faces, and where he MP for the county ever since 1945 and a promi- boasted that he planted five acres of trees each nent south barrister, had lost Cardiganshire came from mod- year. Howells proved to be a very successful in the general election of 1966, he had no wish to est, local farming farmer despite working in the difficult terrain return to political life thereafter.4 And Geraint of the Welsh hills. In his youth, he was a cham- Howells, by then quite a prominent public figure stock automati- pion sheep-shearer. He enlarged considerably the in the county, stood in the ensuing selection con- original holding, which he had inherited from his test to become the next Liberal candidate for Car- cally ensured for father, and he became a substantial figure in the diganshire. Although well known and personally Welsh woollen industry, serving as member for popular, he received no more than four votes at Geraint Howells a Wales on the British Wool Marketing Board from the selection meeting as the local Liberal execu- 1966 to 1987, and as its vice-chairman from 1971 tive, claimed Howells himself, was packed with warm and affec- to 1983. He was also the chairman of Wool Pro- the relatives and personal friends of Huw Lloyd ducers of Wales Ltd from 1977 to 1987. At one Lib- Williams, a native of Tregaron and the product tionate place eral Party Assembly in , probably the of local farming stock. Howells attempted, too, in the hearts of 1981 Assembly, Geraint Howells expertly caught at this time to gain the Liberal nomination for the a sheep which had escaped from its field and came neighbouring constituency of Merionydd – ‘Once the people of running down a hillside towards a road!2 From again I lost. This was a real pity as I felt I could 1966 to 1983 he was the managing director of the have won that seat back for the Liberals. Instead Cardiganshire.

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 17 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd they chose J. E. Thomas who put us into third to rebuild the county as a Liberal stronghold, and position behind the Nationalists [in the 1970 gen- in the 1973 county council elections he persuaded eral election]’.5 several of the old ‘independent’ councillors to Selected there back in 1968, he eventually stand under the formal ‘Liberal’ banner. Nine of stood as the Liberal candidate for the Brecon and these were elected, thus becoming the largest Lib- Radnor division in the June 1970 general election eral block on a local council anywhere in Wales. against the sitting Labour MP Caerwyn Rod- Howells’s personal optimism surged as a result of erick, but he came a poor third in the election, Liberal Party by-election victories at Sutton and after the Labour and Conservative candidates, Cheam and in 1972, ‘The present posi- with just 18.9 per cent of the vote. Howells was tion is that 16 per cent of the electorate – about the first Liberal candidate to contest this seat since six million people – are resolute Liberals. That is the 1950 general election, and party organisation the finding of a recent NOP poll and it represents in the constituency had become almost derelict. the highest percentage since Orpington. Some- In that election campaign he expressed his per- thing between 30 and 40 per cent of the electorate sonal Euro-scepticism, which was striking for a would like to vote Liberal if they thought there member of a pro-European party, through urg- was a chance of success’.11 When the provocative ing a delay in EEC entry. Howells had built up ‘Westgate’ suggested in his widely read Western much goodwill towards the Liberals in the Brecon Mail column in August that both the Cardigan- and Radnor division and he set up the basis of a shire and constituencies might first-class organisation there, which eventually witness an electoral pact between the Liberals and led to the recapture of the seat by the Liberals in , Howells was predictably aghast: ‘I the form of Richard Livsey (later the Lord Livsey wish to point out and emphasise that no such pact of ) in a by-election in June 1985. Dur- has been considered and, contrary to Westgate’s ing this period Howells became one of the central suggestion, no such meeting has been held to dis- players in the . He cam- cuss the possibility. … Not only do we intend to paigned vigorously, mainly in Welsh, in favour of fight these constituencies, we intend to win!’.12 local improvements such as better rural transport, His commitment to the cause of devolution was famously asserting in February 1973 that mem- also unwavering. While the goal of ‘the Nation- bers of the general public should be permitted alists’ was, in his view, ‘a separatist Wales which to make full use of school bus services, and later would take the into the wilderness’, pressing for travel concessions for old age pen- the realistic aim of the Welsh Liberal Party was ‘a sioners in December 1974.6 He had played a major Welsh Parliament [sitting] in within the part, too, in sorting out the numerous problems next few years’.13 brought about by the abject failure of the experi- At the February 1974 general election, captur- ment to have an Aberystwyth-based headquar- ing fully 40 per cent of the popular vote there, ters, so far removed from Cardiff and London Geraint Howells won a rather surprising, but Geraint Howells and thus highly unpopular, for the recently estab- memorable, victory over the sitting Labour MP was clearly highly lished Welsh Liberal Party in 1968–69. He pro- D. Elystan Morgan who had represented the divi- vided stalwart service in collecting and working sion with much distinction since 1966. Howells’s regarded both through all the paperwork at the Aberystwyth election was, it would seem, rather a startling office, personally settling most of the outstand- departure from the well-established practice of within the party ing bills from his own pocket, and making lists sending well-spoken, professional men to repre- of subscribers and council members for the use of sent Welsh constituencies at Westminster. (And in Wales and the party treasurer. As late as April 1970, it was in his background David Penhaligon, the Liberal estimated that the unpaid bills at the former party MP for Truro from 1974 until 1986, also diverged indeed nation- headquarters at Aberystwyth amounted to no less from the familiar pattern.) There were many at than £1,155, the settlement of which caused huge the time who rued Howells’s spectacular suc- ally. Emlyn Hoo- embarrassment and difficulty for the fledgling cess in ousting an obviously rising Labour star son even then Welsh Liberal Party.7 Following these unpleas- who had already held junior ministerial office ant experiences, the Welsh party then resolved to within the Home Office during an all-too-brief regarded him as ‘a move its Welsh headquarters to St Mary Street in parliamentary career. He was widely known and Cardiff.8 generally highly respected. Both men were dis- shrewd observer’ Geraint Howells was clearly highly regarded tinguished old boys of Ardwyn Grammar School, both within the party in Wales and indeed nation- Aberystwyth – although Howells was seven years of political life ally. Emlyn Hooson even then regarded him as older than Morgan. Like Howells, Morgan was a ‘a shrewd observer’ of political life and trends son of the county and a member of a family which and trends and and one who possessed ‘strong feelings’ on many had ‘farmed in the area for 400 years’.14 issues.9 He was then nominated as the Liberal can- Throughout Wales in February 1974, the one who pos- didate for Cardiganshire in 1972, now facing no Liberals had captured their largest share of the sessed ‘strong opponent for the nomination, having ensured that popular vote ever since the general election of the local Liberal executive comprised many of his October 1931.15 Howells’s friend, Emlyn Hooson, feelings’ on many own friends and supporters.10 From the moment the Liberal MP for since 1962, of his selection, he displayed determined tenacity recalled: issues.

18 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd

Geraint Howells Howells had a high reputation among farmers proud Emlyn Hooson commented on his friend’s and he had also shown a sharp business acumen victory at the polls, widely tipped in Liberal cir- had made his building up a very successful sheep- and cat- cles, ‘I am delighted that Cardiganshire is back in tle- dealing business and that he was also by this the Liberal fold. We are coming back as a major maiden speech in time a county councillor in Cardiganshire. The force in Welsh political life’.18 Howells himself, the House of Com- more I saw him the more I thought of him as a fully appreciative of ‘the tremendous enthusiasm possible Liberal candidate for Cardiganshire, throughout the campaign … all the effort and mons on 14 March his native county. Elystan Morgan, the popu- goodwill’, was predictably exuberant and proud, lar Labour Member for Cardiganshire who had hailing the local outcome as ‘a landmark in the 1974 during that ousted Roderick Bowen QC, would be difficult history of Cardiganshire’.19 to defeat, but Geraint Howells could be the man Eight months later, in October 1974, How- part of the debate to do it. For he was a very well-built, handsome ells, who had much impressed his constituents as man with a genial personality, and an attractive an effective, responsive constituency MP in the on the Queen’s and cultured wife and two charming daughters intervening months, held the seat against a fur- all deeply involved in work in the community, ther challenge from Elystan Morgan. At both Speech dealing particularly at his native Ponterwyd. His devo- these general elections, his majority was around with agriculture tion to the welfare of the community there was 2,500 votes. By the following summer Elystan just a foretaste of what he would achieve in Car- Morgan, fully preoccupied with his burgeoning and prices. He diganshire as a whole. I therefore did all I could professional career as a barrister, had resolved that to try to enable him to secure selection as the he had no wish to stand again in Cardiganshire. pointed out to the Liberal candidate for Cardiganshire at the 1970 Plans were laid to receive nominations and select election, which I believe he would have won. a successor Labour candidate for Cardiganshire.20 House that he was However, there was always a strong tendency in In 1979, Howells held the seat by a little over 2,000 rural Wales, possibly particularly in the Liberal votes above the Conservative candidate Emlyn the first MP from Party, to look for parliamentary candidates who Thomas who polled fully 30 per cent of the vote. had achieved academic, legal or other profes- Thomas had actually been the first general sec- Cardiganshire for sional distinction, but had emerged from a sound retary of the Welsh Liberal Party back in 1969, fifty years who Welsh rural background. … From the 1974 gen- based at its Aberystwyth headquarters with a staff eral election onwards, when he was elected MP of just two. Aberystwyth had been chosen as the did not belong to for Cardigan, Howells and I worked particularly location of the party headquarters partly because closely together. Our private discussions were it was the Liberals’ top target seat in Wales at this the legal profes- always conducted in Welsh and it was rarely that time. The failure of the outfit had seen Thomas, we disagreed on any subject.16 previously the secretary of the Farmers’ Union of sion, but that he Wales, lose interest in the cause and later join the In some circles in the county, especially national- Conservatives.21 was immensely ist ones, Elystan Morgan was viewed as a ‘turn- Geraint Howells had made his maiden speech coat’ or ‘traitor’ as he had ‘defected’ from Plaid in the House of Commons on 14 March 1974 dur- proud to be a Cymru in 1965, shortly before capturing the ing that part of the debate on the Queen’s Speech farmer. division the following year, and he had recently dealing with agriculture and prices. He pointed expressed firm opposition to the establishment of out to the House that he was the first MP from the Welsh-medium school Penweddig at Aber- Cardiganshire for fifty years who did not belong ystwyth, a move which Howells had warmly to the legal profession, but that he was immensely endorsed. Indeed the local general election cam- proud to be a farmer. The main theme of the paign degenerated into a decidedly unpleasant speech was his concern for the state of agriculture, affair, with many nasty personal attacks and much but he also spoke for the devolution of power backbiting. The local Labour Party had attempted from London to Wales and on the necessity for to portray Howells unfairly as ‘a bumbling peas- the setting up of a land bank. Howells asserted ant unfit to stand for Parliament’. When illness powerfully that one of the main reasons for the prevented Howells from turning out for a vital implementation of the Kilbrandon Report for the pre-election rally at the Great Hall of the Aber- setting up of a Welsh parliament was its potential ystwyth Arts Centre on the Sunday afternoon authority ‘to establish Welsh government offices preceding the poll, and Winston Roddick had to in mid-Wales. They would attract back some of put in a last-minute appearance to represent him, the ablest people of Cardigan[shire]’.22 He main- Elystan Morgan callously accused his opponent tained these two key themes – agriculture and of ‘being afraid to face him’, enraging the numer- devolution – throughout his political career. As ous Liberal students present who then attempted the debate on devolution gathered momentum to ‘boo’ Morgan off the stage. When Howells in the mid-1970s, Howells was vocal and con- did win through on election night, his victory sistent in his support, reacting vigorously to the speech at the was repeatedly interrupted by Labour Party proposal in the autumn of 1974 that infantile sheep noises which detracted somewhat Scotland should be given a ‘legislative assembly’, from his spectacular victory.17 It was, however, while Wales could make do with a mere ‘execu- the first time the Liberals had regained a Welsh tive assembly’: ‘In Wales we want a legislative seat since the end of the Second World War. A assembly and nothing less. Wales will not accept

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 19 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd

Mr Wilson’s devolution crumbs. We are not the pact throughout the Liberal Party, but they going to accept the role of being second-class citi- were especially numerous and vocal in Wales. zens in Wales’.23 From the very beginning of his Indeed, in January 1978 Welsh Liberals called for parliamentary career, Howells had put down a an end to the arrangement – to be implemented long succession of questions on Welsh issues and long before the calling of a general election.30 affairs.24 Both Geraint Howells and Emlyn Hooson had Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal leader, appointed argued strongly and consistently that the per- Geraint Howells to be the party’s spokesman on petuation of the Lib–Lab pact was sustaining Wales in the House of Commons. When Thorpe interest in devolution and delaying a likely Con- resigned the party leadership two years later, servative victory at the next general election. Howells supported David Steel (rather than John Geraint Howells was also able, during the Pardoe) during his successful campaign to become period of the Lib–Lab pact, to secure recogni- party leader in June 1976. He eagerly applauded tion for the Farmers Union of Wales (the FUW), Steel for his ‘down-to-earth radical approach to formed way back in 1955 to safeguard the interests British politics which comes across to the man of the Welsh farming community, as one of the in the street. Liberals and non-Liberals alike will official unions for government negotiations. On respond to his sincerity of purpose and forthright being given a lift in the ministerial car, he per- style’. 25 Howells was one of four Liberal MPs at suaded John Silkin, the Labour Minister of Agri- this time to come out publicly in support of David culture, to grant official recognition to the FUW Steel’s candidature.26 The membership of the Car- as henceforth an official negotiating partner with diganshire Liberal Association, clearly following the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the lead of their MP, voted by the wide margin and also with the Welsh Office. The FUW thus of forty-four votes to six in favour of Steel, who enjoyed the same status as the far more power- also won substantial majorities among the Liberal ful and numerous National Farmers’ Union (the activists of the Carmarthenshire and NFU), an achievement of which Geraint Howells divisions.27 remained immensely proud throughout his life The following month, to reward him for his and often mentioned even in his old age. When support and in part because there were so few the devolution bills were under consideration at Liberal MPs (which meant that each had to be Westminster in 1977, Howells argued strongly given some area of responsibility really), Steel that the Scotland Bill and the Wales Bill should appointed Geraint Howells to the post of Liberal come to the House of Commons at about the same spokesman on agriculture and Wales. Howells time or otherwise he would not support the gov- supported a bill to prevent farm workers from ernment. In an interview published in the Welsh being ousted from tied cottages, he deplored the periodical Barn, he said that if the government end of the pig subsidy, and he campaigned effec- and MPs of all parties turned against devolu- tively on behalf of small businessmen. He was a tion, then he himself would turn to support Plaid strong supporter of the ‘pact’ between the Lib- Cymru or to another political party in Wales eral Party and the Labour government under – ‘He says that for him the goal of a Welsh par- in 1977–78 because he hoped liament is the most important part of Liberal pol- that the government would pursue a policy of icy’. He had, he insisted, pressed the matter upon devolution, a course which now seemed more David Steel: likely with the consistently pro-devolutionist Michael Foot (MP for Ebbw Vale) as the Leader Whatever happens we must ensure that the two of the House of Commons. Howells also hoped, devolution bills [for Scotland and for Wales] perhaps rather forlornly, that Prime Minister should have their second reading at the same James Callaghan, as the Labour MP for Cardiff time, or within a day of one another. If we were South, would lend his active support to the cause to fail completely to get a parliament for Wales within of devolution. In July Geraint Howells pressed the next ten years, and if I saw the Government and the for a firm deadline on Welsh devolution within members of all parties turning against devolution, then the context of the ‘Lib–Lab’ pact. Initially he I would turn to Plaid Cymru or to another party that insisted that his support for the highly conten- represented Wales. That is the way I would go. But I tious agreement would be wholly conditional do not think that we will fail this time. We must upon the response of the Labour government to get a Parliament for Wales next time round.31 ‘the request for a minister for the self-employed and the setting up of the land bank’.28 How- From top: Indeed, by December 1978, by which time the ells’s fellow Liberal MP (Rochdale) Geraint Howells after Lib–Lab pact had formally come to an end, he was was hostile to the conclusion of any such pact. his re-election in 1987. the only Liberal still voting consistently with the At a Liberal Party meeting to review the Lib– Howells with Richard Labour Party in the House of Commons. Mean- Lab pact after it had been operational for three Livsey (MP for Brecon while, he continued to campaign vigorously on months, David Steel noted, ‘Geraint Howells & Radnor 1985–92 and behalf of Welsh hill farmers and he was fiercely said that the agreement had gone down badly at 1997–2001) opposed to the abolition of the Meat and Live- first in Wales, but was now more popular’.29 In Howells as a member stock Commission. He also served effectively fact, there were many opponents to the idea of of the during his first term in parliament as chairman

20 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd of the Liberal Party’s Committee on Small Busi- nesses and the Self-employed and as a member of the British Agricultural Export Council. Like his fellow Liberal MP from Wales Emlyn Hooson, Montgomeryshire, Geraint Howells campaigned strongly for a ‘Yes’ vote in the ref- erendum of 1 March 1979. Following the abject failure of the devolution proposals in the 1979 referendum, Howells continued to argue for devolution and for measures to support the Welsh language. At the Cardigan Eisteddfod in 1976, he had urged local authorities to give Welsh cul- ture its proper place in the education of every child: ‘We must stand firm to our tradition and our Welshness’. When the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs produced a report on the provi- sion for Welsh language programmes on the new fourth television channel, Geraint Howells and Geraint Morgan, the Conservative MP for Den- bighshire, presented a minority report urging that Welsh language programmes should be increased by five hours a week each year until one channel in Wales was broadcasting entirely in the Welsh language.32 In July 1980, Howells pressed Marga- ret Thatcher, the prime minister, to capitulate to Gwynfor Evans’s starvation threat in relation to the establishment of a Welsh language television channel.33 Indeed, one historian of the Liberal Party in Wales has described Geraint Howells as ‘the Welsh Nationalist Liberal’ MP.34 Interviewed in 2003, Howells himself said, ‘I was a Welsh nationalist and a Liberal as well. There was no need to join Plaid Cymru with those credentials. Liberalism was in my blood and that of my fam- ily. My grandmother was nearly thrown off her farm for voting Liberal in the 1880s by the Con- servative landlord. I never thought of being in any other party’.35 After Emlyn Hooson had lost Montgomery- shire in the May 1979 general election, Howells was left as the sole Liberal MP in the whole of Wales. As David Steel told a party rally at Car- diff in April 1980, ‘The centre ground of politics has not lain so empty for decades. It’s waiting to be occupied, and we’re there in growing strength to do this’.36 Geraint Howells recalled the situa- tion vividly, ‘I was both the leader of the Welsh party and agriculture spokesman. It was very hard: you ended up speaking everywhere. I was glad, therefore, when Alex [Carlile] won Mont- gomeryshire back in 1983. It got even better in 1985 when Richard [Livsey] won Brecon & Rad- nor and there were then three Liberal MPs in Wales’.37 Indeed Howells had made a significant contribution to Livsey’s 1985 by-election victory by travelling to the Brecon and Radnor constit- uency to address public meetings on his behalf, and sternly warning his fellow sheep-farmers there of the likely outcome of a Labour victory at the poll.38 This was also the period which saw a spate of fires at second and holiday homes in parts of rural mid-Wales. Geraint Howells spoke out sensibly:

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 21 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd

The recent spate of arson carried out against Howells’s doubts about the party leadership Beneath his ami- second homes in remote areas must be strongly were confirmed again at the 1987 general election condemned by all Liberals. It is a very sad situ- when only twenty-two Alliance candidates were able and relaxed ation when small, closely knit communities die elected to the House of Commons, now includ- away, when work is scarce, and money in short ing six members of the SDP. Following this elec- exterior, Howells supply. Local people will naturally resent a situ- tion, David Steel called for a merger of the two could be a tough ation where house prices are forced up by people parties, a move which was eventually achieved from prosperous areas, who visit their second on 3 March 1989. A key member of the Liberal fighter when homes for barely one month in a year, and for team responsible for negotiating the merger with the rest leave them empty, while people have to the SDP, Howells fought very hard to guaran- the occasion remain on council house waiting lists sometimes tee the survival of the name ‘Liberal’, knowing for years. I believe that local councils should be the strong feeling about it in Lloyd George’s west demanded. He actively encouraged to buy up available proper- Wales.43 (Indeed, Howells’s favourite seat in the ties within village boundaries, renovate it, and House of Commons tearoom was beneath a por- did not warm at offer it for rent to local inhabitants.39 trait of , and he was outraged when this was later removed in April 1981, pro- all to David Owen, The formation of the Social Democratic Party testing virulently against the move.) During the leader of the (the SDP) in March 1981 had challenged the Lib- protracted merger talks, he was heard to complain eral Party for the centre ground of British poli- bitterly that the former SDPer Bob Maclennan Social Democratic tics. The two parties were then brought together ‘won’t give way on anything’. But, after the tortu- in ‘the Alliance’, a group formed in September ous negotiations had finally reached a successful Party after 1983, 1981 in order to pool their electoral efforts. A tra- conclusion the following month, Geraint How- ditional Liberal, Howells was not at all enthu- ells proclaimed jubilantly at the launch gathering and his long-term siastic about the formation of the Alliance. He of the newly formed party, perhaps tongue-in- believed that his party should concentrate its cheek, ‘We will be in government by the turn of loyalty to David resources within Wales on some nineteen key the century’. 44 seats at the forthcoming general election rather Howells supported , the party’s Steel over many than putting up candidates in all the Welsh con- treasury spokesman and the deputy leader of long years did not stituencies as had happened back in 1979.40 His the old Liberal Party, a Welsh too, as the scepticism in relation to the concept of the Alli- leader of the new party. Indeed, Howells readily prevent him from ance was confirmed at the 1983 general election became Beith’s campaign manager in the party when only six Alliance candidates from the Social leadership contest.45 However, he worked well accusing Steel of Democratic Party were among the twenty-three with Paddy Ashdown, the successful candidate Alliance members returned to parliament. Now for the leadership. Howells was determined to playing second Howells offered the electors of Cardiganshire retain the party’s Liberal traditional identity and ‘an end to the stale old adversarial politics prac- he played a key role in establishing ‘Liberal Dem- fiddle to David tised by the Tory and Labour Parties and … a ocrats’ as its new name. When the new party’s totally new approach based on co-operation and annual conference convened at Blackpool at the Owen. partnership’. 41 It would appear that by this time end of September 1988 voted to adopt the short he was rather more enamoured of the SDP than of ‘The Democrats’, Geraint Howells was previously. one of five MPs who rebelled against the conten- Beneath his amiable and relaxed exterior, tious decision, proclaiming their intention to Howells could be a tough fighter when the occa- ‘operate as a distinct group within the parliamen- sion demanded. He did not warm at all to David tary party, pursuing an independent line although Owen, leader of the Social Democratic Party retaining their front-bench spokesmanships’.46 A after 1983, and his long-term loyalty to David whole year later, the issue was still dividing Welsh Steel over many long years did not prevent him Liberals as party members received ballot papers from accusing Steel of playing second fiddle to on the divisive and contentious subject. How- David Owen.42 His barbed comments were his ells felt so strongly on the matter that he even gut reaction to Steel’s apparent abandonment threatened to resign from the party and ‘form a of the traditional Liberal loyalty to the setting “breakaway” party unless the name “Liberal” is up of a Welsh assembly. In 1985, he complained kept in the title’.47 There was further dissension that ‘David Steel has ratted on us’ in retreating at the same time over a proposal from Dafydd from the Liberal commitment to a Welsh assem- Elis Thomas, the Plaid Cymru president and MP bly, because he was, claimed Geraint Howells, ‘a for Merionydd Nant , to Howells that the puppet in David Owen’s waistcoat pocket’. This two parties might form ‘an electoral pact’ not wounding comment received widespread cur- to fight each other in selected constituencies. As rency at the time. However, the Liberal–SDP both parties now had three MPs apiece in Wales, alliance persevered with Howells, making him the Plaid Cymru national executive was support- spokesman for Wales in its pre-election team in ive of such an agreement, but Howells and other January 1987 (again partly due to the lack of Lib- prominent Welsh Liberals were most reluctant.48 eral MPs); the next month he proclaimed the Alli- Howells was still very much a Euro-sceptic. And ance plan for a Welsh ‘’ (parliament). he continued to campaign on behalf of the Welsh

22 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd

language (he successfully lobbied for a Welsh-lan- Planet. It’s an opportunity not to be missed’.50 If guage guidebook to the House of Commons) and Geraint Howells was rejected in 1992 by the elec- a parliament for Wales. He was also a member of torate, it was in part because heart trouble had the National Eisteddfod’s Gorsedd of Bards and slowed him down, though he later benefited from a past President of the Royal Welsh Agricultural a triple by-pass operation. Afflicted by arthritis Show. He gladly became a deacon at Ponterwyd in the knee from an old football injury and suf- Calvinistic Methodist chapel. fering from severe angina, Howells had slowed Geraint Howells also had an avid interest in down conspicuously during his last term in the third world politics and he denounced the intro- House of Commons, and, for the April 1992 gen- duction of milk quotas in 1983 as a major political eral election campaign, he participated in too few blunder, arguing that the surpluses should be used public meetings in his enlarged and to help the starving millions in the third world.49 North Pembroke constituency. Widespread local He remained highly sceptical about the Euro- rumours that Howells was by now seriously ill pean Union and he fought the European proposals and conjecture that he was, as a result, neglect- that would have crippled British sheep farmers. ing his constituency work had helped to unseat Howells was at his best in December 1991, when, him. Interviewed in 2003, he openly admitted, as agriculture spokesman appointed by Liberal ‘I knew I had lost my seat because my campaign Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, he fought pro- team was weak. They thought that they’d won, posals by EC agriculture commissioner Ray Mac- but I knew that in my heart that this wasn’t going Sharry that would have crippled sheep farmers in to be the case. Everyone seemed convinced we’d In the House of the less-favoured areas of Wales, Scotland, North- won except me. (Plaid Cymru) was umberland and the Borders. From 1987 to 1992, able to more than double his vote from the previ- Lords, as previ- Howells had served as a member of the Speaker’s ous election. My key supporters who had won the Panel (responsible for chairing public bill commit- seat for me in 1974 had by then died off. The seat is ously within the tees and other general committees), and early in winnable again for us though. Mark Williams has Commons, How- 1992 he led a deputation to Brussels to discuss the brought the vote back up; we’ll get the seat back problems of Welsh farmers with the Agricultural again’.51 The outcome was one of the shock results ells was never Commissioner there. Some months later, during of the 1992 general election. the debate on the Maastricht Treaty in November Howells was then made a life peer in the disso- over-anxious to 1992, he, by now in the House of Lords, opposed lution honours list published on 6 June 1992 and, Paddy Ashdown’s policy of voting with the gov- remembering his loyalty to his native village, he speak in debates, ernment and he wrote to all Liberal Democrat took the title of Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd in the MPs, urging them to vote with the Labour Party County of . The highly popular move to and he kept to his or else to abstain. the Lords – warmly applauded both in the con- By the time of the 1987 general election, the stituency, where he was highly regarded person- main enthusiasms Ceredigion constituency had been enlarged to ally and so many rued his recent electoral defeat, – notably the include North , which extended and in the Liberal Party nationally – meant that down as far as the town of Fishguard. Howells there was to be no real break in his parliamentary Welsh language, held the seat with a fine majority of 4,700 votes career. Shortly after being created a life peer, he over the Conservative candidate. His Westmin- told the House of Lords, ‘For those who live and a parliament for ster secretary and agent was Judi Lewis (later to work in the countryside, the reality is too often become the Welsh Liberal Democrat chief execu- grinding poverty, compounded by poor housing, Wales, and agri- tive from 1992 until 1997), whilst one of his par- inadequate services, non-existent public transport liamentary researchers for a five-year stint from and a chronic low-wage economy which drives culture, most his graduation at Aberystwyth in 1987 until 1992 away youth and enterprise’.52 He was appointed was Mark Williams who was later to recapture Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords in 1994. He notably the plight the Ceredigion seat for the Liberal Democrats in also served in the Upper House as Deputy Chair- of the Welsh hill 2005, retaining the now marginal seat until his man of Committees and as his party’s spokesman defeat in the June 2017 general election when it on Welsh rural affairs. farmers. He was reverted to Plaid Cymru. In the House of Lords, as previously within the On 9 April 1992, however, Howells, by now Commons, Howells was never over-anxious to eminently com- something of a Liberal Party elder statesman at speak in debates, and he kept to his main enthu- Westminster, lost his seat when Cynog Dafis, the siasms – notably the Welsh language, a parlia- monsensical and Plaid Cymru candidate, came from fourth place ment for Wales, and agriculture, most notably in 1987 to win a surprising and decisive victory the plight of the Welsh hill farmers. He was emi- pragmatic, dis- with a majority of 3,100 votes over Howells, who nently commonsensical and pragmatic, display- came second with just a hundred votes more than ing insight, shrewdness and first-rate judgement. playing insight, the Conservative candidate. Cynog Dafis stood He was a strong supporter of the new Welsh Lan- shrewdness on the novel joint platform of Plaid Cymru and guage Act of 1993, although he continued to press the Green Party. ‘Let’s make history on our own for full parity with English, and he was much and first-rate doorstep’ was the rallying election cry of the enamoured of the devolution proposals placed new, dynamic joint candidature: ‘To get action before parliament by the Labour government in judgement. on the things that latter most – for Wales and the 1997. Until almost a month before his death, he

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 23 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd

‘But more than attended the House of Lords regularly; at that ‘Lord Geraint was particularly supportive of time, he signed, with other Welsh peers, a letter the cancer ward so we thought it was appropri- anything Ger- to the Western Mail which asked for a swift and ate that there should be some recognition of his positive response to the proposals of the Richard major contribution to this hospital’.56 He was very aint really had Commission on devolution which had been set up active in his local community, spearheading sev- the heart of the in July 2002: eral other worthwhile fundraising campaigns. At the very time of his electoral defeat in the spring party. People just The Richard Commission Report on Welsh of 1992, Geraint Howells, a long-term member of devolution, published today, is a pioneering Gorsedd y Beirdd, was acting as the active chairman cared about him document of constitutional reform. It deserves of the finance committee of the Ceredigion Aber- a swift and positive response. Richard shows ystwyth National Eisteddfod due to be held the because he cared how measures sought by the Welsh Assembly following August. are seldom taken up at Westminster. Usually, A large man, with a slow rolling walk, Lord about them’. they vanish without trace: only a quarter of the Geraint had immense personal warmth and he Assembly’s proposals have found room on the was widely known within his constituency and Westminster agenda. Another problem is the throughout Wales simply as ‘Geraint’. At the same role of the Wales Office, potentially a barrier time, he was an astute politician who spoke spar- rather than a conduit. With changes of govern- ingly in parliament and generally only on subjects ment and diversity of policies between West- within his expertise. When he joined a delega- minster and Wales this could lead to a major tion of parliamentarians on a fact-finding mission political crisis. Richard’s logic is for the exten- to the Falkland Islands soon after the war with sion of primary powers to the Welsh Assembly Argentina back in 1982, he visited a remote sheep over a period of time. We warmly endorse this. farm and amazed the islanders with his expert The extended functions of the Assembly should knowledge of peat drying and sheep farming. be made crystal clear. … Richard’s searching Matthew Parris, then a Conservative MP, recalled analysis can make Welsh devolution a reality and admiringly, ‘Geraint did something to restore create a vibrant democracy.53 our reputation by visiting an isolated sheep farm with me, inspecting their peat-drying arrange- On 19 March 1998, he was appointed one of the ments, and for the next half-hour talking peat five peers, from all parties, chosen to be Extra with his hosts with such happy expertise that they Lords in Waiting who carried out ceremonial admitted themselves amazed at his knowledge. duties for the Sovereign. He was the first Liberal They had not known there was peat in Wales too, to hold this position for a full century. In one of they said. Geraint would have made an excel- his last speeches in the House of Lords in April lent governor of the colony’.57 He had married 2002, he called for realistic livestock prices and Mary Olwen Hughes Griffiths, the daughter of the stamping out of illegal meat imports. He was M. A. Griffiths, on 7 September 1957; they had a close personal friend of both Richard Livsey and two daughters, Gaenor, born in 1961, who became Emlyn Hooson, both of whom he served with at a newsreader with the BBC World Service, and Westminster in the House of Commons and the Mari, born in 1965. They were a notably close- House of Lords.54 He made his last appearance in knit family. Lord Geraint continued to live at the House at a St David’s Day luncheon in Febru- Glennydd, Ponterwyd; he died on 17 April 2004, ary 2004. and his funeral was held on 24 April at Ponter- Lord Geraint continued to play an active part wyd Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, where he had in Cardiganshire life after he had entered the served as deacon for many years. A large number House of Lords. When a new unitary author- of mourners from Cardiganshire, from Welsh ity was formed under the name of Cardiganshire public life, and from the Liberal Party, were pre- on 1 April 1996, he was disappointed when his sent. He left an estate of £937,757 net. campaign to retain the old name failed and the Described by Michael White as ‘the Robert County Council changed the name to Ceredi- Mitchum of the sheep fells’, this genial, shrewd gion. While still a member of the House of Com- Welsh hill farmer much enriched Westminster mons, he had launched an appeal to provide a life for more than thirty years. Dubbed ‘big, scanner for Bronglais Hospital, Aberystwyth. He shambling [with a] weather-beaten face, tweedy raised more than £1,000,000, and, in recognition clothes [and] heavy footed’, he will always be of his remarkable efforts, the new palliative care remembered for his unwavering commitment resource centre, opened at Bronglais Hospital in and devotion to the interests of farmers and small August 2006, was named the Tŷ Geraint Pallia- businesses, his own constituency and to the cause tive Care Resource Centre. About £45,000 raised of Welsh devolution.58 Another commentator, by the appeal was also donated to help build and Bruce Anderson, accurately described him in The equip Tŷ Geraint.55 He launched the scanner and Spectator as possessing ‘an archetypal Welsh mix- cancer appeal in 1990 to raise money for the hos- ture of charm and cunning’.59 Matthew Parris pital, exceeding the £1m target he had set for the neatly dubbed Howells ‘a tremendous, lumbering, Millennium. Dr Alan Axford, Ceredigion and ageing, wily, amiable Liberal from Wales, with Mid Wales NHS Trust’s medical director, said, huge ears’; while another political commentator

24 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Lord Geraint of Ponterwyd described him as ‘popular, respected, 7 National Library of Wales (hereafter NLW), 33 Roth, Parliamentary Profiles, p. 722. genial-shrewd Welsh-speaking hill Lord Ogmore Papers, file 6, Lord Ogmore to 34 Russell Deacon, ‘The slow death of Liberal farmers’ friend, more passionate in Geraint Howells, 27 Apr. 1970 (copy). Wales, 1906–1979’, Journal of Liberal History, 49 Welsh and more canny than he dissem- 8 Russell Deacon, ‘A History of the Welsh Lib- (Winter 2005–06), p. 21. bles’.60 Howells’s warmth and friend- eral Party’, ch. 5, p.16, pre-publication draft 35 Deacon, ‘Interview: Lord Geraint of Ponter- liness made him widely popular in all very kindly placed at my disposal by Profes- wyd’, p. 23. parties. At the time of his death, Lord sor Deacon. 36 The Guardian, 28 Apr. 1980. Hooson recalled: 9 NLW, Lord Ogmore Papers, file 6, Emlyn 37 Deacon, ‘Interview: Lord Geraint of Ponter- Hooson to Ogmore, 17 Apr. 1970. wyd’, p. 23. He was a fine man, a good friend and 10 Deacon, ‘Interview: Lord Geraint of Ponter- 38 Roth, Parliamentary Profiles, p. 722. exuded warmth and generosity of wyd’, p. 23. 39 The Guardian, 28 Apr. 1980. spirit wherever he went. He will be 11 NLW, Liberal Party of Wales Archive, file 40 The Guardian, 21 Jan. 1983. missed greatly in Wales and in the B11, 1973 New Year Message from Geraint W. 41 NLW, Welsh Political Ephemera Collection, Lords; from his colleagues to all the Howells. file BA2/13, election address of Geraint How- staff who were obviously apprecia- 12 NLW, Liberal Party of Wales Archive, file ells, June 1983. tive of his ever kindly and natural and B11, Geraint Howells, chairman of the Welsh 42 Cited in his obituary in The Times, 20 Apr. rural approach. To the counsels of Liberal Party, to the editor of the Western 2004, p. 26. the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Mail, 20 Aug. 1973. 43 Andrew Roth, ‘Lord Geraint: Liberal MP and Party, Geraint Howells brought a 13 NLW, Liberal Party of Wales Archive, file popular spokesman in Wales’, The Guardian, shrewd mind and a stubborn resistance B11, press statement issued by the Cardigan- 17 Apr. 2004. to any tendency to take the short- as shire Liberal Association, 28 Sep. 1973. 44 Roth, Parliamentary Profiles, p. 723. opposed to the long-term solution to 14 Cited in P. J. Madgwick, Non Griffiths and 45 The Times, 9 May 1988, p. 2. political problems.61 Valerie Walker, The Politics of Rural Wales: a 46 The Times, 27 Sep. 1988, p. 1. Study of Cardiganshire (Hutchinson, 1973), pp. 47 The Times, 14 Sep. 1989, p. 8. Paying tribute to Lord Geraint, the 213–14. 48 Ibid. then leader of the Liberal Democrats 15 See David Roberts, ‘The strange death of 49 The Times, 19 Sep. 1984. the late described him Liberal Wales’, in John Osmond (ed.), The 50 NLW, Welsh Political Ephemera Collection, as a ‘treasured Celtic cousin. … With National Question again: Welsh Political Identity file BA4/13, Cynog Dafis election leaflet, Geraint’s passing our party has lost a in the 1980s (Gomer, 1985), pp. 92–93. April 1992. good and instrumental figure – and 16 Emlyn Hooson, ‘Geraint Howells: Farmer 51 Deacon, ‘Interview: Lord Geraint of Ponter- his beloved Wales has lost an authen- who became a Welsh Liberal MP’, The Inde- wyd’, p. 23. tic son of its soil’.62 Lembit Opik, then pendent, 27 Apr. 2004. 52 See Lord Geraint’s obituary in The Telegraph, the Welsh Liberal Democrat leader and 17 Deacon, ‘A History of the Welsh Liberal 19 Apr. 2004. Montgomeryshire MP, said, ‘For most Party’, ch. 5, p. 22. 53 Western Mail, 31 Mar. 2004. of us in the party Geraint was a men- 18 The Times, 1 Mar. 1974, p. 3. 54 See Emlyn Hooson, Rebirth or Death?: Liber- tor, a sort of political uncle. If you were 19 NLW, Merfyn Jones Papers 79/5, Geraint alism in Wales in the Second Half of the Twentieth trying to do something, Geraint had Howells to Jones, 3 Apr. 1974 (circular letter). Century, the Welsh Political Archive Lecture usually had a go a few years before. 20 Cardigan and Tivyside Advertiser, 27 Jun. 1975. 1993 (National Library of Wales, 1994), pp. But more than anything Geraint really 21 Deacon, ‘Interview: Lord Geraint of Ponter- 9–10. had the heart of the party. People just wyd’, p. 23. 55 Western Mail, 7 Aug. 2006: ‘New care centre cared about him because he cared about 22 See the report of Howells’s maiden speech in named after loyal supporter’. them’.63 The Times, 15 Mar. 1974, p. 14. 56 Ibid. 23 The Times, 13 Sep. 1974, p. 4. 57 Matthew Paris, Chance Witness: an Outsider’s Dr J. Graham Jones was formerly Senior 24 See examples in the NLW, Liberal Party of Life in Politics (Viking, 2002), p. 318. Archivist and Head of the Welsh Political Wales Archive, file A8. 58 Cited in Jones, ‘Geraint Howells’, p. 190. Archivist at the National Library of Wales, 25 The Times, 15 Jun. 1976, p. 4. 59 Andrew Roth, ‘Lord Geraint’. Aberystwyth. 26 The other three were Clement Freud (Isle of 60 Paris, Chance Witness, p. 311; Roth, Parlia- Ely), Stephen Ross (Isle of Wight) and Emlyn mentary Profiles, p. 721. The implication here is 1 See his obituary in The Guardian, 22 Sep. 2003. Hooson (Montgomeryshire). The caretaker that Howells was shrewder and more politi- 2 Information provided by one of the anony- party leader Jo Grimond and recently deposed cally astute than he appeared to many on a mous reviewers of an earlier draft of this leader Jeremy Thorpe refused to commit superficial view. article. themselves. Three Liberal MPs supported 61 Hooson, ‘Geraint Howells’. 3 Cited in J. Graham Jones, ‘Geraint Howells John Pardoe. 62 BBC website, Mid Wales pages, consulted 26 (Lord Geraint), 1925– ’, in Duncan Brack et al. 27 The Times, 1 Jul. 1976, p. 2. Feb. 2013. (ed.), Dictionary of Liberal Biography (London, 28 The Times, 28 Jul. 1977, p. 2. 63 Politics.co.uk website, consulted 26 Feb. 2013. 1998), p. 190. 29 David Steel, A House Divided: the Lib–Lab Pact 4 See J. Graham Jones, ‘Grimond’s rival’, Jour- and the Future of British Politics (Weidenfeld and nal of Liberal Democrat History, 34/35, pp. 26–34. Nicolson, 1980), p. 32. 5 Russell Deacon, ‘Interview: Lord Geraint 30 The Times, 16 Jan. 1978. of Ponterwyd’, Journal of Liberal History, 44 31 Trevor Fishlock, ‘Liberal MP hints he may (Autumn 2004), p. 22. turn to Plaid Cymru’, The Times, 29 Jul. 1977, 6 Andrew Roth, Parliamentary Profiles, vol. ii, p. 2. The emphasis is mine. E–K (Parliamentary Profiles, 1989), p. 721. 32 The Times, 25 Jul. 1981, p. 14.

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 25 Social policy Susanne Stoddart analyses how the Liberal government’s introduction of labour exchanges and maternity benefits was represented in the press, in terms particularly of gender status, gender roles and domestic identities

26 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal Press

etween 1906 and the outbreak of the First the negative impact that the new Liberal shift World War, the Liberal Party in power towards welfare reform had upon the Victorian Bpaved the way for the development of a ideal of manly independence and domestic patri- more socially active state. Influenced by social archy. Propaganda stressed the working man’s investigators such as Charles Booth, who found right to status as head of his household, protected that 30 per cent of those surveyed in London were from the unwanted intrusions of an increasingly living in poverty,1 the radical Liberals introduced collectivist and interventionist state.6 The Con- a range of reform measures aimed at improv- servative Spectator warned in November 1912 that, ing the lives of workers, their dependents and the ‘Englishmen to-day are in serious danger of sell- elderly. Increasingly termed ‘new Liberals’ by ing their individual liberty – the birthright of contemporaries, they laid the foundations of the every Briton – for a mess of Radical legislation welfare state through initiatives such as the Old … Is it really becoming a matter of indifference Age Pensions Act 1908 and the National Insur- whether an Englishman’s house is to remain his ance Act 1911. These social reforms represented a castle or not?’.7 watershed in the political history of modern Brit- Prominent new Liberal theorists, including ain. Household economies became the important sociologist L. T. Hobhouse and politician Herbert business of leading politicians to an extent that Samuel, did seek to reconcile the shift towards was never before conceived of.2 Indeed, in cel- collectivism with the individualism characteris- ebration of welfare reform, the Liberal Monthly tic of the classical Liberalism. They distinguished boldly asserted in January 1912 that, ‘we say Lib- their collectivism from socialism by propound- eralism has gone to the cottage door; nay! It has ing the organic view of society. The organic view done more than that. It has lifted the latch and emphasised that the progress of individuals was entered’.3 only truly possible if it did not conflict with the Considering the importance that had long wider harmony and welfare of society.8 How- been placed upon the masculine status of the self- ever, despite these efforts at outlining a consist- reliant and independent husband, father and head ent ideology of the new Liberalism, concerns and of household (not least in terms of validating a confusion about the practical boundaries of the man’s claim to a vote),4 the above statement might redefined relationship between the state and the be interpreted as a brave comment to be conveyed individual were not only raised in Conservative from the pages of Liberal Monthly: a popular jour- propaganda. An individual writing under the pen nal designed to convert working men to the Lib- name of ‘A Radical of ’85’ explained in 1908 that eral cause. As John Tosh notes, independence was the Liberals were, ‘in danger of being left with- the ‘key nineteenth-century indicator of mascu- out a catch word (or catch phrase) which would linity achieved … combining as it did dignified express their attitude towards the [social] prob- Liberal Party poster work, sole maintenance of the family, and free lem of the hour’. They elaborated, ‘politicians of advertising the 1911 association on terms of equality with other men’.5 weight, who in the Commons support the col- National Insurance Jon Lawrence shows that Edwardian Conserva- lectivist schemes of the Liberal Cabinet, if they Act tive propaganda often sought to raise fears about are addressing meetings in the country, leave it

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 27 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal press to be inferred that they endorse the individual- and The Star – in addition to a hugely influential istic and self-assertive notions which were the provincial daily, the Manchester Guardian. The stock-in-trade of official Liberalism twenty years first Liberal reform to be considered in this arti- ago’.9 Physician and social reformer Havelock cle is the opening of a national network of labour Ellis reflected in 1912 that, ‘every scheme of social exchanges in February 1910. Secondly, the first reform … raises anew a problem that is never out allocations of national insurance maternity ben- of date’: ‘the controversy between Individualism efits in January 1913 will be explored. The article and Socialism’.10 questions how the newspapers sought to reduce Championed by the often impulsive and emo- any sense of shame, or loss of status, for men tional David Lloyd George – renowned for his through their interactions with state social reform passionate platform performances – it is perhaps measures, or through their wives’ receipt of wel- not surprising that Edwardian progressivism fare provisions. By considering press representa- could appear haphazard and lacking consistency tions of these relationships between the state and of thought within the context of the new rela- the individual, the article explores how the new tionships that were being negotiated between the Liberalism as a popular political discourse was state and the individual. As Martin Pugh argues, portrayed in Edwardian culture and how it was Lloyd George ‘showed no intellectual interest in influenced by ideas about gender status, gender economic ideas or in Liberalism … It was his roles and domestic identities. unsystematic habit of jumping from one subject to another that first led his officials to dub him “The Goat”’.11 A. G. Gardiner, editor of the Edward- Championed by Labour exchanges ian Liberal Daily News, commented in his lively 1908 saw a severe downturn in trade and employ- 1908 pen-portrait of Lloyd George that, ‘he is the often impul- ment. Unemployment figures were at their high- the improviser of politics. He spins his web as he est since the depression of the mid-1880s, standing goes along. He thinks best on his feet … He is no sive and emo- at 9.5 per cent by October 1908. The Conserva- Socialist, for, as I have said, he has no theories, tional David tives promoted their slogan of ‘tariff reform and Socialism is all theory’.12 means work for all’ as the cure for these embar- A. G. Gardiner was writing here not as a Lloyd George rassing statistics.16 However, on the recommen- detached political commentator, but rather as one dation of the Royal Commission on the Poor of a number of Edwardian Liberal newspaper edi- – renowned for Law, which convened between 1905 and 1909, the tors who held a close personal relationship with Liberals responded with the Labour Exchanges Lloyd George. Indeed, Lloyd George relied heav- his passionate Act 1909, organised by as the ily upon a network of Liberal writers for their president of the Board of Trade. The commis- outspoken support for social reform. His close platform per- sion urged the formation of ‘a labour exchange, confidants included Gardiner, theDaily Chroni- established and maintained by the Board of Trade, cle’s Robert Donald and C. P. Scott of the Man- formances – it to provide efficient machinery for putting those chester Guardian.13 In 1913 Lloyd George gratefully is perhaps not requiring work and those requiring workers into acknowledged the ‘warm and loyal friendship’ prompt communication’.17 Both the Majority that Gardiner provided, and was confident in 1911 surprising that and Minority Poor Law Commissioners’ reports that he could ‘always rely on the powerful influ- acknowledged that employers and workers did ence of the Daily News’.14 Correspondences such as Edwardian pro- not have a satisfactory means of distributing and these lend much support to Ian Packer’s view that, finding information about available jobs.18 in effect, the Edwardian Liberal press acted as ‘an gressivism could The Employment Exchanges Committee of extension of the party’.15 The closeness of the Lib- the Central (Unemployed) Body of London had eral Party and press, in addition to the mass-cir- appear haphaz- already established some labour exchanges in culation newspaper industry that was developing London, following the passing of the Conserva- in Britain by the turn of the twentieth century, ard and lacking tive 1905 Unemployed Workmen Act. However, means that the newspapers provide an invaluable consistency of the Poor Law reports singled out the exchanges’ source for helping to unpick the subtle and com- common association with relief and charity as one plex relationships between the state and the indi- thought within of the major factors accounting for their overall vidual that were not programmatically outlined, failure to attract those seeking work. The com- but were nevertheless being tested, renegotiated the context of missioners reported that there was a tendency to and communicated when new Liberal welfare confuse the exchanges with Distress Commit- measures were introduced. the new relation- tees, repelling those who objected to ‘a system of This article uses the Edwardian Liberal press “State-created work”’.19 Therefore, a key aim of to explore the representation of two key new Lib- ships that were the Board of Trade was to improve the perception eral reforms aimed at alleviating the social strug- of, and remove prejudices surrounding, the new gle endured by adult men and woman. Although being negoti- national network of labour exchanges, providing some references are made to Conservative , ated between them with a more positive, rather than shaming, most of the evidence for this article is drawn from image for respectable workers.20 four of the key Edwardian Liberal national daily the state and the Indeed, introducing the Labour Exchanges Bill newspapers – the morning Daily News and Daily into the House of Commons in 1909, Churchill Chronicle and the evening Westminster Gazette individual. explained that:

28 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal press

Those who know the sort of humiliation to One of the earliest first day of January last year [which] saw the dawn which the genuine working man is subject, by labour exchanges of a new period … for the veterans of labour by being very often indistinguishable from one of the payment of the first old age pensions’.23 The the class of mere loafers and vagrants, will rec- so-called ‘new journalism’ style of reportage ognise as of great importance the steps which that emerged by the turn of the twentieth cen- can sharply and irretrievably divide the two tury encouraged newspapers to seek out the more classes in our society’.21 personalised human interest side of news sto- ries, rather than documenting them in a detached Illuminating this division was a vital aim of the and authoritative tone, in order to capture larger national network of labour exchanges not only audiences in an increasingly competitive mar- to reduce any sense of shame surrounding inter- ket.24 Thus a journalist reporting on the labour actions with the exchanges but also because they exchanges for the halfpenny Daily News com- were designed as the necessary preliminary step mented on being ‘struck by the sound, business- before unemployment insurance legislation was like demeanour of the men … There was a look of introduced (into some trades in 1912). Labour untold suffering on many faces, and the gleam of exchanges provided the mechanism for test- hope in many tearful eyes, as I looked down the ing willingness to work, thereby distinguishing queue’.25 between applications for assistance put forward The hopeful reportage provided by the Lib- by the deserving, able-bodied unemployed and eral press in response to the labour exchanges the undeserving loafer. If an individual was regis- acted as an antidote to other dismal depictions of tered at a labour exchange and the exchange could unemployed men that were also published in the not find them a job then they were to be consid- newspapers at the time. The Westminster Gazette, ered unemployed against their will and entitled to an influential Liberal evening newspaper, drew unemployment benefit.22 attention to the plight of out-of-work men in Feb- When the new labour exchanges opened across ruary 1910, in addition to their loss of masculine Britain in February 1910, newspaper journal- status as provider for their families. Despite the ists were present as crowds of unemployed peo- Westminster Gazette’s status as a moderate rather ple queued to register. In a similar fashion to the than outspokenly radical organ, compared with introduction of state pensions in 1909, the scenes titles such as the Daily News, the newspaper’s Lib- at the new labour exchanges were portrayed by eral Imperialist stance was allied with support the Liberal press as ‘a great national event’ and for a rational programme of social reform, not achievement. Indeed, the setting caused the Lib- least in order to address the question of national eral halfpenny Daily Chronicle to draw immedi- efficiency.26 The newspaper explained that men ate comparisons between the ‘new industrial era’ ‘willing and anxious to work were wasting time marked by the opening of the exchanges and ‘the and confidence and strength in fruitless search

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 29 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal press

In contrast to for employment, from factory to factory, works the new exchanges, with little more than passing to works, and town to town’. This was result- references to the separate facilities provided for these reports, the ing in ‘loss in attrition of self-respect’ and ‘heavy women. Reinforcing the adult male breadwinner charges upon the poor-rate for the maintenance model, the influential LiberalManchester Guardian Liberal newspa- of wives and children’.27 Additionally, one week noted that ‘very few women’ were registering to after the opening of the exchanges a pen por- find work at the Stockport exchange.30 The Daily pers placed much trait by the Daily Chronicle drew attention to the News also explained that ‘one of the most notice- emphasis on the fact that the scourge of unemployment meant for able features’ at a labour exchange in ‘was many the inability to settle down and acquire the the absence of women applicants’. The depiction idea that interac- coveted domestic masculine status of husband, of this busy exchange as a masculine space was father and provider. The article explained that reinforced by the report that at ‘about midday the tions with labour the unemployed man often ‘lurks in the cheap crush outside the building became so great that lodging-houses’ or ‘in “apartments for single gen- one of the windows gave way under the pressure, exchanges, unlike tlemen”’. The human-interest article went on to and the police were sent for’.31 The Conservative acknowledge the negative emotions of shame, ter- press also drew attention to operational difficul- relief provided ror and fear that were felt by the unemployed: ties surrounding the opening of the exchanges, under the dra- but these reports were designed to highlight poor The unemployed gentleman … does not exhibit planning. The Times noted that arrangements at conian Poor Law his poverty, but hides it – hides it with shame, the exchanges ‘were not working as smoothly as with a terror lest it should be openly revealed, could be wished as there were not enough officials Amendment Act with a haunting fear that it may be seen by peo- to cope with the rush of applicants’.32 The popu- ple who pass him in the street … He knows that lar Conservative halfpenny Daily Mail also com- 1834, helped to if he loses his “respectability” all is lost.28 mented on a great ‘siege’ as men ‘struggled to get inside’ the new exchanges, with some acknowl- positively pro- In contrast to these reports, the Liberal news- edging ‘the impossibility of registering their papers placed much emphasis on the idea that names’ and leaving disheartened.33 mote masculine interactions with labour exchanges, unlike relief As noted above, scenes at the opening of new respectability provided under the draconian Poor Law Amend- exchanges in February 1910 – with the presence ment Act 1834, helped to positively promote mas- of journalists and large queues of people ready and their head-of- culine respectability and their head-of-household to interact with the state in a new and beneficial status. The exchanges provided the appropriate way – caused immediate comparisons to be drawn household status. conditions to enable willing workers to keep their with the queues of elderly people who arrived at families together and to maintain their status post offices across the country to collect their first as domestic patriarchs. Unemployed men often state pensions in January 1909. However, there faced periods of separation from their families were important differences in the Liberal newspa- during the search for employment outside of their pers’ reportage of these two events. It is undoubt- locality, or even enforced separation through edly true that the introduction of old age pensions their eventual admission into the gender-segre- was commonly discussed in Liberal discourse as a gated . However, the Daily Chroni- right conferred upon those who had worked hard cle provided details of the new labour exchange for the state and paid their taxes, and therefore procedure, drawing attention to the fact that the now, when they were less able, deserved a share in focus was upon keeping families together and the national wealth. Nevertheless, a non-contrib- reducing ‘the tramp from town to town in search utory system of state pensions was by no means of employment’ at the expense of ‘hope, confi- universally supported. Even William Beveridge dence, respectability, and independence’. The – the future architect of the welfare state – com- newspaper explained that the unemployed man mented that it ‘sets up the state in the eyes of the simply needed to register himself once ‘at the individual as a source of free gifts’.34 In January nearest bureau’ and then he might be dispatched 1909 the Liberal press continually used one key immediately to a local job. ‘Suppose employment word to depict the new pensioners (60 per cent is only to be found at the end of a railway jour- of whom were female) and the stories that they ney’, the article continued, ‘the Board of Trade told journalists of their life struggles and current has powers to draw upon the Treasury for the distress: pathetic.35 The newspapers were allud- expense of such journey, even to the extent of ing to the pensioners’ pathos and their ability to procuring tickets for the workman’s family and evoke pity, sympathy and sorrow. Indeed, the defraying the cost of the removal of his goods and human-interest-based stories that the newspa- chattels to the new home in the fresh sphere of pers reported sought to evoke huge sympathy for labour’. Such costs could then be repaid in small the emotional distress and physical suffering of instalments once the workman was settled in many of the pensioners in order to publicly jus- employment.29 tify the tax-funded pensions. As the Daily News The Liberal labour exchanges were designed observed, ‘the little scenes and dialogues which to provide both out-of-work men and women fill the newspapers must have brought home to with assistance. However, reportage in the Lib- any who still doubted the immense importance eral press focused upon male interactions with of the pension’.36 In contrast, detailed accounts of

30 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal press emotional suffering, job loss and physical injury family. Reports about these men were sometimes were absent from reports about the opening of used to contrast them with, and highlight, the labour exchanges – the dominant emotion asso- positive characters of the hopeful and independ- ciated with the exchanges was not sympathy but ent men who engaged with the exchanges – such rather (as previously alluded to) hope. men were depicted as in the majority. Indeed, the Hope actually became a highly visible sym- Manchester Guardian’s correspondent explained bol of the labour exchanges. Indeed, discussing that, ‘applicants at the exchanges were hopeful, the establishment of the exchanges in January and in most cases appreciative’, although ‘here and 1910, the Daily News commented that, ‘green – there’ a despondent man was met ‘who had been the colour of hope – is the distinctive hue of the robbed of his delusion that labour exchanges were fronts of the new exchanges, both in London going to perform the much-craved miracle of the and the country’.37 It was reported that Church- twentieth century and find work for all’.44 Else- ill reiterated this sentiment in speeches that he where, the Daily News reported on a hopeless man made outside the newly opened exchanges as he from Walthamstow with five children to keep. toured London: ‘they are painted in green – the He was sentenced to a month’s hard labour hav- colour of hope’, he explained.38 Writing on the ing sworn at, and then struck, an exchange man- most esteemed Victorian manly virtue – char- ager when he was provided with no immediate acter – in 1871, Samuel Smiles identified hope work.45 Conversely, The Star reported on a man as the ‘chiefest of blessings’ and ‘the parent of all who committed suicide in his front room having The national effort and endeavour … It may be said to be the been promised work by his labour exchange. ‘He moral engine that moves the world and keeps it in appeared depressed and nervous about undertak- insurance scheme action’.39 In a 1913 discussion, patience and hope ing the work after he had been idle so long’, the were similarly discussed as ‘the chief requisites in newspaper explained.46 sought to secure the slow but sure process of Self-development’.40 Focusing upon hope in their reports, the labour the nation’s work- exchanges were therefore not represented by the National insurance maternity benefits ing population Liberal newspapers as the apparatus of collectiv- The opening of new labour exchanges in Febru- ism or one-way state assistance for unemployed ary 1910 represented the first instalment of the against illness, men. The hope-focused reportage actually pro- new Liberal three-part programme to relieve vided a challenge to traditional narratives of distress and prevent destitution for the willing adversity and sud- (particularly male) unemployment, which are worker and his family. The final stage saw the normally presented in terms of weakness, sadness passing of legislation to introduce unemployment den increased and helplessness.41 The hope-focused reportage, insurance into some trades in 1912.47 The second with all of hope’s masculine Victorian connota- stage, the National Insurance Act of 1911, estab- pressures on their tions, served to portray registration at the labour lished compulsory insurance for workers over 16 exchanges as a proactive and vital test of indi- years of age, earning less than £160 per year. This family budgets. vidual character and virtue, signifying the abil- scheme was financed through weekly contribu- To some extent ity to independently remain hopeful in the face of tions of 4d. from male workers, or 3d. from female adversity.42 workers, in addition to 3d. from the employer and Liberal discourse In contrast to this hope-focused reportage, the 2d. from the state. The initiative provided sick Conservative Daily Mail’s depiction of the new pay, entitled workers to free treatment by a doctor surrounding the labour exchanges portrayed them as a cruel and and treatment in a sanatorium for tuberculosis. inevitably motivation-sapping experience for The wife of an insured man was also entitled to a scheme empha- great numbers of unemployed men because they maternity benefit of 30s. The contributions began only offered false hope. For example, in one let- in July 1912 and the first maternity benefits were sised the self-help ter printed by the newspaper, a correspondent paid in January 1913.48 referred to the ‘terrible disappointment to hun- The national insurance scheme sought to nature of the pol- dreds, possibly thousands, of working men seek- secure the nation’s working population against icy, portraying it ing employment’ when they became aware of the illness, adversity and sudden increased pressures limited numbers of jobs actually available at the on their family budgets. To some extent Liberal as an extension of exchanges. Indicating that this false hope would discourse surrounding the scheme emphasised not provide an energising test of masculine char- the self-help nature of the policy, portraying it the drive that had acter and virtue, the correspondent continued, ‘I as an extension of the drive that had produced will go as far as to say that the outlook afforded by friendly and building societies during the late produced friendly the labour bureau to a man who has been out of eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet employment for months in some instances may be the government-led nature of the 1911 compul- and building soci- the last blow which will finally thrust him down sory insurance scheme did mean that collectiv- among the submerged’.43 ist rhetoric had a huge role to play,49 even at the eties during the The Liberal press did draw attention to some expense of publicly reinforcing notions of manly late eighteenth hopeless or despairing men, often as single or iso- independence and domestic patriarchy. As the lated cases. These men were portrayed as unable Liberal Monthly explained in 1911, the watchword and early nine- to patiently and constructively apply themselves of the ‘great national scheme’ was ‘brotherhood’ to the job-seeking process for the sake of their and the working man should be motivated by the teenth centuries.

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 31 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal press

prospect of helping to ‘strengthen the fund and Star journalist commented ‘enviously’ that she Liberal Party poster relieve his sick neighbour’.50 The Liberal Monthly’s ‘“wished my last [child] had come eight months advertising the 1911 bold assertion that the party had ‘lifted the latch later”’.54 National Insurance and entered’ the workman’s cottage came follow- The Daily News’ pledge to ‘send a further Act ing the introduction of national insurance.51 message of joy and goodwill’ to the first mater- However, in reports surrounding the pay- nity babies also served to add an additional layer ment of the first national insurance maternity of (non-state-funded) excitement and opportu- benefits, provided for the wives of insured men nity to the occasion. The newspaper announced who gave birth from 13 January 1913, the mer- that it would devote a total of 200 guineas to be its of state machinery and collectivism were paid in sums of £3 each to the parents of the first not focused upon by the Liberal newspapers. ‘benefit baby’ born on 13 January 1913 in seventy Instead, the rhetoric of individual good fortune, towns and districts across Britain.55 Critics iden- bad luck, chance, opportunity and insecurity tified newspaper competitions and the ‘artful dominated the newspapers’ human-interest- schemes of stimulating circulation by the dis- based coverage of events. This served to dis- tribution of money gifts’ as a ‘journalistic hoo- cretely disconnect the payments from a planned liganism’ marking one of the worst gimmicks state intervention, putting a different focus of the ‘new journalism’, often involving hidden on the occasion. The halfpenny Liberal even- treasure hunts and the creation of public nui- ing newspaper The Star explained on 13 Janu- sances.56 The Daily News adapted this technique, ary 1913 that today’s newborn babies were ‘not, advertising and promoting excitement sur- at present, old enough to realise the importance rounding the newspaper, but within a political of having been born this morning instead of a context and through the more civilised means of few ticks of the clock on the Sunday side of mid- requesting that telegrams were sent to the news- night’.52 The sense of good fortune rather than paper at the earliest convenience announcing the community conscious collectivism surround- times of births. The newspaper explained that ing the payment was further highlighted in per- it ‘relies upon its readers throughout the United sonal stories provided to the press. A new father Kingdom to make the Bounty known in every told a Daily News reporter that, ‘“it seems to me home that can possibly be concerned, so that it that it’s luck, this money – it just fell in at the may fall into the right hands’.57 right time”’. Another father told the reporter As Pat Thane highlights, the cash maternity of his relief at finding out that his daughter had benefit was initially only going to be made pay- been born ‘“one minute over the time”’.53 Con- able to the insured man himself. However, fol- versely, a woman discussing the benefits with a lowing a campaign against this policy the benefit

32 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal press

was paid directly to the wife of the insured man insured workmen. This helped to bypass any new when it was finally introduced.58 Once intro- and difficult questions surrounding the future of duced, the Liberal press continually highlighted masculine independence in the face of state cash that the benefit was to directly aid mothers rather handouts. than fathers. On the one hand, this focus can be Through this focus upon women as wives and viewed as part of the wider feminist celebration mothers the press was also presenting women of an independent monetary resource provided with very traditional domestic identities. Yet for wives and mothers, which could not be with- importantly, the newspapers did not simply held by a brutal or irresponsible husband.59 On the reflect gender norms – they also helped to shape other hand, or perhaps additionally, this focus in and progress them too. As domestic care and fam- the Liberal reportage served to subtly disconnect ily budgets became the important business of high working men from this new type of cash handout politics, women were able to develop more pub- from the state.60 The Star’s correspondent reported lic, political identities. Indeed, the newspapers’ a conversation with Dr Richmond, an esteemed human-interest stories surrounding the allocation doctor in Bermondsey. Implicitly re-establish- of the first maternity benefits often put women ing masculine independence in the breadwinner at the centre of the political stage, empowering role, the doctor explained that, ‘“before to-day them as reporters sought to find out how they the mother would often be back at work a week would spend their money and why it was needed. after the birth of her child. The Insurance Act Such accounts may well have achieved the desired has altered all this. The invalid will be relieved aim of impacting upon public opinion, in terms of all work.”’.61 The Daily Chronicle discussed the of providing vital justification for state interven- welfare provision under the headlines of ‘New tion into the lives and homes of working people Era For Mothers’ and ‘Mother’s Day’,62 while the and the poor. Star reporter’s line of questioning was, ‘“What Finally, it is now the intention to provide some is mother going to do with the 30s?”’.63 The Star tentative observations and wider reflections on also referred to ‘the thirty shillings maternity how this article can contribute to historiographi- benefit which every insurance baby brings its cal debates surrounding the new Liberalism mother’,64 and the Daily News acknowledged the and liberalism with a small ‘l’ into the twenti- babies ‘whose mothers are insured under Mr. eth century. It is no overstatement to note that Lloyd George’s beneficent Act’.65 Reciprocally, the Edwardian new Liberalism has received an the newspapers reported mothers thanking the enormous amount of attention from historians. Yet importantly, state for the benefits. One mother pledged to the J. A. Thompson asserted in 1990 that this area Star reporter that she would name her son ‘“Lloyd of research was proving so compelling partly the newspapers George Churchill!”’, while another contemplated because of the ‘ideal battlefield’ that it provided naming her daughter Georgina ‘with compli- ‘for testing a range of “approaches”, “styles of did not simply ments and thanks to Mr. Lloyd George’.66 argument”, and “techniques” ... in the writing of reflect gender political history’.67 The new Liberalism laid the foundations of the welfare state in Britain, and it norms – they Conclusions and wider reflections is also closely linked to one of the most perplexing The exploration of new Liberal press representa- conundrums that the political historian of twen- also helped to tions provided in this article highlights the value tieth-century Britain has grappled with. That is, that a gendered lens can offer political history and how to account for the fall of the Liberal Party shape and pro- vice versa – what the study of political identities as a vital force in politics, and its replacement by can contribute to our understanding of gender the Labour Party, consolidated during the inter- gress them too. history. It is fair to conclude that press represen- war period. Long-running historiographical tations of the new Liberalism largely sought to debates surrounding the Edwardian new Liberal- As domestic care confirm or reassert the traditional and much val- ism traditionally focused upon the issue of Lib- and family budg- ued role of working men as heads of households eral decline: a consideration of whether, and the and providers for their families – the newspapers extent to which, the Edwardian period witnessed ets became the provided no suggestion that this role was being the emergence of class-based politics (with the assumed by the state. The hope – as opposed to formation of the parliamentary Labour Party) and important busi- sympathy – based reportage accompanying the thus the inevitable onset of the Liberal demise. opening of labour exchanges in 1910, in addi- Or, conversely, whether the Edwardian new Lib- ness of high tion to the absence of extensive reportage about eralism was successful in forging a popular work- a female presence at the exchanges, helped to ing-class appeal to contain Labour, and it was in politics, women reduce any sense of shame or embarrassment sur- fact the First World War that dealt the deathblow rounding male interactions with the provision. to Liberalism.68 were able to Furthermore, in reports concerning the first In more recent decades, developments in develop more maternity payments in 1913 the focus was upon the field of the ‘new political history’ – with its luck and competition as opposed to a planned post-structuralist emphasis on political identities public, political state intervention. There was also a clear empha- as unstable and consciously constructed through sis upon wives and mothers as direct recipients language and culture – has encouraged a much identities. of the maternity benefits rather than fathers as more nuanced understanding of nineteenth- and

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 33 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal press twentieth-century Liberalism, the about the state and the individual as the 1 Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People in emergence of Labour, and the place and twentieth century progressed. As press London, final vol. (London, 1902), p. 9. continuities of liberalism more wide- historians have shown, popular inter- 2 Martin Pugh, State and Society: A Social and ly.69 In line with these developments, war newspapers such as the Daily Her- Political History of Britain, 1870–1997 (London, this article has drawn attention to the ald and the Daily Mirror, positioned to 1994), p. 125. Also see Jose Harris, Private importance of suspending preconcep- varying degrees on the left, sought to Lives, Public Spirit: Britain, 1870–1914 (Oxford, tions and estimations about the various combine human interest and readability 1993), p. 205. weaknesses of Edwardian Liberalism, with serious political discussion in order 3 Liberal Monthly, ‘Around the Village Pump: A aware of its interwar decline, in order to to convey their liberal messages, aid the (Politically) Happy New Year’, Jan. 1912, p. 2. explore what can be revealed about not growth of the Labour Party and cap- 4 Keith McClelland, ‘“England’s Greatness, only the nature of the new Liberalism, ture large audiences in an increasingly the Working Man”’, in McClelland, Cath- and the relationships between the state competitive newspaper market.70 The erine Hall and Jane Randall (eds.), Defining the and the gendered individual that were Edwardian Liberal newspapers’ willing- Victorian Nation: Class, Race, and Gender and being introduced, but also what can be ness to adapt, innovate and enliven their the Reform Act of 1867 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. revealed about the presentation and rep- presentation of politics for the demo- 71–118. Also see Colin Creighton, ‘The Rise resentation of liberalism and popular cratic age, (in ways that would help the of the Male Breadwinner Family: A Reap- political debate more widely at the turn Labour Party to thrive during the inter- praisal’, Comparative Studies in Society and His- of the twentieth century. war period when the circulation of daily tory, 38:2 (1996), p. 310. This article has highlighted the newspapers increased substantially), 5 John Tosh, ‘What Should Historians do with human-interest based reportage that indicates that the Edwardian Liberals Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth- accompanied the opening of labour were not culturally stagnant or irrele- Century Britain’, History Workshop Journal, 38 exchanges in 1910 and the distribution of vant in the face of emerging Labour and (1994), p. 188. maternity benefits in 1913, in addition to mass politics, within the context of the 6 Jon Lawrence, ‘Class and Gender in the Mak- the Daily News’ maternity benefit com- party’s newspapers at least. ing of Urban Toryism, 1880–1914’, English petition. The Edwardian Liberal news- Historical Review, 108 (1993), pp. 629–652. papers’ presentation of popular politics Dr Susanne Stoddart currently works in uni- 7 Arthur Page, ‘What is Social Reform?’, Spec- shown here can be seen as providing versity employer engagement and events man- tator, Nov. 1912, p. 589. an important precursor, and possibly agement. She also teaches on the University of 8 L. T. Hobhouse, Liberalism (London, 1911); a model, for how mainstream newspa- London’s Distance Learning History Degree. Herbert Samuel, Liberalism: An Attempt to State pers with leftist sympathies went on to She completed her PhD on Edwardian Liber- the Principles and Proposals of Contemporary Lib- combine accessibility and human inter- alism and political culture at Royal Holloway eralism in England (London, 1902). est with meaningful political content in 2015. 9 A Radical of ’85, ‘Liberalism Without Ideas: Mothers of Liberty Women who built British Liberalism Even before they gained the right to vote and to stand for election, women played many key roles in the development of British Liberalism – as writers and thinkers, campaigners, political hostesses, organisers and, finally, as parliamentary candidates, MPs and peers.

The new edition of this booklet from the Liberal Democrat History Group contains the stories of the women who shaped British Liberalism – including Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor Mill, the suffragist leader Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the first woman Liberal MP Margaret Wintringham, Violet Bonham Carter, Megan Lloyd George, Nancy Seear, Shirley Williams and many more. This second edition updates some of the earlier entries and adds two entirely new ones and a table of all Liberal, SDP and Liberal Democrat women elected as MPs. With a foreword by MP.

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34 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Domesticity and the New Liberalism in the Edwardian Liberal press

A Few Notes’, Westminster Review, February Age in English History: Past Experiences, Present 56 Albert E. Cave, ‘The Newest Journalism’, 1908, pp. 137, 140. Issues (Oxford, 2000), p. 222. Contemporary Review, 91 (1907), pp. 18–32. 10 Havelock Ellis, ‘Individualism and Socialism’, 35 Manchester Guardian, ‘Pensions Day’, 2 Jan. 57 Daily News, ‘The Bounty Babies’ and Leader, Contemporary Review, Jan. 1912, p. 519. 1909, p. 7; The Star, ‘Pension Day’, 24 Sep. 14 Jan. 1913, p. 7. 11 Martin Pugh, Lloyd George (London, 1988), pp. 1908, p. 2; Westminster Gazette, ‘Pension Day’, 58 Pat Thane, ‘Visions of Gender in the Mak- 41, 45. 1 Jan. 1909, p. 7; Daily Chronicle, ‘The Old ing of the British Welfare State: The Case of 12 A. G. Gardiner, Prophets, Priests and Kings Folk’s Day’, 2 Jan. 1909, p. 1. Women in the British Labour Party and Social (London, 1908), pp. 155, 158. 36 Daily News, ‘Pension Day’, 2 Jan. 1909, p. 6. Policy, 1906–1945’, in Thane and Gisela Block 13 Stephen Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political 37 Daily News, ‘Labour Exchanges’, 1 Jan. 1910, (eds.), Maternity and Gender Policies: Women and Press in Britain: Vol. 2, The Twentieth Century p. 5. the Rise of European Welfare States, 1880s–1950s (London, 1984), ch. 1–6. 38 Daily News, ‘The Labour Exchanges’, 2 Feb. (London, 1991), p. 101. 14 David Lloyd George to A. G. Gardiner, 26 1910, p. 7. 59 Ibid. Mar. 1913 and 29 Mar. 1911, Gardiner Papers, 39 Samuel Smiles, Character (London, 1871), p. 60 Megan Doolittle argues that late nineteenth- LSE Archives and Special Collections, 257. century charitable institutions similarly Gardiner/1/19. 40 J. Herman Randall, The Culture of Personality sought to specifically target women, therefore 15 Ian Packer, Liberal Government and Politics, (New York, 1912), p. 205. constructing the identities of welfare subjects 1905–1915 (Basingstoke, 2006), p. 27. 41 Darius Galasinski, Men and the Language of around images of female helplessness. This 16 Neal Blewett, The Peers, The Parties and The Emotions (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 119–143. approach deliberately bypassed questions of People: The General Elections of 1910 (London, 42 Jaklin Eliott explains that, ‘hope is an indi- masculine responsibility or the possibility 1972), p. 50. vidual response to circumstances that may that men had failed in their duty to provide 17 Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor be determined by others’. See Jaklin Eliott, for their dependents. See Megan Doolittle, Law and Relief of Distress, House of Com- ‘What Have We Done with Hope? A Brief ‘Fatherhood and Family Shame: Masculin- mons Parliamentary Papers [online], 1909, p. History’, in her Interdisciplinary Perspectives on ity, Welfare and the Workhouse in Late Nine- 267. Paper Number: cd.4499. Hope (New York, 2005), p. 7. teenth Century England’, in Lucy Delap, Ben 18 Desmond King, Actively Seeking Work? The 43 S. F. Edge, ‘Useless Labour Exchanges: To the Griffin and Abigail Wills (eds.),The Politics of Politics of Unemployment and Welfare Policy in the Editor of the Daily Mail’, 11 Feb. 1910, p. 5. Domestic Authority in Britain since 1800 (Hamp- and Great Britain (London, 1995), 44 Manchester Guardian, ‘Labour Exchanges’, 3 shire, 2009), pp. 84–108. pp. 20–21. Feb 1910, p. 7. 61 The Star, ‘Babies’ Day’, 13 Jan. 1913, p. 1. 19 As well as establishing some labour exchanges 45 Daily News, ‘Scene in a Labour Exchange’ and 62 Daily Chronicle, ‘New Era For Mothers’, 13 in London, the Conservative Unemployed Leader, 9 Oct. 1912, p. 7. Jan. 1913, p. 1; Daily Chronicle, ‘Mother’s Day’, Workmen’s Act 1905 founded local Distress 46 The Star, ‘Hanging from a Ceiling’, 3 Feb. 14 Jan. 1913, p. 1. Committees, which sought to make use of 1910, p. 1. 63 The Star, ‘Babies’ Day’, 13 Jan. 1913, p. 1. charitable funds and government loans to 47 The experimental unemployment insurance 64 The Star, ‘The Baby and the Bounty’, 13 Jan. administer relief and provide jobs for the system made provisions for two and a half 1913, p. 4. unemployed. See Packer, Liberal Government, million workers in trades where cyclical and 65 Daily News, ‘The Bounty Babies’ and Leader, p. 127. seasonal unemployment was common. At 7s. 14 Jan. 1913, p. 7. 20 King, Actively Seeking Work?, p. 22. per week for fifteen weeks of the year, benefits 66 The Star, ‘Babies’ Day’, 13 Jan. 1913, p. 1. 21 5 Hansard, v. 503 (19 May 1909). were modest; but the initiative was capable of 67 J. A. Thompson, ‘The Historian and the 22 King, Actively Seeking Work?, p. 23. future expansion. See Packer, Liberal Govern- Decline of the Liberal Party’, Albion, 22:1 23 Daily Chronicle, ‘Labour Exchanges’, 31 Jan. ment, p. 151. (1990), p. 81. 1910, p. 5. 48 Sick pay benefits consisted of 10s. per week for 68 For an overview of the debate see David 24 Mark Hampton, Visions of the Press in Britain, men and 7s. 6d. per week for women for a total Dutton and Martin Pugh, ‘Liberals in 1906: 1850–1950 (Urbana, 2004), pp. 36–37. of thirteen weeks. This was followed by a 5s. Flourishing or Doomed?’, Journal of Liberal 25 Daily News, ‘The Labour Exchanges’, 2 Feb. allowance for a further thirteen weeks, and History, 54 (2007), pp. 53–59. 1910, p. 7. finally a 5s. disability benefit. See Pugh,Lloyd 69 See, for example, Eugenio Biagini and 26 Kate Jackson, George Newnes and the New Jour- George, pp. 56–57. Alastair Reid, ‘Currents of Radicalism, 1850– nalism in Britain, 1880–1910: Culture and Profit 49 Jose Harris notes the emerging ‘interdepend- 1914’, in their Currents of Radicalism: Popular (Aldershot, 2001), p. 123. ence of physical health with national and civic Radicalism, Organised Labour, and Party Politics 27 Westminster Gazette, ‘Labour Exchange Day’, 1 well-being’ during the Edwardian period in Britain, 1850–1914 (Cambridge, 1991), p. 1. Feb. 1910, p. 1. as a result of such social reform measures as 70 Adrian Bingham, ‘Representing the People? 28 Philip Gibbs, ‘The Out-Of-Work Gentle- national insurance. See Harris, Public Lives, p. The Daily Mirror, Class and Political Culture man’, Daily Chronicle, 7 Feb. 1910, p. 4. 60. in Inter-War Britain’, in Laura Beers and Ger- 29 Daily Chronicle, ‘Labour Exchanges’, 31 Jan. 50 Liberal Monthly, ‘Around the Village Pump: aint Thomas (eds.), Brave New World: Impe- 1910, p. 5. “Well Done, Lloyd George!”, Jul. 1911, p. 2. rial and Democratic Nation-Building in Britain 30 Manchester Guardian, ‘Many Applicants at 51 Liberal Monthly, ‘Around the Village Pump: A between the Wars (London, 2012), pp. 109–128; Stockport’, 3 Feb. 1910, p. 7. (Politically) Happy New Year’, Jan. 1912, p. 2. Laura Beers, ‘Education or Manipulation? 31 Daily News, ‘Scenes at Leeds’, 2 Feb. 1910, p. 7. 52 The Star, ‘The Baby and the Bounty’, 13 Jan. Labour, Democracy and the Popular Press in 32 The Times, ‘Labour Exchanges’, 2 Feb. 1910, p. 1913, p. 4. Interwar Britain’, Journal of British Studies, 48:1 6. 53 Daily News, ‘The Bounty Babies’ and Leader, (2009), pp. 135–136, 151. 33 Daily Mail, ‘Labour Exchange Siege: Thou- 14 Jan. 1913, p. 7. sands of Unemployed at Manchester’, 9 Feb. 54 The Star, ‘Babies’ Day’, 13 Jan. 1913, p. 1. 1910, p. 5. 55 Daily News, ‘The Bounty Babies’ and Leader, 34 William Beveridge, quoted in Pat Thane, Old 14 Jan. 1913, p. 7.

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 35 Archive sources Dr J. Graham Jones lists the archival collections of interest to students of the Liberal Party held at the Flintshire County Record Office Liberal archives at Flintshire Record Office, Hawarden

lintshire Record Office was Publication Department), and Thomas tramways in Buckley and Hawarden par- established in 1951 and moved in Waterhouse (Flintshire Liberal Associa- ish, 1835–1912; election papers relating F1956 to its present location at the tion). (GG/B/13/2/11) to Sir Stephen R. Glynne’s candidature Old Rectory, Hawarden, an eighteenth- Posters, handbills, etc. (printed). Concern- and other campaigns, 1831–57; Flintshire century, grade II listed building set ing elections and mostly in the Liberal Yeomanry Cavalry muster rolls, parade within its own grounds. interest, issued by candidates in vari- reports and returns, 1831–7, 1873; general ous parliamentary elections: West Kent, financial and legal papers, 1829–1924. 1880; South Lancashire, 1865; South- Glynne-Gladstone MSS (GG) West Lancashire, 1868; Middlesex, 1880; Family and estate correspondence and Newark, 1846; Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sir John Herbert Lewis MP Papers papers of the Glynne and Gladstone 1877–80; North Northumberland, 1880. (D-L) families of Hawarden Castle, including (GG/D/6/21/13) Lewis entered parliament in 1892 as a Glynne family correspondence, c.1660– Liberal, representing Flint Boroughs 1875; Gladstone family correspond- Posters, handbills, etc. (printed). Concern- until 1906, Flintshire until 1918 and the ence, 1786–1952; Glynne family papers, ing elections and mostly in the Liberal University of Wales, a seat for which he 1593–early twentieth century; Gladstone interest, issued by candidates in various had campaigned, until his retirement in family papers, 1532–1960; the Gladstone parliamentary elections: Peterborough, 1922. His persistent advocacy and cam- papers, 1821–c.1971; papers re. national 1880; Salford, 1869–80; Stalybridge, paigning led to the establishment of a memorial to William Ewart Glad- 1885. (GG/D/6/21/14) National Museum in Cardiff, a National stone, 1898–1925; papers re. St Deiniol’s Library in Aberystwyth and the obtain- Library, 1889–post 1938; papers re. Cath- Posters, handbills, etc. (printed). Concern- ing of a Royal Charter establishing the erine Gladstone Convalescent Home, ing elections and mostly in the Liberal University of Wales in 1893. He became Mitcham, c.1910–1923; estate and house- interest: general elections and general the vice-president of the National hold papers, 1612–1953; business papers, political matters. (GG/D/6/21/15) Library of Wales in 1907, and its presi- 1760–1974; Newcastle Trust, 1822–1888. dent 1926–1927. He was also appointed a Includes correspondence concerning Junior Lord of the Treasury, 1906; par- the Liberal Party, 1934–5. Correspond- Hawarden Estate Collection (H-DA) liamentary secretary, Local Government ents include H. W. Acomb (librarian, Deeds for Flintshire, 1786–1928; estate Board, 1905; parliamentary secretary, ), Lord Davies papers of Hawarden Castle, Hawarden Board of Education, 1915; Deputy Lieu- (treasurer, The New Commonwealth), Settled and Burton Manor estates, tenant of Flintshire; president of the W. Robert Davies (secretary, National including rentals, 1817–1955, surveys, Library Association of the United King- Liberal Federation), F. E. Hamer and valuations and inventories, 1738–c. 1959, dom, 1920–1921; governor of Aberyst- James J. W. Herbertson (secretaries, The tenancy agreements, 1828–1939, rate wyth, Bangor and Cardiff University New Commonwealth), John Hender- books and assessments, 1829–c. 1911, Colleges and of the National Museum son and Commander T. A. Longford accounts, 1699–1960, sale particulars and of Wales; and Constable of Flint Castle. (secretaries, National Liberal Club), plans, 1830–1929, correspondence, 1843– He was awarded the gold medal from the F. W. Hirst (secretary, Public Economy 1977, maps and plans, 1733–1970, papers Honourable Society of the Cymrodorion League), John H. Humphreys (secretary, relating to Flintshire turnpike roads, in 1927. Proportional Representation Society), 1828–c.1839 and Hawarden and Dis- Harcourt Johnstone, MP, F. Llewellyn- trict Waterworks, 1882–1884; Hawarden Correspondence belonging to Enoch Jones (MP for Flintshire), Sir Donald Rectory tithe and other papers, 1817– Lewis, 1841–85, Catherine Lewis, Maclean, Sir Charles Mallet, Geoffrey 1931; Oak Farm, co. Staffs and Farm- 1863–8, John Herbert Lewis, 1868– Le M. Mander, MP, Ramsay Muir (pres- cot, co. Salop estate papers, 1800–1874; 1936, Ruth Lewis, 1887–1935, Herbert ident, National Liberal Federation), Viv- mineral leases (coal, ironstone, fireclay) Mostyn Lewis, 1905–24, Kitty Lewis/ ian Phillipps (secretary, Liberal Council), and industrial records for collieries and Mrs Idwal Jones, c.1900–85, Idwal Jones, Sir Herbert Samuel, Leonard H. Smith brickworks in Hawarden, 1830–1944, 1936–61, and miscellaneous correspond- (secretary, Chester Division Liberal and collieries and ironworks in Stafford- ence, 1869–1917; property deeds, 1711– Association), Harold Storey (Liberal shire, 1836–74; leases for railways and 1939; sale particulars, plans, notices,

36 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Liberal archives at Flintshire Record Office, Hawarden

1812–1958; accounts, 1862–1927; corre- spondence and miscellanea, 1812–1959; family papers, c.1845–1982; politi- cal and official documents, 1841–1978; Welsh education and culture, 1819–1979, including Eisteddfodau, 1886–1971, the National Library of Wales, 1909–63 and Welsh folk songs, 1819–1979; religious materials on Welsh Calvinistic Method- ism, 1716–1975, and Rev. Thomas Jones of Denbigh, 1803–1956; miscellaneous articles on North Wales, 1770–1978, including local history notes on Caer- wys, 1891–1954, and papers of Flintshire Historical Society, 1909–22; and photo- graphs, 1863–1967.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones Papers (D- MJ) Sir John Henry Morris-Jones (1884–1972) The Old Rectory, Hawarden was MP for Denbigh, 1929–50. Born (cc-by-sa/2.0 - © John S Turner - geograph.org.uk/p/628022) in Waunfawr, , he was educated at Menai Bridge Grammar 1945; notes on his ancestors, 1896–1945; Waterhouse MSS, 1958–83 (D-WA) School, , and St Mungo’s Col- press cuttings and photographs relating Ronald Gough Waterhouse was born on lege, Glasgow, qualifying as a doctor in to his career, 1927–60; and copies, type- 8 May 1926 at Holywell where his father, 1906. He practised for over twenty years scripts and material relating to his pub- a prominent figure in local Liberal poli- as a general practitioner in , lications, including Doctor in the Whips’ tics, owned a textile mill. After Holy- , and became chairman of Room, 1915–2003. well Grammar School, Ronald joined Colwyn Bay Urban District Council This collection includes the exten- the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1944 to and a member of Denbighshire County sive series of diaries upon which he based train as a pilot, while also doing a short Council. During the First World War, he his autobiography, Doctor in the Whips’ course at St John’s, Cambridge. After was a medical officer with the 2nd Bat- Room (1955), and over 180 letters, selected demobilisation in 1948 he went back up talion of the Worcester Regiment, serv- by Sir Henry from his personal corre- to St John’s to read Law as a MacMahon ing in France at a Red Cross Hospital at spondence shortly before his death. Early Scholar. Waterhouse was called to the Wimeraux, and later served in the Royal entries (1925) concerned with practice, Bar by Middle Temple as a Harmsworth Army Medical Corps. He was elected local government, and Liberal conven- Scholar in 1952. He joined chambers at as the Liberal MP for Denbigh in 1929, tion (Jan. 1925); later entries (1929–30) Farrar’s Building in the Temple. In due becoming a Liberal National after 1931 concerned with Denbigh election, etc. course, he established a busy mixed com- and retiring in 1950. He was assistant ‘Private and intimate notes on the 1929– mon law practice in London and on the government whip, 1932–1935, and a Lord 31 Parliament and the demise of the Wales and Chester Circuit. In the 1959 Commissioner of the Treasury, 1935– Liberal Party’; description of speeches, general election he unsuccessfully con- 1937 and Hon. Treasurer and Joint Hon. etc., in the House, notes on leading par- tested West Flintshire for Labour; he had Secretary of the Reception Commit- liamentary figures, and Liberal Party been a Liberal at university. In 1966 he tee for the Royal Visit to North Wales, meetings. was junior counsel to the Aberfan inquiry, 1937. He chaired the Welsh Parliamen- and junior prosecuting counsel (led by the tary Liberal Party, 1941–1942 and was Attorney General, Sir Elwyn Jones) at the a member of the parliamentary delega- Llywelyn Jones and Armon Ellis trial of the moors murderers, Ian Br0ady tion to Australia for the sesqui-centenary Collection and Myra Hindley, at Chester Assizes. He celebrations, 1938, and the delegation to Papers relating to the Department served as deputy chairman of the Chesh- Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 1945. of Education and Science grant to ire Quarter Sessions (1964–71) and of the He wrote an autobiography, Doctor in the B.Y.P.C.A. Hawkesbury Institute, Flintshire Quarter Sessions (1966–71). He Whips’ Room (1955). and related administration and audit. took Silk in 1969. Includes statement re: investment of Papers of Sir Henry Morris-Jones, moneys. (D-DM/434/12/7/22) Official Papers of Sir Ronald Water- 1896–2003, including diaries, 1911–18, house, 1958–83, including Politi- 1925–44; pocket diaries, 1912–62; per- Photograph of Lloyd George, F. cal Papers, 1958–59, Quarter Sessions sonal notebooks, 1950–62; letters, Llewellyn Jones and A. J. Sylvester at Records, 1964–71, Boundary Commis- 1923–63, mainly from fellow MPs; par- Daniel Owen Centenary Celebrations, sion Records, 1971–83, Prevention of liamentary papers, 1941–9 and 1963; 1936. (PH/40/104). Terrorism Records 1974–78, Records miscellaneous papers, 1906–65; papers Photograph of Lloyd George and Mr relating to Free Wales Army 1969, relating to a parliamentary delegation Llewellyn Jones, MP, with group at Records relating to the Moors Mur- to Buchenwald concentration camp, Rhyl. (PH/56/508). derers 1966, Aberfan Enquiry Records

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 37 Liberal archives at Flintshire Record Office, Hawarden

1966–67, Rabies Enquiry Committee Papers of Sir Anthony John Charles which time the party had changed its Papers 1970–71, and Connah’s Quay ‘B’ Meyer, comprising papers on constitu- name to the Liberal Democrats). Power Station Enquiry Papers 1970–71. ency affairs, 1979–90; general political papers, 1980–90; and papers on general Welsh Affairs, 1985–2006. General election records, 2010 (D/ Flintshire Liberal Association DM/1672) Minute book, 1924–37 (D/DM/512). Election leaflets, brochures, addresses Parliamentary election leaflets (D/ and posters relating to the general elec- DM/458/1) tion of 6 May 2010. Northop Liberal Association Miscellaneous leaflets issued by Con- Minute book, 1919–39 (D/DM/350). servative, Labour, Liberal and Plaid Cymru candidates in the East and West General election records, 2015 (D/ Flint constituencies. DM/1766) Shotton Liberal Association Election leaflets, newsletters, contact Records, 1908–32 (D/DM/266). details relating to the general election of Candidates’ election addresses, 7 May 2015. papers, etc. for Alyn and Sir Anthony Meyer MP Papers (D- District, May 1983 (D/DM/839/1) AM) Including: photograph of SDP/Liberal Contact details Sir Anthony John Charles Meyer, 3rd Alliance candidate with members of Flintshire Record Office (1920–2004) was a British sol- Council of Social Democracy, David The Old Rectory, Rectory Lane. dier, diplomat, and Conservative and Owen, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, Hawarden, Flintshire CH5 3NR later Liberal Democrat politician, best and Bill Rodgers. known for standing against Prime Min- Telephone: +44 (0)1244 532364 (Enquir- ister Margaret Thatcher for the Con- ies and Reservations); +44 (0)1244 532414 servative party leadership. In spite of Letters of condolence on the death (Administration) his staunch right-wing views on eco- of Dr F. Llewelyn-Jones, Liberal MP Fax: +44 (0)1244 538344 nomic policy, his passionate support of for Flintshire (D/DM/471/1) Email: [email protected] increased British integration into the Letters addressed to Mr Humphrey European Union led to him becoming Llewelyn-Jones, son of Dr F. Llewelyn Dr J. Graham Jones was formerly sen- increasingly marginalised in Thatcher’s Jones. 1929–1935 and January 1941. ior archivist and head of the Welsh Political Conservative Party. Archive at the National Library of Wales, After being deselected as a Conserva- Aberystwyth. tive parliamentary candidate for the 1992 General election, Delyn SDP/ general election, Meyer became policy Liberal Alliance records (D/ director of the European Movement, DM/1770) and in 1998 he joined the Pro-Euro Con- Papers, correspondence, election leaf- servative Party. After that disbanded in lets, brochures, posters, etc. re: the 2001, he became a member of the Liberal Delyn SDP/Liberal Alliance election Democrats. campaigns, 1985–87; 1987; and 1992 (by Think history Can you spare some time to help the Liberal Democrat History Group?

The History Group undertakes a wide range of activities – publishing this Journal and our Liberal history books and booklets, organising regular speaker meetings, maintaining the Liberal history website and providing assistance with research. We’d like to do more, but our activities are limited by the number of people involved in running the Group. We would be enormously grateful for help with: • Improving our website. • Helping with our presence at Liberal Democrat conferences. • Organising our meeting programme. • Publicising our activities, through both social media and more tradi- tional means. • Running the organisation. If you’d like to be involved in any of these activities, or anything else, contact the Editor, Duncan Brack ([email protected]) – we would love to hear from you.

38 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 internet, they had cheap, table-top offset printing, golfball typewriters and letra- Report set, cut-and-paste graphics using scissors and glue.’ Focus artwork was generated by John Cookson. This enabled them to Liberals in Local Government 1967–2017 produce an ALC bulletin, full of anec- dotes and proselytisation, six times a Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting, Bournemouth, 17 year in Liberal News. Meanwhile, a regu- September 2017, with Kath Pinnock, Tony Greaves, Richard Kemp, lar mailing, called Grapevine, was sent to councillors and candidates. Trevor Jones Sarah Bedford, Matt Cole and Ruth Dombey; chair: Andrew Stunell published a piece entitled ‘Could you Report by Douglas Oliver be a Liberal councillor?’ Elizabeth Wil- son gave guidance on casework. A guide s the Liberal Democrats until she was appointed to the House of to rural campaigning was written by a reflected on a disappointing Lords in 2014. young Paddy Ashdown. The Theory and Ageneral election result at their Pinnock thanked the History Group Practice of Community Politics, by Gordon autumn conference in Bournemouth for hosting the event and said that it Lishman and Bernard Greaves, was pub- last September, the History Group met was a great opportunity to reflect on lished in 1980 and remained key to the to discuss the legacy of the party’s local the success and progress of ALC and work of the ALC, not only in a logistical government network, how it helped ALDC over the years, ‘not just in win- sense but also philosophically. As they establish the party’s success in previous ning council seats, but also in push- said then: years, and how it might look to do so ing forward radical policy’. When the again. group was first conceived and met in … the manner in which decisions, atti- The Association of Liberal Democrat Leamington in the middle 1960s, it had tudes and priorities emerge from the Councillors today represents thousands a membership of only a few hundred full range of smaller communities to of Lib Dem local representatives around councillors. At that time, Pinnock said, govern larger and larger communities. the country, and seeks to help them get the group was driven forward by a string That process of confrontation conflict, elected and apply Liberal principles in of strong personalities, familiar to many negotiation, co-operation, change and practice. Its predecessor organisation – in the room: Trevor Jones, who was its law-making is the way in which soci- the Association of Liberal Councillors first chair; John Smithson, author of eties should be run. The concept of – gradually emerged in the wake of dis- various manuals for winning elections; pluralism is central to our view of pol- appointing election results in 1964 and and Bernard Greaves and Gordon Lish- itics, just as the concepts of free choice 1965 at a national and local level, and man who were the authors of several and diversity are central to our view of was ultimately recognised by the federal radical works. Above all, she pointed to personal development. Pluralism is not Liberal Party in 1969; its ‘golden anni- Tony Greaves, who was the group’s first a neat prescription or an easy concept: versary’ was marked as being in 2017 and full-time organising secretary. Pinnock it is, however, essential to the alterna- celebrated at this meeting. had gained the campaigning bug after tive society which we are advocating. The discussion in the Bournemouth local education cuts by the local Labour International Centre was chaired by Party, and it was Greaves who gave her The nature of community politics former Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel guidance on how to win. In particular, changed over the years. The carica- Grove, (now Lord) Andrew Stunell. he suggested buying the group’s book on ture of an old man or woman discussing Whilst Stunell is now famous for his role campaigning, ‘and delivering leaflets to land value taxation became instead an in negotiating the coalition agreement of every single door’. image of someone looking at potholes. 2010, and acting as a minister in govern- From there, Pinnock said, ALC pow- More than anything, said Greaves, it had ment until 2015, it was in local govern- ered ahead in a virtuous cycle: ‘more worked. ALC started from a low base: ment that he cut his political teeth – far members meant more staff. More staff in the May 1977 council elections, a total from the ‘madding crowd’ and ‘igno- meant having more resources to help of 950 Liberal councillors contained ble strife’ of Westminster. From 1979 more people become council candi- only 350 members of ALC, with ‘scat- and 1981 he served as a city and county dates and councillors.’ The fundamental tered beacons’ of active councillors. By councillor in Chester before acting as the lesson, she said, was to build from the 1986, the party had almost 3,000 elected ALC’s policy officer. After so many years ground up. councillors, and ten years later, in 1996, in active political service, the discussion Pinnock was followed by Tony reached a peak of 5,000 councillors with was, he said, the first time he realised he Greaves himself, talking about both an ALC membership of 2,300. was now part of history in his own right. ALC’s origins and his own role, which Although the party’s fortunes had However, he was happy to share it with commenced in 1985. He criticised the declined in recent years, Greaves’ mood such illustrious company. Liberal Party head office, which he said was Kiplingesque: ‘foundations remain – The first panellist he introduced was was stifling – ‘providing next to no use- a new generation of Liberal campaigners his House of Lords colleague Baroness ful services’. Key figures such as Gordon will need to build on them all again.’ Kath Pinnock, who had served for many Lishman, David Hewitt, John Smithson Community politics was nowhere years in local government, and today and Phoebe Wynch were pivotal. more prominent than in the city of Liv- acts as the party’s spokesperson on local According to Greaves, the ALC’s erpool, often neglected by the local government. Pinnock served as a coun- methods were basic by today’s standards Labour Party. Councillor Richard Kemp cillor in Kirklees from 1987 onwards, but just as effective. ‘Long before the followed Greaves on the panel. He had

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 39 Report: Liberals in local government 1967–2017

Speakers and chair: Matt Cole, Richard Kemp, Andrew Stunell, Tony Greaves, Sara Bedford, Kath Pinnock, Ruth Dombey followed the famous Liverpool city included speaking up for the vulnerable, actually Huddersfield that was the loca- councillor Trevor Jones both as coun- and she was proud of benefit support for tion of the biggest local party, as the cillor in Church Ward and also as leader the poorest members of her community. Liberals sat in the doldrums of local and of the council group. It was Jones who She was also proud of how Liberal val- national politics. The revitalisation of had invented the Focus leaflet and it was ues had been implemented through the the local Liberals in West , led as a result of this legacy that the Liver- extensive use of leisure services and envi- by the likes of Richard Wainwright, pool Lib Dems sold mugs emblazoned ronmental facilities. Furthermore, the encouraged residents to recognise, from with ‘Welcome to Liverpool – home of Liberal Democrats in her area had not 1966, that he could be trusted to repre- Focus’ at a recent Federal Conference on succumbed to NIMBY-ish tendencies, sent them at Westminster too. In 1973 Merseyside. and instead had built houses and had seen and 1979 Alan Beith and David Alton Kemp echoed Greaves by stressing a population growth in her ward from also experienced similar rises. the simple method his local party had 5,100 to 8,400 in twenty-six years. Other The significance of local government used to achieve success: deliver a let- areas of note included funding for the to the party’s effectiveness was shown ter or leaflet every six weeks and knock Citizen’s Advice Bureau and opposition by the fact that in the early 2000s more on each door at least once a year. Kemp to a local casino. Lib Dem MPs were former councillors said that Lib Dem councillors had to In summary, said Bedford, it was cru- than was the case for MPs in either the live and breathe their wards and his first cial to have ‘consensus and competence Tory or Labour parties. This made the test of any councillor was who they had … Consensus does not mean weakness party more cohesive at the national level, on their speed dial: ‘if they have police, nor prevarication; success does not mean and also more in tune with its wider vicar, imam, headteachers as close con- gimmickry. As a result of our com- membership and to a certain extent tacts, they are doing the right thing’. petence and patience, we have never with the electorate as a whole. How- Finally, said Kemp, Liberals should cel- appeared in the local paper, The Watford ever, said Cole, the challenges facing ebrate their virtues or else there would Observer, as being criticised for misman- the party at both local and national level be no point in being involved in politics agement’. The history of her local party, remained serious. Even before 2010, the in the first place. In Church Ward they and others benefiting from the advice of party’s growth had stalled, and whilst spoke up for the achievements of the Lib ALC and ALDC, demonstrated that the in government, 30 per cent of Liberal Dems in coalition – and consequently ‘future can also be bright – and the Lib Democrat councillors’ seats were lost. had survived the period. Whatever one’s Dem role in it is vital’. Nonetheless, the history of the ALC and interpretation of community politics, Dr Matt Cole, an academic from Uni- ALDC should give the party plenty of Kemp emphasised that it should not be versity of Birmingham, followed Bedford inspiration. merely a cynical marketing exercise: ‘It’s by putting the recent history of the ALC The final speaker was Councillor for your heart as well as your head.’ and ALDC in a more detailed histori- Ruth Dombey, current leader of Sutton Councillor Sarah Bedford, Liberal cal context. It was the Whigs who had Council. The borough has been under Democrat leader of Three Rivers Dis- championed the Municipal Corporation Lib Dem control for thirty-one years. trict Council, spoke about her experi- Acts of the 1830s. The great radical Liberal Three of the current Lib Dem council- ence of being a councillor for twenty-six , who gave regional lors had actually been born in Sutton years. Her authority had been Lib Dem recognition to Birmingham in the Vic- since the party first took it over in 1986. run on and off since 1986, although it had torian period, stands as perhaps the most However, Dombey took issue with a patchy period in the 1990s. Located famous example of local government the idea that local government should in South West Hertfordshire, it was leadership in British political history. always be seen as a springboard to West- touched by the Grand Union Canal, M1 Echoing the previous speakers, Cole minster: because of the power of local and M25. Highlights Bedford referred to pointed out that in the 1950s it was government, there is much that local

40 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Report: Liberals in local government 1967–2017 politicians can do at a local level to loss of cohesion and a growth of mistrust Sir David Williams – former leader of put Liberal virtues into practice and in politicians, particularly in the context Richmond Council said that ‘Tony is to empower people. Indeed, Dombey of the lies and deceit over Brexit. But this right – bottom-up not top-down poli- pointed out that Sutton had done things was why she felt the Liberal Democrats tics’. In the discussion that followed, the opposite way around to many bor- were in the strongest position to take there was much fond reminiscence of oughs, by first briefly holding one of on this challenge. She concluded that worthy political battles past and the Lib- its Westminster seats in the early 1970s, ‘we do not believe in power as divine eral values they had involved. As the Lib- and then going on to win the council in right – that is the Tory way. We do not eral Democrats look to the future, they the following decade, on both occasions believe people cannot be trusted – that is must also look to rebuild from the foun- with Graham Tope as the leading player. the Labour way. We believe in the free- dations of what once lay before. They Currently, forty-four out of fifty- dom of people to empower themselves may succeed again if – like Kipling – seven councillors in Sutton are Lib and build their own lives – that is the they can ‘watch the things you gave your Dems. Whilst the local party is working Lib Dem way … I have to pinch myself life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em towards a ninth successive stint in power every day at the privilege I have for help- up with worn-out tools’. from May 2018, it had to think hard ing make this real’. about why it wanted to win and then to Twenty minutes of questions fol- Douglas Oliver is Secretary of the Liberal express its aims clearly. For Dombey, the lowed and many speakers from the floor Democrat History Group. key task was to face the challenge of a echoed the panel. The first questioner,

Letters to the Editor Nelia Penman Before Nelia Penman passed away on 16 Baptism reinforced the view of him as a The Methodists strongly backed August 2017, at the age of 101, she was Welsh outsider. Lloyd George on conscription and strat- the last (known) surviving Liberal Party In fact, one could argue that it was egy, as they had once backed the South candidate from the 1945 general election. Nonconformity which made him Prime African War (which saw Ll.G. in fierce In 1945 she contested Sevenoaks as Nelia Minister. In the intrigues and manoeu- opposition). Despite failure to get their Muspratt, two years before her marriage. vres in late 1916 which led to his sup- way over such issues as state purchase of She had become the last surviv- planting Asquith, his main champions the drink trade, and later over the bloody ing candidate following the passing of were almost all Nonconformists who ‘retaliation’ policy in Ireland, they Arthur Walter James (Bury) and Philip saw him personally as an egalitarian mostly stuck with the Baptist premier. John Willmett (Isle of Thanet), who both populist democrat, the complete oppo- Disendowing the Welsh Church’s tithe died in 2015. Jeremy Hutchinson, later site of elitist figures like Grey and the in 1919 gave them some comfort. Hutchinson of Lullington, con- turncoat Congregationalist Asquith (not The split between Lloyd Georgians tested Westminster Abbey for Labour to mention Margot). and Asquithians was therefore as much in 1945 and at the age of 102 is the last Those behind the moves for Lloyd about religious equality as about war- known surviving candidate of any party George to lead party and nation dur- time leadership. The Liberal Party suf- from that election. ing the conscription crisis – Addison, fered grievously from it – and so did the Had Neville Chamberlain chosen to Kellaway and David Davies – were all moral shibboleths of the ‘Nonconform- call a general election in 1939 as had been committed Nonconformists, like many ist conscience’. Lloyd George could not anticipated, Nelia Muspratt would have of Frederick Cawley’s pro-conscription even find comfort in his own tabernacle been Liberal candidate for Liverpool Liberal War Committee, the chapels at Castle Street Baptist chapel. Like his Wavertree, having been adopted as pro- in khaki. Many of those who swung pre-war guru, Dr. Clifford, its two post- spective candidate the year before at the from Asquith to Lloyd George in the war ministers, James Nicholas and Her- age of just 22. first week of December 1916 were self- bert Morgan, joined the Labour Party, Graem Peters made Nonconformists, often business- yet more lapsed sheep gone astray. men, who resented the ‘noblest Roman’ Kenneth O. Morgan patrician style of the Asquithians. They Lloyd George and Nonconformity. were joined by important Nonconform- Chris Wrigley’s most interesting arti- ist journalists like Robertson Nicoll of French elections cle (‘The Nonconformist mind of Lloyd the British Weekly along with the Bap- Michael Steed’s comprehensive run George’, Journal of Liberal History 96, tist Times and Christian World, while the through the alphabet soup of French autumn 2017) rightly emphasises the new premier took particular trouble politics over the decades in ‘En Marche! importance of Lloyd George’s Non- in finding office for influential dissent- A New Dawn for European Liber- conformist background in his rise to ing figures like Compton-Rickett and alism?’ (Journal of Liberal History 96, the summit of power. His Campbellite Illingworth. autumn 2017), with its changing

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 41 Letters to the Editor allegiances, and personality-based poli- Many voters are still clinging to the was not inevitable that Britain would tics, was the best argument in favour of idea that the Brexit scenario will play out find itself in the position of overwhelm- a first-past-the-post electoral system I successfully while we still hear confident ing weakness it was in in 1940, after have read in years. predictions that Brexit has not affected nine years of Conservative govern- Ian Stuart the economy as forecast. This ignored ment, or the position the UK will be in the fact that Brexit has not happened and after Brexit, on the sidelines in Europe nobody, least of all the British govern- without influence and with an economy The 2017 election (1) ment, has any idea of what final terms, largely dependent on such deals as can be Professor John Curtice strives at some if any, will be agreed and by definition negotiated. With the US seeking to put length (‘The 2017 Election – A Missed what the effects of this will be. a 180 per cent penal tariff on Canadian Opportunity?’, Journal of Liberal His- Reality will soon dawn, however, British aircraft the value of any free trade tory 96, autumn 2017) to explain why and the party’s position is clear. Many deal there must be highly suspect. the Liberal Democrats did well in a few voters and former party workers did In 1960 Jo Grimond wrote that if the seats and badly in all others. He draws not forgive the leadership for what they Liberal Party failed to make the break- extensively on opinion polls to find some considered to be a great betrayal in 2010. through it would be because the British rhyme or reason in it all but I don’t think When MPs voted for the deal were they people were not prepared to face up to finds any clear pattern. told that the intention was to ditch the the reality of their new position in the Overall, we did badly but why in a main policy on which the election had world. That is an appropriate epitaph for few seats the trend was bucked, in some been fought, i.e. tuition fees? When the the recent general election. cases spectacularly so, is a bit of a mys- party went into coalition in Scotland it Looking to the future the one hope tery, and will probably remain so. No was made quite clear that the abolition of is that as future events unfold people doubt efforts will be made to discover tuition fees was a red line. should look back on the Coalition gov- their secrets so they can be replicated On a broader perspective Lord Hes- ernment as a period of comparative suc- elsewhere next time but I suspect the eltine has stated that the Conservatives cess for the British economy – a period effort will be in vain. Certainly we have been the usual party of government that will come to an abrupt end in 2019. might just as well consult Mystic Meg in the UK. What he failed to mention is As mentioned earlier the success of the as study opinion polls; their reputation that since 1922 we have witnessed a cata- Liberal Democrats in 2017 was to lay is surely in tatters as they get so much strophic decline in Britain’s world posi- down a clear policy path for the future. wrong with increasing frequency. tion. While loss of Empire was inevitable Richard Pealling What we do know is that the base of and, indeed, a natural development, it the party is becoming stronger as we gain seats in council elections all over the country, using tried and tested tech- niques. Unfortunately they involve us in a lot of hard and persistent work, but there is simply no substitute. Trevor Jones Reviews The 2017 election (2) I take issue with the theme of Profes- Radical Joe and Chocolate George sor Curtice’s article (‘The 2017 Elec- tion – A Missed Opportunity?’, Journal Andrew Reekes, Two Titans, One City: Joseph Chamberlain and of Liberal History 96, autumn 2017). The implication of the title is that the Liberal George Cadbury (History West Midlands, 2017) Democrats could have done more and Review by Philip Davis performed better in the election, an idea which I reject. ndrew Reekes’ biography of municipal Liberalism and success in West Given what happened in 2015, with two giant figures in the genesis Midlands manufacturing, to their later all the analysts I read forecasting that the Aof modern Birmingham marks sharp political divergence, particularly party would cease to exist as a significant another welcome venture from local over Chamberlain’s imperialism and the force, and probably be reduced to three publisher West Midlands History. Local Boer War. These distinctive journeys seats at a subsequent election, the come- loyalties or no, this comparative biogra- are illuminated by the common thread back was the best that could have been phy recommends itself as a fascinating of Birmingham localism. Long after hoped for. In addition, a clear marker has study of two very different personalities they had parted company politically and been put down for the future. Elections do who left an enduring mark on ‘the City with no great personal warmth between not stand in isolation – one example from of a Thousand Trades’ and were nation- them, Cadbury was willing to give history being that a key factor in Labour´s ally significant figures. financial and moral support to Chamber- defeat in 1959 was the memory of post-war Reekes’ book on Joseph Chamber- lain’s last great city project, the found- austerity. Corbyn’s success has been largely lain and George Cadbury demonstrates ing of Birmingham University. Despite based on the advantage he has in being able not only their distinctiveness – chiefly strong political differences the growing to distance himself from the shambles of of character – but also their interactions. city remained at the heart of both men’s the Blair–Brown governments. He maps their common beginnings from affection and interests.

42 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Reviews

In twenty-first-century Birmingham, to the end, though not without charges George Cadbury’s name is more visible of hypocrisy when this avowedly Chris- than Chamberlain’s. Despite the contro- tian company failed to quickly dump a versial loss of the Cadbury brand to a US connection with slave-produced cocoa. food giant, the name endures in the pro- In contrast Chamberlain moved from duction of the eponymous chocolate that the ‘Radical Joe’ of the 1870s’ Unautho- funded his family fortune. His vision is rised Programme (the Bennite alternative also apparent in Bournville, which, if no left manifesto of its time?), to Colonial longer the edge-of-city location that first Secretary and premier imperialist rab- drew him, remains the attractive sub- ble-rouser. Suspected of having a murky urb in which Cadbury turned his belief hand in the 1895 Jameson Raid and the in the garden city ideal into bricks and later Boer War, Liberal papers called this mortar. colonial conflict ‘Joe’s War’. As Andrew While Chamberlain’s 1879 home, Reekes’ observes, this was not entirely Highbury, remains and anticipates fair but in many respects the charge hit refurbishment under the new, inde- the mark. pendent Chamberlain Highbury Trust, In stark contrast to Cadbury, con- the Birmingham MP and cabinet min- flict appeared meat and drink to Cham- ister left a different legacy. Equally berlain. Some twenty-five years before, driven by strong self-belief, this epit- Radical Joe’s programme for the work- ome of Victorian bourgeois confidence ing classes was highly controversial. It is central to it. The importance of his was widely influential on the develop- was ‘unauthorised’ not least by Glad- two titans to the politics of their time, ment of modern politics and democ- stone, with whom Chamberlain had Reekes reminds the reader, speaks to racy. Joe was politician as warrior par a poor relationship. That the aspirant Birmingham’s past influence on a wider excellence. His energy and implacable Chamberlain and the Grand Old Man British canvas both before and after his will – assisted by the comfortable inde- of Liberalism did not get on was to have chosen period. Before Chamberlain was pendence granted by a highly success- substantial consequences for both. It born, mass pro-democracy agitation in ful business career – made the political dramatically impacted upon British and the city of my birth – led by Thomas weather. As is often the case, this inspi- in particular Anglo-Irish politics, with Atwood – helped force the first tentative rational leadership style was a mixed tragic long-term consequences for both steps in the hundred-year march to uni- blessing for other political leaders. Joe countries. versal suffrage and the end of aristocratic Chamberlain is one of the few politi- Andrew Reekes paints a balanced political dominance. This shift to mass cians to have split both the major politi- picture of both these Victorian men of suffrage was never inevitable and Bir- cal parties of his era. In comparison power. For all his philanthropic works mingham played its part in maintaining Michael Gove and Boris Johnson are in his home city and support for progres- the pressure. models of constancy and loyalty. sive national causes, (including, unlike In the twenty-first century, Brum, In the early 1870s, building on the Chamberlain, votes for women), we like all cities outside London (which, work of local MP George Dixon, learn that George Cadbury was no plas- uniquely, has full local and regional gov- Councillor William Harris and other ter saint. Cadbury’s failure to deal expe- ernment) has lost political influence. organisers in the Birmingham Liberal ditiously with the issue of Portuguese Thatcherite rate capping, the inexorable Association, Chamberlain energised cocoa sourced from brutalised labour centralisation of financial and other local a template of local political organisa- led to accusations of hypocrisy. The pur- powers (compounded by reckless auster- tion. The caucus was born. The efforts chase of slave cocoa continued for eight ity since 2010), has reduced local govern- of another Chamberlain associate, the years, sustained by Cadbury’s equivoca- ment to a pale shadow and a convenient indefatigable Birmingham draper Fran- tion as fact-finding missions and official whipping boy for the failings of White- cis Schnadhorst, turned the caucus into reports kicked the cocoa tin down the hall and Westminster. And yet, given the a national model. As Asa Briggs notes, road. It is a cautionary tale, still valid will, this retreat from local democracy ‘it provided a pattern for other constitu- today, with a moral Cadbury should can be reversed. ency Liberal parties and the National have foreseen: even sincere principles Andrew Reekes’ book maps the polit- Liberal Federation came to be identi- held by undoubtedly ‘moral’ folk may ical lives of Joseph Chamberlain and fied with it’. These mid-nineteenth-cen- fall victim to profitable business dealings George Cadbury and indirectly, pro- tury organisational models laid a local on a global scale. vides insight into how political vision, foundation for modern British politics. Via his two protagonists, Reekes rooted in local experience and com- Chamberlain was central to the creation gives the reader an excellent feel for the munity, can achieve change. In 2017 the of a pattern of political activism that, politics of late Victorian Britain. My economic, social and political context arguably, only began to slowly change in only criticism is the absence of an epi- differs radically, yet, it is a truism that response to communications and digital logue, drawing together the themes of challenges around power – who has it revolutions a hundred years later. legacy and place; though chapters on the and for what purpose – remain as rel- Of the two ‘titans’, Joe Chamber- family dynasties created by Cadbury and evant as during Hobsbawm’s ‘long nine- lain’s path led furthest from the politics Chamberlain go some way to redress- teenth century’. Can we ensure that of his youth. Cadbury, driven by strong ing this. current offers of devolved powers to Quaker convictions throughout his life, This is not a book about Birming- city-regions, however weak, prompt promoted liberal and progressive causes ham politics per se, though Birmingham a new political journey to a healthier

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 43 Reviews balance of central–local powers? It’s former chair of the West Midlands Regional what Radical Joe and Chocolate George Assembly. He is City Heritage Champion. would have wanted. 1 Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities: Manchester, Leeds, Philip Davis is a Birmingham Labour Coun- Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Melbourne, London cillor, ex-Leader of Telford Council, and (Penguin, 1990).

Liberalism: An outstanding introduction Michael Freeden, Liberalism. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2015) Review by Alastair J. Reid

hat an appropriate name Hobson); to pluralism and the dilem- for a writer on liberalism! mas of contemporary identity politics. WMy keyboard kept antici- This sequence deliberately leaves out pating it as ‘freedom’… And Michael so-called ‘neoliberalism’, which he sees Freeden has indeed written a generous as such a thinned-out version as to cross and open book, which manages to com- over the boundary into conservatism. clarification of norms of justice, democ- bine a helpful account of its immediate However, in the course of this survey racy and individual rights. subject with an overview of a distinctive Freeden emphasises varieties of legiti- Throughout, the book has a produc- approach to ideologies more generally. mate members of the family. First, varie- tive dual eye on history, without which Moreover, there is enough repetition of ties within political liberalism: especially the nature of liberalism could not begin its main ideas in different forms and con- the well-known distinction between to be understood, and the present day, texts to make them easier to digest and classical liberalism restraining the state which is what we can assume most of remember. and using the state to its readers will be interested in. Freeden Primarily about British liberalism, promote human well-being. But then, develops a very useful image of ‘layers’ though with many interesting side- second, less well-known varieties outside rather than successive stages: ‘… lib- ways comparisons with other counties, the sphere of strictly political thought eral ideas originated at different times, the book steers us quickly and skilfully and action: especially the university from diverse sources, and with varying from John Locke’s proto-liberalism; liberalism of early nineteenth-century aims in mind … they are a composite of through the Manchester School’s eco- Germans, emphasising the spontane- accumulated, discarded and retrieved nomic utilitarianism; John Stuart Mill’s ous cultivation of intellectual and moral strata in continuously fluctuating com- exploration of individual development; powers; and the philosophical liberal- binations’. But he accompanies this with the ‘new liberalism’ and state welfare (in ism of late twentieth-century North the concept of ‘morphology’, that is, a T. H. Green, L. T. Hobhouse and J. A. Americans, emphasising the rational basic shape or set of core ideas which all Liberalism The ideas that built the Liberal Democrats An accessible guide to the key ideas underlying Liberal Democrat beliefs, including entries on environmentalism, internationalism, the rule of law and community politics, together with contemporary and historic currents of thought, including social and economic liberalism, social democracy, Keynesianism, radicalism and more.

Essential reading for every thinking Liberal.

Available at a special discounted rate for Journal of Liberal History subscribers: £5 instead of the normal £6. Order via our online shop (www.liberalhistory.org.uk/shop/) or by sending a cheque (to ‘Liberal Democrat History Group’) to LDHG, 54 Midmoor Road, London SW12 0EN (add £1.25 P&P).

44 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Reviews members of an ideological family will While it would therefore be not only government, popular consent, and the share. In this case it is hard to imagine premature but inappropriate to talk of political and civil liberties of the indi- a liberalism without some combination the ‘triumph of liberalism’, we can say vidual citizen. At best it could be said of: checks on power, liberty, ration- that the liberal tradition has been and that later, throughout his study, Fawcett ality, progress, individuality, mutual still is a central pillar of the modern treats liberalism as a meta-ideology, that interdependence and the public interest world: placing human beings at the cen- is, broadly speaking, the higher, sec- – though these will not always have the tre of the social universe, unleashing a ond-order ideology of the industrialised same weight and meaning in every case. critical approach to knowledge, legiti- West, which has provided a framework This shift away from the ambitions mising constant change in public policy, embracing the rival values and beliefs of of political theory to create an opti- and advocating an appreciation of the particular political doctrines. Since at mal ideology and towards the descrip- diversity of people’s ways of life. Think- least 1945 there have, after all, been other tive approach of history suggests that it ers and politicians who do not take these distinctive ideological approaches to lib- would be a waste of time and energy to themes for granted are now generally eral democracy besides those of classical search for a clear definition of ‘real’ or regarded as somewhat cranky, though of liberalism and social liberalism, specifi- ‘essential’ liberalism. And, similarly, that course in liberal polities they are usually cally, those of conservatism, in its vari- it would be a mistake to expect it to offer still allowed a voice. ous forms, particularly evident in the ready-packaged and conclusive solu- It is hard to imagine a better introduc- United States, as well as those of demo- tions to the dilemmas of policy-making: tion to liberalism than Freeden’s short cratic socialism and social democracy. which can only be dealt with appro- book and, like all outstanding introduc- From that blurred conceptual distinc- priately and humanely through public tions, it has a lot to offer to those who tion, however, between liberalism and discussion of a menu of possibilities, pro- don’t think they really need one. liberal democracy, seem to me to stem ducing compromises subject to constant the two main shortcomings of Liberalism: adaptation. But that is the attraction of Alastair J. Reid is a Life Fellow of Girton The Life of an Idea: its very broad narra- liberalism properly understood: that it College, Cambridge and author of a number tive approach and the extremely wide is closer to the uncertainty and ambigu- of books on the history of British trade unions scope of Fawcett’s historical account of ity of life as most people experience it written from a broadly liberal perspective, Western liberalism as he conceives and than are many other political ideologies, including, most recently, Alternatives to defines it. With regard to Fawcett’s his- particularly those of a totalitarian or State-Socialism in Britain. Other Worlds torical narrative, it is developed chrono- utopian type which aim for some sort of of Labour in the Twentieth Century, logically in three parts: first, the period final closure. jointly edited with Peter Ackers. of liberalism’s ‘youthful definition’ from 1830 to 1880; second, that of its matura- tion and its ‘historic compromise with democracy’ from 1880 to 1945, from which liberalism emerged in more inclu- Slippery Liberalism sive form as democratic liberalism, better known as liberal democracy; and, third, Edmund Fawcett, Liberalism: The Life of an Idea (Princeton University the period from 1945 to 1989, when, Press, 2015) ‘after near-fatal failures’ in the twenti- eth.century, involving ‘two world wars, Review by Tudor Jones political failures, and economic slump’, liberal democracy ‘won itself another t the heart of this book there foundations in conceptual and historical seems to lie a persistent ambigu- depth’, thereby providing ‘vital intel- Aity, arguably even a definitional lectual background for hard thinking error, in respect of its subject matter. It about liberal democracy’s future.’ The purports at the outset to be, in the words author points out, too, that Part Two of of its author, who was a journalist for his book, entitled ‘Liberalism in Matu- The Economist for more than three dec- rity and the Struggle with Democracy’ ades, ‘a biographically led, non-special- (1880–1945), ‘described liberalism’s long ist chronicle of liberalism as a practice and ever negotiable compromise with of politics’, one that has stretched over democracy from which liberal democ- two centuries in the West since the early racy emerged.’ nineteenth century. Yet in the author’s In such a manner Fawcett appears preface to this 2015 paperback edition to blur the distinction, which is both of his book, originally published the an empirical and a conceptual one, previous year, Edmund Fawcett main- between, on the one hand, liberalism as tains that its underlying message was a broad tradition of political thinking in ‘that liberal democracy was under chal- the West, a particular political ideology, lenge and urgently needed repair’, a mes- that has developed a distinctive vision sage that struck him ‘as more pressing of society based on certain core values than ever.’ At the same time, he states and beliefs, and, on the other hand, lib- that Liberalism: The Life of an Idea ‘offered eral democracy as a type of political a comprehensive guide to liberalism’s regime involving limited, constitutional

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 45 Reviews chance’, in 1945 after the military defeat the four Western countries on which his eventually mentions later and briefly of fascism, ‘its twentieth-century rival narrative focuses. John Stuart Mill’s defence of free speech, to the right.’ In the aftermath of that vic- But, as noted above, problems arise he refers to Mill’s ‘sunny confidence in a tory, the manner in which liberal democ- from the sheer breadth and density of vigorous, open contest of opinion.’ Mill racy revived and prospered is examined, Fawcett’s narrative approach. This is was in fact anything but confident about in Part Three of Fawcett’s book, culmi- particularly evident in Part One of the the inevitable advancement of truth as nating in the eventual demise of liberal book, covering the period from 1830 to an effect of freedom of discussion. InOn democracy’s ‘twentieth-century rival to 1880, much of which is hard going for Liberty he wrote that: ‘The dictum that the left, Soviet Communism.’ the reader. Here Fawcett frequently flits truth always triumphs over persecution, In the book’s coda, Fawcett neverthe- from the ideas of one political or social is one of those pleasant falsehoods which less avoids striking a prematurely trium- thinker to another without any devel- men repeat after one another till they phalist note, acknowledging that, since oped historical narrative or, in some pass into commonplaces, but which all 1989, and in the opening decades of the cases, without any coherent theoretical experience refutes.’ 21st century, ‘the mood has darkened’, analysis. A section on John Stuart Mill, The very title of the final section of with new threats posed to liberal democ- for example, while biographically inter- Part Three of Fawcett’s study, namely, racy by various malevolent, illiberal esting and perceptive, pays barely any ‘The Breadth of Liberal Politics in the forces. Towards the end of the book, in attention to the most celebrated part of 1950s–1980s’, underlines what appears an interesting and reflective discussion, Mill’s On Liberty, arguably the most elo- to be the book’s second main shortcom- Fawcett addresses, too, the question of quent exposition of the case for freedom ing, that is, the extremely wide scope liberal democracy’s future sustainability, of speech and expression in the English of his conception of Western liberal- socially, economically, and internation- language, which comprises one-third ism in the four countries under scrutiny. ally. Avoiding, however, a purely Anglo- of that essay, and which is as clearly rel- To illustrate that point vividly, Marga- American focus, the three main parts of evant today as it was in mid-Victorian ret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Francois Liberalism: The Life of an Idea all concen- England, not least on many American, Mitterand, and Helmut Kohl are thus all trate on four different Western countries and some British, university campuses. considered within the broad category of which, since 1945, have comprised liberal In Part Two of the book, too, on ‘Lib- ‘right liberalism in the 1970s–1980s’. Of democracy’s ‘exemplary core’ – namely, eralism in Maturity’ (1880–1945), in a Thatcher in particular, Fawcett writes France, Britain, , and the section on Liberal Imperialism, there are that she ‘was right-wing and for all her United States of America. too many generalities in place of analy- talk of freedom was over-fond of power, All of this narrative structure would sis, and too many sharp transitions made but she was still liberal.’ Such a judge- appear historically coherent if the book from the ideas of Joseph Chamberlain to ment is simplistic and manifestly too were expressly a history of the gradual those of Ernest Basserman in Germany. broad, as Thatcher herself would proba- emergence and development of liberal All of this is also apparent in a later sec- bly have pointed out, unless, that is, ‘lib- democracy in those four countries. But, tion covering the ideas and conduct of eral’ is intended here as a supporter of the while recognising that liberalism, thus ‘liberal hawks’ David Lloyd George, ideals and institutions of liberal democ- broadly equated by the author with lib- Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow racy, or unless, too, ‘liberal’ is narrowly eral democracy, ‘is bound to be capacious’, Wilson. equated with economic liberalism. It also Fawcett then seeks to bind that struc- Fawcett’s overall approach of blend- seems to be a serious omission that in the ture together with his own definition ing biographical detail with historical entire content of Part Three of Fawcett’s of Western liberalism. In his view, ‘four narrative is, however, more effective book, covering the post-1945 period as a broad ideas have guided liberal practice’, when he offers more focused and coher- whole, the only British Liberal thinker, namely, ‘acknowledgment of inescap- ent accounts of the economic ideas and in the sense of an exponent of the ideas able ethical and material conflict within theories of Hayek, Keynes, et al., in a and policies of organised party Liberal- society, distrust of power, faith in human section on ‘Liberal Economics in the ism in Britain, who comes under consid- progress, and respect for people whatever Slump’, as well as in Part Three, on the eration is William Beveridge. they think and whoever they are.’ period after 1945, in a section on what Liberalism: The Life of an Idea is a well- In developing within that very broad are very broadly categorised ‘left-lib- researched study that contains in some conceptual framework his even broader eral’ democrats in the 1950s and 1960s, parts valuable historical observations historical narrative, Fawcett draws on namely, Pierre Mendès-France in France, and much insightful biographical detail. an impressively wide range of primary in West Germany, and Its intellectual and literary aims are also and secondary sources. But, since Liber- Lyndon Johnson in the United States. admirable. But it simply tries to cover alism: The Life of an Idea provides, in his The sheer breadth, however, of Faw- too much ground, and its perspective on words, ‘a historical essay for the common cett’s historical narrative does lead on Western liberalism as developed in its reader’, those sources are not referenced occasion, perhaps for that very reason concentration on four exemplary nation- in regular footnotes, but are instead unsurprisingly, to some factual errors or states is only broadly valid if, as noted listed in detail at the end of the book. flaws in theoretical analysis. To take two previously, liberalism itself is considered Fawcett’s narrative, he also points out, examples from a British perspective, the as synonymous with liberal democracy, ‘strays into history, biography, political British Liberal Party was not reduced in or else regarded as a meta-ideology. An philosophy, and the history of ideas.’ He the Labour landslide of the 1945 general examination of the differences, as well candidly admits, however, that: ‘I am election to, as he states, only six seats in as the shared common ground, between an expert in none of those fields, though parliament, but rather twelve. It did not classical liberalism and social liberalism, as a journalist I have seen a lot of liberal suffer the fate of only six seats until the in itself by no means a hard-and-fast ide- politics over the past forty-five years’ in 1951 election. In addition, when Fawcett ological distinction, as they developed

46 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 Reviews in Britain, France, Germany, and the my large liberal tent.’ He also mentioned tends to broadly concur with Samuel United States, would, in my view, have that among the original reviews of his Brittan’s judgement. provided the material for a more histori- book, when it was first published in 2014, cally focused, less cluttered, and more Samuel Brittan objected in The Finan- Dr Tudor Jones is Hon. Research Fellow intellectually coherent study. cial Times ‘that after 1945 my liberalism in History of Political Thought at Coven- In his preface to this 2015 paperback included everybody but “authoritar- try University. His publications include The edition, Fawcett did concede, it should ians and totalitarians”.’ To that Fawcett Revival Of British Liberalism: From be added, that his book ‘acknowledged responded that had Brittan ‘added “pop- Grimond to Clegg (Palgrave Macmillan, the slipperiness of the label “liberal”, the ulists and theocrats” to those I excluded, 2011). A revised and fully updated edition of complexity of liberalism’s key ideas and I would have taken his complaint as that book, entitled The Uneven Path of the absence of any decisive fact of the praise.’ This reviewer, however, while British Liberalism: from Jo Grimond to matter that would put marginal thinkers recognising the value of parts of Fawc- Brexit, will be published by Manchester Uni- or politicians clearly in or clearly out of ett’s study, and of its underlying purpose, versity Press in 2018.

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.

Letters of Richard Cobden (1804–65) Knowledge of the whereabouts of any letters written by Cobden education authorities, prison warders and the police. Ian Cawood, Newman University College, Birmingham; [email protected]. in private hands, autograph collections, and obscure locations in the UK and abroad for a complete digital edition of his letters. The life of Professor Reginald W. Revans, 1907–2003 (For further details of the Cobden Letters Project, please see Any information anyone has on Revans’ Liberal Party involvement www.uea.ac.uk/his/research/cobdenproject). Dr Anthony Howe would be most welcome. We are particularly keen to know when School of History, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ; he joined the party and any involvement he may have had in [email protected]. campaigning issues. We know he was very interested in pacifism. Any information, oral history submissions, location of papers or Dadabhai Naoroji references most welcome. Dr Yury Boshyk, [email protected]; or Dr Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) was an Indian nationalist and Liberal Cheryl Brook, [email protected]. member for Central Finsbury, 1892–95 – the first Asian to be elected to the House of Commons. This research for a PhD at Harvard , 1932–2008 aims to produce both a biography of Naoroji and a volume of his Scottish Liberal politics was dominated for over thirty years selected correspondence, to be published by OUP India in 2013. The (1965–95 and beyond) by two figures: David Steel and Russell current phase concentrates on Naoroji’s links with a range of British Johnston. Of the former, much has been written; of the latter, progressive organisations and individuals, particularly in his later surprisingly little. I am therefore researching with a view to career. Suggestions for archival sources very welcome. Dinyar Patel; writing a biography of Russell. If any readers can help – with [email protected] or 07775 753 724. records, other written material or reminiscences – please The political career of Edward Strutt, 1st Baron Belper let me know, either by email or post. Sir Graham Watson, Strutt was Whig/Liberal MP for Derby (1830-49), later Arundel and [email protected]; 9/3 Merchiston Park, Edinburgh EH10 Nottingham; in 1856 he was created Lord Belper and built Kingston 4PW. Hall (1842-46) in the village of Kingston-on-Soar, Notts. He was a friend of and a supporter of free trade and reform, Liberal song and the Glee Club and held government office as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Aiming to set out the history of Liberal song from its origins to and Commissioner of Railways. Any information, location of papers the days of the Liberal Revue and Liberator Songbook. Looking or references welcome. Brian Smith; [email protected]. to complete a song archive, the history of the early, informal conference Glee Clubs in the 1960s and 1970s, and all things The Liberal Party in Wales, 1966–1988 related. Gareth Epps; [email protected]. Aims to follow the development of the party from the general election of 1966 to the time of the merger with the SDP. PhD research Policy position and leadership strategy within the Lib Dems at Cardiff University. Nick Alderton; [email protected]. This thesis will be a study of the political positioning and leadership strategy of the Liberal Democrats. Consideration of the role of The emergence of the ‘public service ethos’ equidistance; development of policy from the point of merger; the Aims to analyse how self-interest and patronage was challenged influence and leadership strategies of each leader from Ashdown by the advent of impartial inspectorates, public servants and local to Clegg; and electoral strategy from 1988 to 2015 will form the authorities in provincial Britain in the mid 19th century. Much work basis of the work. Any material relating to leadership election has been done on the emergence of a ‘liberal culture’ in the central campaigns, election campaigns, internal party groups (for example civil service in Whitehall, but much work needs to be done on the the ) or policy documents from 1987 and merger motives, behaviour and mentalities of the newly reformed guardians talks onwards would be greatly welcomed. Personal insights and of the poor, sanitary inspectors, factory and mines inspectors, recollections also sought. Samuel Barratt; [email protected].

Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 47 A Liberal Democrat History Group evening meeting ELECTION 2017 – A MISSED OPPORTUNITY? The Liberal Democrats entered the 2017 general election campaign with high hopes: they were the only major UK-wide party unequivocally to oppose Brexit, and the campaign followed months of encouraging local government by-election results. But the outcome was a disappointment: a further fall in the vote from the catastrophic result in 2015, and four losses out of the eight seats that had been salvaged then – though this was offset by the recapture of eight seats which had been lost in 2015 or 2010.

What went wrong? Was it a failure of leadership, of positioning or of campaigning? Or was the party simply swept aside by the rising Labour tide?

Discuss the result and the implications for the Liberal Democrats with Professor Phil Cowley (co- author of The British General Election of 2017) and James Gurling (Chair, Liberal Democrats Federal Campaigns and Elections Committee). Chair: Baroness Grender (Paddy Ashdown’s second-in- command on the 2015 Liberal Democrat election campaign).

The meeting follows the AGM of the Liberal Democrat History Group, which will take place at 6.30pm.

7.00pm, Monday 5 February 2018 Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE

A Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting THE LIBERAL PARTY AND WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE 2018 marks 100 years since women were enfranchised for the first time. Although many Liberals supported the cause of women’s suffrage, others did not, and the Liberal governments after 1906 failed to legislate on the issue. It took lengthy campaigns by suffragists and suffragettes, and women’s contrubution to the war effort in 1914–18, to break down the last resistance.

Why was the Liberal Party so divided over giving women the vote? Discuss the issue with Professor Krista Cowman (Lincoln University) and Geraint Thomas (University of York).

8.15pm, Friday 9 March 2018 Executive Boardroom, Ramada Hotel, Southport (no Liberal Democrat conference pass necessary)