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The Beaverbrook Library, A. J. P. Taylor and the Rise of Lloyd George Studies by Chris Wrigley

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The Beaverbrook Library, A. J. P. Taylor and the Rise of Lloyd George Studies by Chris Wrigley THE BEAVERBROOK LIBRARY, A. J. P. TAYLOR AND THE RiSE OF LLOYD GEORGE StUdiES by Chris Wrigley .J.P. Taylor (1906–90) differ as to Lloyd George’s activi- 1914–1945, published in November played a major role in the ties in December 1916, the details 1965.7 He had taken on writing the reassessment of David of the ‘complex intrigue’ have so volume in 1957. He later recalled A 4 Lloyd George that took place in the far eluded later historians. Trevor of his wide reading for the book 1960s and after. He did so through Wilson’s far more significant study that it resulted in ‘two spin-offs: his own writings and through his published in 1966, The Downfall the Raleigh lecture to the Brit- encouragement of other people’s of the Liberal Party, painted a taw- ish Academy on Politics in the First research at the Beaverbrook Library dry picture of Lloyd George’s World War and the Leslie Stephen between 1967 and 1976. manoeuvres within the Liberal lecture at Cambridge on Lloyd When Taylor’s 1959 and 1961 Party, drawing often on the hostile George: Rise and Fall’.8 Neither lec- lectures, ‘Politics in the First World comments in the correspondence ture drew on archival research War’ and ‘Lloyd George: Rise and between Asquith’s ardent follow- When Tay- but both were based on printed Fall’ were given, the history of Lib- ers. Wilson balanced this towards diaries and autobiographies, Han- eral politics in the first half of the the end of the book by paying lor’s 1959 and sard (House of Commons Debates) twentieth century was dominated tribute to Lloyd George’s dyna- and secondary sources. Both dealt by accounts highly sympathetic to mism and daring, as a radical and 1961 lectures with Lloyd George. The lecture H. H. Asquith and his independ- as a war leader: ‘Time and again were given, on wartime politics was a dazzling ent Liberals of 1916–23.1 Not only Lloyd George proved himself to study of Lloyd George’s ascent to had Asquith published his memoirs be the necessary man.’ Neverthe- the history the premiership and the politi- and reflections first but also, after less, otherwise Lloyd George does cal circumstances that kept him his death, his papers were available not come out well. He was a man of Liberal there, giving attention to the role in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, of ‘sharp practice’ and was ‘often of backbenchers and also the press. before those of Lloyd George unscrupulous and disloyal’, with politics in He rightly judged it ‘the best lec- became generally available with his plotting in December 1916 still ture I have ever given, in form the opening of the Beaverbrook assumed.5 From 1960, Roy Jen- the first and content’.9 The distinguished Library in May 1967.2 kins used Asquith’s papers and American historian Alfred Gol- Taylor’s essays on Lloyd George also Asquith’s letters to Venetia half of the lin commented that it ‘is a con- and the politics of 1914–22 were Stanley for his 1964 biography of tribution of vital consequence … harbingers of change. In the early Herbert Henry Asquith, in which twentieth it opens up the entire subject in a and mid 1960s it was normal to a chapter is headed with Asquith’s way that has not been done by any- depict Lloyd George detrimentally illustrious sobriquet, ‘The Last of century was one else’.10 when considered with Asquith. the Romans’, presumably indi- Taylor’s most substantial reas- Perhaps the nadir of Lloyd George cating nobility in politics before dominated sessment of Lloyd George was made denigration was marked in 1963 by the advent of the barbarians. Jen- in his 1961 Leslie Stephen lecture, Donald McCormick’s The Mask kins’ biographer John Campbell by accounts which complements the earlier lec- of Merlin, a biography which usu- shrewdly observed that Jenkins’ ture. In his autobiography he wrote ally took the worst view of its portrait of Asquith presented him highly sym- that: ‘I am assured, [it] launched subject. That Lloyd George was ‘as calm, rational, unhurried and pathetic to Lloyd George studies on a new, a villain, at least in 1916, even if superior’ and ‘his magisterial view more rewarding course, which was not of the dimensions of Shake- of politics prevails over all’. This H. H. Asquith not my intention though I am glad speare’s Richard III, was taken was very much a contrast with of it.’ In this he referred, among oth- for granted in David Thomson’s Lloyd George. Jenkins was critical and his inde- ers, to Stephen Koss, who had writ- 1965 Penguin history, England in of Asquith, but later biographers ten that the lecture was a ‘tour de force the Twentieth Century, where the of Asquith were more so.6 pendent that captured Lloyd George’s incan- author wrote without qualifica- Alan Taylor came to reassess descent sparkle, his restlessness, tion that Lloyd George ousted Lloyd George as part of his early Liberals of and, not least of all, his predicament Asquith with ‘ruthless skill’ by a work for his Oxford History of as a permanent outsider in British ‘complex intrigue’.3 While views England volume on the period 1916–23. politics’.11 64 Journal of Liberal History 77 Winter 2012–13 THE BEAVERBOOK liBRARY, A.J.P. TAYLOR AND THE RISE OF llOYD GEORGE STUdiES In his 1961 Lloyd George essay Alan Taylor’s eventual second wife. Taylor vis- the day after Beaverbrook’s birth) Taylor, when referring to his acces- ited her and was impressed, ‘see- and the amendment of the Public sion to the premiership in 1916, history of ing flashes of the Frances who had Records Act 1958 in 1967 so that commented that ‘even the incom- charmed Lloyd George and other most government records became parable dissection by Lord Beaver- 1914–1945 men also’.15 Frances Stevenson’s available after thirty, not fifty, years brook, which will be read as long diaries are a notably useful source (so in January 1968, papers of 1937, as men are interested in political has David for Lloyd George both ‘as a man as not 1917, were the latest for public tactics, leaves much unsaid.’ Bea- well as a statesman’, giving Lloyd inspection) gave a great boost to the verbrook had published Politicians Lloyd George George’s versions of events as told study of Lloyd George’s career. Bea- and the War 1914–16, two volumes, to an admiring much younger verbrook had bought collections of in 1928 and 1932, and Men and and Winston woman. The diaries’ value is viti- early twentieth-century political Power, 1917–18, in 1956. Alan Tay- Churchill as ated to some extent by sizeable gaps papers much as lesser mortals buy lor reviewed Men and Power in The in entries for some crucial periods.16 rare postage stamps. He had secured Observer on 26 October 1956. He its heroes, Much the same applies to the edited Frank Owen, a journalist and for- praised it as ‘equally exciting and correspondence between Lloyd mer Liberal MP, to write a biogra- equally entertaining’ as the earlier though George and Stevenson, which illu- phy of Lloyd George (with inputs two volumes but wisely added, ‘He minates Lloyd George in love as from himself and Lloyd George’s may sometimes exaggerate the part the book is well as throwing some light on widow, the former Frances Steven- that he has played in events’. While politics.17 son). He also gave the historian Rob- Beaverbrook also emphasised, and marked by Alan Taylor’s innovatory lec- ert Blake access to the Bonar Law even exaggerated, the role of his tures on Lloyd George were not Papers for a biography of Andrew political mentor, Andrew Bonar reapprais- the only important fresh work on Bonar Law. Beaverbrook gave both Law, his three books on First World Lloyd George before his papers authors access to his own papers and War politics also shone a bright als of many became available. There was to those of the subjects of their biog- light on Lloyd George, as did his much written from 1960 on Lloyd raphies, while Blake in addition had later book The Decline and Fall of leading George’s Welsh political context access to Lloyd George’s papers.22 Lloyd George (1963). Taylor tackled by Kenneth O. Morgan. In 1963 Thereafter, Beaverbrook and his the wartime politics and the role of politicians. Morgan marked the centenary of assistants quarried his archive up to Lloyd George in these two lectures Lloyd George’s birth with a superb his death on 9 June 1964. A select of 1959 and 1961 primarily because short booklet (eighty pages of text) few authors were allowed to see he was working on the early chap- in which he explored ‘the place the Lloyd George, Bonar Law and ters of English History 1914–1945 but of Lloyd George in the history of Beaverbrook Papers either at Bea- also in selecting these themes he modern Wales’ and ‘the importance verbrook’s home, Cherkley Court, was consciously following in the of his Welsh background in his near Leatherhead, Surrey, or to see footsteps of Beaverbrook, now a general career in British and world selections at the Express offices in friend and even patron in terms of politics’.18 This re-evaluation of London. These included Alfred Gol- newspaper opportunities.12 Lloyd George complemented Mor- lin, John Grigg (politician and biog- Alan Taylor’s history of 1914– gan’s seminal work on Welsh mod- rapher of Lloyd George), Arthur 1945 has David Lloyd George and ern political history, Wales In British Marder (the distinguished naval his- Winston Churchill as its heroes, Politics 1868–1922.
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