For the study of Liberal, SDP and Issue 48 / Autumn 2005 / £5.00 Liberal Democrat history

Journal of LiberalHI ST O R Y

2005: disappointment or bridgehead? John Curtice The Liberal Democrats in the 2005 election David Dutton Holding the balance The Liberal Party and hung parliaments Stephen Tolleyfield Battling Bath Liberal Alf Wills, nineteenth-century activist Michael Wickham Berwick-upon-Tweed A venal borough? Jaime Reynolds ‘The fighting parson’ Biography of Reverend Roderick Kedward Liberal Democrat History Group council leaders, candidates, of recordings of the full and prime negotiators in the unexpurgated originals. On Record! Lib/Lab Pact, the formation In chronological order of the SDP and the Alliance the full list of recorded or participants in the ultimate interviews and interviewees What some Liberal Democrats really merger of the Liberals and is as follows: John Pardoe, Social Democrats. I was also John Lee, Shirley Williams, thought interested to know what they Eric Avebury (Lubbock), by Adrian Slade felt about Liberal Democrat Paul Marsden, Roy Jenkins, success to date and the party’s Mike Storey and Sir Trevor future prospects. Jones, Ludovic Kennedy, he Journal of Liberal historical perspective on the As the series continued I Bill Rodgers, David Steel, History is now the party was interesting. gained further new perspec- Barry Norman, Jim Wal- Tguardian of what is Within a year I had also tives – for example Scottish lace, Charles Kennedy, Mike already becoming a uniquely interviewed Shirley Wil- and Welsh views from Jim German, Tim Razzall, Chris interesting party archive – a liams, Eric Lubbock, Roy Wallace and Mike German; Rennard, Simon Hughes, set of audio cassette tapes of Jenkins, David Steel, Ludovic a characteristically blunt Tony Greaves, Tom McNally in-depth interviews I con- Kennedy, Mike Storey and assessment from everyone’s and Charles Kennedy ducted with many of the Sir Trevor Jones and Bill favourite guru, Tony Greaves; (again). best-known Liberal Demo- Rodgers, not so much for some shrewd observations on For a unique insight into crats. They include the very their views on the current party campaigning, past and the thoughts and motiva- last media interview given by political scene as for their present, from Tim Razzall tions of all those listed Roy Jenkins. earlier political recollections and Chris Rennard; and Tom above, enthusiasts for Lib- In the summer of 2002, and their reasons for being McNally’s trenchant views eral/Liberal Democrat his- when Liberal Democrat News Liberals/Liberal Democrats. on working with Jim Calla- tory may now borrow these and the Journal told me they As far as I knew, the party ghan, the SDP, David Owen, tapes from the Journal, to would be interested in an had no written or spoken Liberals and the Liberal copy and listen to at home interview with former Lib- record of how any of them Democrats. (subject to certain conditions) eral leadership contender viewed their political past, My accounts of these, for a token fee of £5 per John Pardoe, I never thought their earlier party experi- and shorter interviews with tape. If you are interested, that this would become ences or the more dramatic Charles Kennedy and other ask for full details from the merely the first in a series of events that shaped their equally interesting members Chair of the Liberal Demo- full talks with other senior political lives, whether as of the party, have all appeared crat History Group, Tony Liberal Democrats whose key ministers, party leaders, in the Journal, Liberal Demo- Little, on tonylittle@cix. crat News or both but only co.uk, or 62 Pennine Way, I and the Journal have a set Harlington, Hayes UB3 5LP.

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 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 Journal of Liberal History Issue 48: Autumn 2005 The Journal of Liberal History is published quarterly by the Liberal Democrat History Group. ISSN 1479-9642 Disappointment or bridgehead? 4 Editor: Duncan Brack The Liberal Democrat performance in the 2005 election; by John Curtice Deputy Editor: Sarah Taft Assistant Editor: Siobhan Vitelli Biographies Editor: Robert Ingham Holding the balance 8 Reviews Editor: Dr Eugenio Biagini David Dutton examines the record of the Liberal Party in hung parliaments in Deputy Reviews Editor: Tom Kiehl 1924, 1929–31 and 1977–78 Patrons Battling Bath Liberal 20 Dr Eugenio Biagini; Professor Michael Freeden; The story of a Liberal activist in Bath in the late nineteenth century, in his own Professor John Vincent words; by Stephen Tollyfield Editorial Board Berwick-upon-Tweed: A venal borough? 24 Dr Malcolm Baines; Dr Roy Douglas; Dr Barry Doyle; Dr David Dutton; Professor David Gowland; Dr Richard Michael Wickham examines Berwick’s reputation for electoral corruption Grayson; Dr Michael Hart; Peter Hellyer; Ian Hunter; during the nineteenth century and assesses the impact of bribery on voting Dr J. Graham Jones; Tony Little; Professor Ian Machin; behaviour Dr Mark Pack; Dr Ian Packer; Dr John Powell; Jaime Reynolds; Iain Sharpe Conrad Russell 31 Sally Hamwee’s address to Conrad Russell’s memorial service, 14 June Editorial/Correspondence 2005 Contributions to the Journal – letters, articles, and book reviews – are invited. The Journal is a refereed publication; all articles submitted will be reviewed. ‘The fighting parson’ 32 Contributions should be sent to: Jaime Reynolds examines the life of the Liberal MP and a leader in the ‘tithe Duncan Brack (Editor) war’ of the 1930s, Reverend Roderick Kedward (1881–1937) 38 Salford Road, London SW2 4BQ email: [email protected] Report: Liberals and organised Labour 38 All articles copyright © Journal of Liberal History. with David Powell and Keith Laybourn; report by Chris Gurney

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Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005  Disappointment or Bridgehead? The Liberal Democrats in the 2005 election

John Curtice argues that much of the apparent disappointment with their party’s performance at the 2005 general election amongst Liberal Democrats is misplaced. Over the 2001 and 2005 elections the party has, for the first time ever, advanced during a period of Labour Charles Kennedy he Liberal Democrats’ servatives the party did little to government, while in with new Liberal performance in the convince anyone that it might Democrat MPs 2005 general election one day achieve the objective 2005 it concentrated its after the 2005 election. has been greeted with some had set for it of replacing advance in previously considerable disap- the Tories as the principal oppo- Tpointment. Despite facing an sition to Labour. Meanwhile, by relatively barren unpopular government and an the time of the next election Iraq Labour territory. If unconvincing opposition, at 22.7 will have been forgotten and the per cent its share of the vote in Conservative Party rejuvenated. these gains are held Great Britain was still less than Once again it seems that a golden they will significantly the 23.1 per cent secured by the opportunity to break the mould Liberal/SDP Alliance in 1987, let of British politics has slipped increase the prospect alone the 26.0 per cent it won in through the party’s hands. of a hung parliament at 1983. Although its tally of sixty- This, however, is a serious two seats represents the largest misreading of the Liberal Demo- future elections. number of Liberal MPs to be crat result. Until now the party’s elected since 1923, in suffering a performances in Westminster net loss of two seats to the Con- elections have had a decidedly

 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 Disappointment or Bridgehead? The Liberal Democrats in the 2005 election

one-sided character. While the it had already snatched second constituencies accounted for no party has seemed able to profit place to Labour from the Con- less than half of the record dozen from discontent with the Con- servatives – and not only simply seats the party captured from servatives, it has never dem- because it managed to squeeze Labour. The party’s opposition to onstrated an ability to feed on the Conservative vote somewhat the introduction of top-up tui- discontent with Labour. When- in such seats. tion fees seems to have boosted ever Labour was in power Lib- Nowhere was the party’s new- its vote here, though it is also pos- eral/Liberal Democrat support found ability to feed on discon- sible that Iraq played particularly fell. And wherever Labour was tent with an incumbent Labour strongly amongst the donnish the dominant electoral force the government better demonstrated communities that populate many party struggled to win votes. The than in two particular kinds of of these constituencies too. party’s achievement in 2005 was constituency. The first comprises These advances in Labour- to show that this one-sided char- those constituencies with a sub- held territory have two important acter to its appeal is no more. stantial Muslim population. Many implications for the party’s future The 3.9 point increase in the voters in these seats were unhappy prospects. The first is that it is party’s share of the vote was cer- with the government’s decision now significantly less vulnerable tainly notable rather than dra- to join in the US-led invasion of to any future swing from Labour matic. Even so, the past eight years Iraq, an invasion the Liberal Dem- to Conservative. Because hitherto of Labour government have been ocrats opposed. As Table 2 shows, the party’s best prospects have the first ever period of Labour rule on average the Liberal Democrats been so heavily concentrated in in which the party has advanced advanced by five points more in Conservative territory, the party rather than fallen back. Over the heavily Muslim seats than the Not only stood to suffer significant net course of the previous four spells party did in those with no more losses if there was a swing from of Labour government the par- than a small Muslim population did the Labour to the Conservatives, ty’s share of the vote fell by 11.9 – and did so predominantly at party gain even if its own vote held steady. points, 3.8 points, 6.6 points and Labour’s expense. While some of Now this is far less the case. After 5.7 points respectively. Since Mr the anti-war vote was garnered votes in the 2001 election there were just Blair came to power in 1997 it has by the anti-war coalition Respect, nine constituencies where the advanced by 5.5 points. Indeed its there seems little doubt that the an era of party lay within 15 percentage 2005 performance was the first Liberal Democrats made signifi- points of the local Labour incum- time ever that the party has won cant advances amongst former- Labour bent; now there are nineteen. As over 20 per cent of the vote after a Labour-voting Muslim voters. govern- a result, even if the Conservatives period of Labour rule. Meanwhile the party also did were to achieve the uniform 7.5 Not only did the party gain particularly well in ‘university ment, it per cent swing required for them votes in an era of Labour govern- seats’, that is constituencies with to win an overall majority at ment, it also won votes in Labour a relatively large proportion of also won the next election on the current territory. As Table 1 shows, the students. The party typically did boundaries (though these will in biggest advances in Liberal three points better in such seats votes in fact change before 2009), the Lib- Democrat support occurred in than it did elsewhere, again an Labour ter- eral Democrats should still have seats Labour was defending. The exceptional performance secured as many as fifty-five seats so long party did particularly well where at Labour’s expense. Indeed, such ritory. as their own vote holds up.

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005  disappointment or bridgehead?

In short, the Liberal Dem- of leads that would probably ­working-class vote. On average ocrats not only now have a produce a hung parliament. the increase in the Liberal Demo- record number of MPs but the British elections now have a crat vote in the most working- bridgehead they have estab- new character. No longer is it the class constituencies was, at 4.3 lished at Westminster is, in one case that they are only likely to points, little different from the important respect at least, less produce one of two outcomes: a increase in the most middle-class vulnerable to attack. This can Labour majority or a Conserva- ones (4.1 points). Equally, survey but only increase the prospect tive one. A parliament in which data published by MORI found that future elections will fail nobody has a majority is a per- that, at five points, the increase in to deliver an overall majority, fectly feasible outcome too. It is the Liberal Democrat share of the thereby potentially giving the certainly a much more likely out- vote in the market researchers’ party substantial leverage. After come than the Liberal Democrats bottom DE social grade was lit- the 2001 election there was an replacing either Labour or the tle different from the four-point eight-point range of Conserva- Conservatives as one of the two increase amongst the top AB tive leads in votes (from one of largest parties at Westminster. It group. As a result the party con- 3.7 points to one of 11.5 points) would seem curious if between tinues to perform better amongst that was likely to deliver a hung now and the next election the middle-class voters than work- parliament. Now that range Liberal Democrats were not con- ing-class ones. It still remains has increased to nearly eleven sidering how they might best some way off, too, from capturing points (from one point to 11.8 maximise their leverage should a parliamentary seat in either of points). Although the forth- such a circumstance arise. the party’s two big-city, northern, coming review of parliamen- There were, however, limita- local-government jewels, Liver- tary boundaries in England and tions to the Liberal Democrat pool and Newcastle. Wales is likely to eliminate some advance into Labour territory. But did such progress as the of the bias against the Conserv- While the party may have been party did make into Labour terri- atives implied by these figures successful at winning over the tory come at a price? Did the par- (the Conservatives have to be Muslim and university Labour ty’s net losses to the Conservatives ahead of Labour simply to deny vote, it was not evidently par- indicate that the party’s stance Labour a majority) it is unlikely ticularly successful at winning that some at least characterised as to reduce significantly the range over Labour’s traditional white being to the ‘left’ of Labour cost it dearly in seats where it was locked Table 1: Change in party vote share by tactical situation in battle with the Conservatives? Did the party lose ground in the 1st/2nd 2001 Change in per cent share of vote since 2001 south of England in particular Con Lab Lib Dem because of concern amongst mid- Con/Lab +1.2 –6.1 +3.0 dle-class voters there that they would lose out from its proposal Con/LD +1.4 –2.8 +0.5 to introduce a local income tax? LD/Con +0.6 –1.1 –0.6 And do considerations such as Lab/Con –0.1 –7.0 +4.7 these explain why the party lost Lab/LD –1.3 –7.1 +7.8 seats to the Conservatives? It takes no more than a glance back at Table 1 to cast consider- Table 2: Where the Liberal Democrats particularly prospered able doubt on these propositions. Where the Liberal Democrats Change in per cent share of vote since 2001 were locked in battle with the Con Lab Lib Dem Conservatives, they did not per- form badly because they particu- Student seat –0.7 –8.5 +6.7 larly lost ground to them. What Other seats +0.4 –5.4 +3.5 distinguished these constituen- cies was not the strength of the Heavily Muslim –1.9 –10.6 +8.8 Conservative performance but Somewhat Muslim –0.1 –8.1 +6.1 rather that of the Labour one. Other seats +0.4 -5.2 +3.4 Where Labour started off in third place to the Conservatives, its Student seat: more than 10 per cent of adults are students, 2001 Census. vote typically only fell by one or Heavily Muslim: more than 10 per cent adults are Muslim, 2001 Census. two points – far less than the near Somewhat Muslim: 5–10 per cent of adults are Muslim. six-point loss of support the party was suffering across the country Glasgow North East (no Conservative or Lib Dem candidate) and Wyre Forest (no Lib Dem candidate) are excluded from this table. as a whole.

 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 disappointment or bridgehead?

The explanation appears to be relatively straightforward. In many places where Labour had slipped into third place its vote had already been heavily squeezed locally, leaving few votes that could still be captured. Indeed, in the third-place seats where there was still a Labour vote of 20 per cent or more in 2001, Labour’s vote did in fact still fall substan- tially (on average by 4.3 points) while the Liberal Democrat vote increased (up 2.1 points). Else- where Labour’s vote fell by only just over one point and in these circumstances the Liberal Demo- crat vote fell away a little too. There is, however, one com- plication to this story. There was one part of the country where the Conservatives did stage some- thing of a revival – in the south- Two important implications Charles Kennedy the south-eastern corner of Eng- follow from this analysis. The Lib- and election land reflected disquiet about the eastern corner of England outside poster. inner London. Here the Conserv- eral Democrats were able to win economy, does this mean that the ative vote actually rose on average over discontented Labour voters Liberal Democrats lack credibility by two points, whereas elsewhere in 2005 because in the last parlia- as a party capable of handling the it was mostly actually falling back ment they adopted positions on economy? And if the party still slightly. But while some of this issues such as Iraq and tuition fees finds it relatively difficult to win above-average performance seems where the government’s stance over working-class voters does it to have come at the expense of had generated considerable dis- need to reconsider the image that the Liberal Democrats, much of content amongst some former the party conveys to this group? it seems to have come at Labour’s Labour supporters. Moreover, in The second implication of our expense. It cannot therefore sim- achieving this for the first time analysis is that, while the party ply be accounted for by the Lib- during the course of a Labour may have made little progress eral Democrats appearing too government, the party did not in replacing the Conservatives left-wing for voters in that part of evidently lose votes to the Con- as the principal opposition to England. servatives as a result. The electoral Labour, they have made sig- Meanwhile the above-aver- effectiveness of an opposition nificant progress in denying the age Conservative performance party’s policy position depends Conservatives the title of the only was just as evident in the more not on whether it is ‘right’, left’ or opposition to Labour. The Liberal working-class seats in the region ‘centre’, but rather on whether it Democrats have demonstrated a as it was in the middle-class ones; speaks more effectively than other new-found ability to win Labour so is not easy to blame it on the opposition parties to whatever votes and Labour seats, and as a potential unpopularity of the unhappiness voters have with the result the parliamentary bridge- Council Tax amongst middle- incumbent government. It was head established by the party class voters in this part of Eng- the party’s ability to do this that now looks less vulnerable to any land. It may have simply been a appears to have underpinned its Conservative revival. Meanwhile reaction to the relatively sluggish advance in 2005. the Conservatives still face a Her- performance of the economy Of course working out how to culean task in winning an overall and of house prices in that part repeat this feat at the next election majority at the next election, a of the country since 2001. by identifying what discontents task that the forthcoming constit- In any event, where this pat- there might be with the Labour uency boundary review will make tern was coupled in a Liberal government in 2009 or 2010 is only a little easier. A hung parlia- Democrat/Conservative fight very difficult for anybody to pre- ment clearly remains a possible with a lack of Labour vote to dict. But two of the patterns we prospect after the next election squeeze, the consequence was, on have uncovered suggest two possi- and is certainly one for which the average, a small swing from the ble limitations to the party’s ability party needs to be prepared. Liberal Democrats to the Con- to profit from such discontent. The servatives, and the loss of New- first is that if, indeed, the Conserv- John Curtice is Professor of Politics at bury and Guildford in particular. atives’ relative success in much of Strathclyde University.

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005  Holding the Balance The Liberal Party and hung parliaments

In Britain’s first-past- the-post electoral system a third party’s best hope of securing a toe-hold on power lies in holding the balance in a hung parliament. Indeed, the recent electoral strategy of the Liberal Party and Liberal Democrats has usually seen this as¡ a necessary stage on the path to a Liberal government. The experience of the twentieth century suggests, however, that ‘holding the balance’ is at best a mixed blessing. By David Dutton.

‘In the Movement’; Lloyd George and Macdonald (Punch, 17 October 1928)

 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 Holding the Balance The Liberal Party and hung parliaments

t is the lot of the third party norm, to the enormous advan- The result of the general elec- in Britain’s first-past-the- tage in a three-party system of tion of 1923 was one of the most post electoral system to the third party. ambiguous of the entire twentieth dream of the day when the Since the end of the First century and the eventual forma- vagaries of that system leave World War, when the Liberal tion of a Labour government, the Iit holding the balance of power Party was relegated to the status first in Britain’s history, was by no in the House of Commons. But of the third party in the Brit- means the only possible outcome. it is not an outcome for which ish polity, there have been just The Conservatives, with 258 seats, it is easy to campaign. As Roy three instances when the party remained the largest single party; Jenkins has argued, it ‘depends found itself holding the balance Labour followed with 191 seats; largely upon accidents outside of power in the House of Com- while the recently reunited Liber- our control – the relationship mons.2 This position was created als secured 159. Possible outcomes which the other two parties bear by the general elections of 1923 included a new Conservative to each other – and is therefore and 1929 and when, as a result of government under a changed not an effective call to action’.1 by-election defeats, the Callaghan Prime Minister; a Liberal govern- Third parties thus wait for the government lost its overall par- ment with either Conservative or chance occurrence of electoral liamentary majority in 1976. On Labour support; and a non-party arithmetic. each occasion the Liberal Party administration headed perhaps by Under proportional rep- found itself sustaining a Labour a respected elder statesman with resentation, of course, things government in office; on each It cannot broad appeal. But the key factor would be very different. Since occasion the party, or sections of be said was that the election had been the arrival of the Labour Party it, believed that it was well placed called by the outgoing Conserva- as a political force of signifi- to determine the course of events that the tive premier, Stanley Baldwin, cance in the general election of and use this chance happening to specifically on the issue of tariffs. 1906, there have been only two its own advantage. Yet it cannot Liberals The result therefore represented a occasions – in 1931 and 1935 – be said that the Liberals derived clear victory for free trade, even if when the winning side secured any great benefit from these three derived any that victory was shared between more than fifty per cent of the periods of ‘power’ or ‘proximity to great ben- the two free-trade parties, Labour popular vote. Even these were power’. Each was in its own way and the Liberals. There was, then, in the untypical context of the unique, but there are sufficient efit from a certain logic, but by no means National Government, when similarities and parallels to justify an inevitability, in Labour as the the victorious Conservatives a comparative study of the cir- these three larger of the two free-trade parties were able to broaden their elec- cumstances in which it arose, the forming the next government. toral appeal by association with resulting relationship between the periods of What did, however, exist was sections of the Labour and Lib- Liberals and the Labour adminis- ‘power’ or a predisposition within sections eral parties. Under proportional tration of the day, and the short of the Liberal Party towards this representation, then, coalition or and medium-term consequences ‘proximity possibility, or at least towards a some other form of governmen- for the Liberals of what they had new period of Liberal–Labour tal power-sharing would be the done. to power’. co-operation. For many this

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005  holding the balance reflected a desire to restore the with the great mass of Labour installed Labour in its place. The Progressive Alliance of the pre- opinion.’6 While some Liberals majority of the Liberal Party sup- war era which, despite consider- remained implacably opposed to ported Labour in the critical vote, able tension in the years 1911–14, dealing with ‘socialists’ – however but it was striking that ten MPs had so successfully excluded the that concept was understood – voted in the Conservative lobby, Conservatives (Unionists) from these appeared to be in a distinct all of them relatively obscure sur- power for the best part of a dec- minority. vivors of the post-war coalition. ade, but which had disintegrated The crucial decisions, how- Leading Liberals were, however, during the course of the First ever, inevitably rested with the altogether too sanguine about World War. party hierarchy. Immediately after their party’s prospects. Writ- Despite the symbolic impor- the declaration of the poll, Liberal ing in the Contemporary Review, tance of Labour’s adoption of leaders met to decide upon their W. M. R. Pringle suggested that, a socialist constitution in 1918, strategy. Asquith, supported by Sir ‘be the life of the new Parlia- many advanced Liberals had John Simon, argued that the Con- ment long or short, whoever is continued to argue that there servative government should first in office, the Liberal Party will be was no real ideological barrier be ejected by a Liberal–Labour in power’.9 In like vein Asquith to renewed partnership between combination and then, assuming had told the parliamentary party the two parties. Writing in 1920, that Labour managed to form a on 18 December that a Labour Charles Masterman, one of the government, that too should be government could hardly be tried key architects of the New Lib- voted out by the joint action of under safer conditions. Granted eralism of pre-1914, argued that Despite the Liberals and Conservatives. This, the new administration’s minor- Labour’s programme was ‘little, Asquith somewhat fancifully sug- ity status, this was true enough, if at all, distinguishable from the symbolic gested, would leave the way open but his suggestion that ‘it is we, if advanced Liberal programme’. importance for a Liberal government. Lloyd we understand our business, who In many contemporary by-elec- George was not happy with really control the situation’ was a tions, he claimed, the two parties of Labour’s this proposal, recognising that it gross exaggeration. For one thing, were campaigning for identical would leave any resulting Liberal the parliamentary arithmetic was reforms.3 The Labour Party was adoption government entirely dependent against the Liberals. As there were itself ‘a great storehouse of Lib- on Conservative support. To avoid more Conservative MPs than eralism, in which the majority of a social- a formal decision being taken, he Labour, it was not enough for the of the rank and file, and many of ist con- successfully proposed that the party to abstain in parliamentary its most honoured leaders, are by meeting should be adjourned to divisions if Labour was going to creed and conviction Liberal’.4 stitution allow time for further reflection. survive. Liberals could not simply For Liberals who thought in When it resumed, Asquith had acquiesce in Labour government. these terms, the situation cre- in 1918, significantly modified his stance They had positively to support ated by the 1923 general election and now called for ‘no truck it. Lloyd George understood the opened up exciting possibilities. many with the Tories … and non-com- reality of the situation and real- According to C. P. Scott, editor advanced mittal towards Labour after it ised that his preferred option of of the Manchester Guardian, it was had formed a government’.7 He positive co-operation could only ‘1906 over again as far as voting Liberals adhered to this policy at a subse- work on the basis of detailed con- was concerned’. The electorate’s quent party meeting and Lloyd sultation between the two parties. verdict offered real prospects had con- George, who favoured a policy of ‘It was not merely occasional sup- of social progress. ‘Barring the constructive co-operation with port that the Labour Government wretched three-cornered busi- tinued to Labour, held his tongue, fearful of would require in divisions; the ness’, he continued, ‘we should argue that opening up fresh wounds in the support must be continuous.’10 have had a clean sweep. But it’s party. Lloyd George placed his But even he now seemed to be good enough.’5 During the inter- there was faith in Labour’s good sense. ‘If overcome by the possibilities of val between the election and the Ramsay [MacDonald] were tact- a renewed period of progressive reassembly of parliament, the no real ful and conciliatory I feel certain government. ‘As to policy’, he weekly Nation, with its long and that the Party as a whole would told C. P. Scott on 5 January, ‘he honourable tradition of commit- ideological support him in an advanced Rad- saw no difficulty. There was an ment to radical causes, threw its barrier to ical programme.’8 ample field common to the two weight behind Liberal–Labour The new Parliament met on 8 parties. The danger, to his mind, co-operation. It was towards renewed January 1924 with Baldwin still in was not that Labour would go too Labour, it insisted, that Liberals office and, in effect, challenging fast and far, but that it would not should lean. ‘No real Liberal … partnership the opposition parties to remove go fast and far enough and per- can find “the enemy” in this quar- him. After a heated debate on the ish of inanition. It must be pre- ter … Liberalism will fail to do its between Address, a vote was taken on a pared to take risks and Liberalism work unless it succeeds eventu- the two Labour amendment on 21 January should back it in a courageous ally in re-establishing co-opera- which brought the Conservative policy.’11 tion and fundamental agreement parties. government down and effectively

10 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 holding the balance The problem was that the By the end of the Labour govern- The Liberal Poplar debate on municipal rates consultation, which Lloyd ment, however, Simon was forced and the government’s Eviction George knew to be essential, to judge the ‘session as a whole … Party voted Bill, Liberals voted in both lob- had not taken place. The Liberal a tragedy’.13 The opportunity for bies while others abstained.16 It Party voted Labour into govern- a constructive period of progres- Labour was a sorry spectacle. ment without any clear notion of sive government had been lost. But of even greater impor- what it would do thereafter and What had gone wrong? Part of into gov- tance in explaining the Liberals’ without even trying to extract the problem lay in the disorgani- ernment failure in 1924 than their own commitments, such as electoral sation and want of leadership in deficiencies was the attitude of reform, of benefit to itself. Asquith the parliamentary Liberal Party. without the Labour government itself. might have been well advised ‘So far as I can judge’, recorded Gradually Liberals began to voice to offer Labour a fixed period Simon, ‘Asquith, Lloyd George any clear their resentment at the way in in office in return for an agreed and [John] Simon consult which their proffered hand of programme of reforms. But no together very little, nor do the notion of friendship was being rebuffed. such bargain was struck. Not Whips take any strong line.’ In what it Speaking at a party meeting on surprisingly, the months which such a situation any chance of an 15 April Lloyd George gave vent followed witnessed mounting agreement on proportional rep- would do to the now widespread indigna- Liberal disillusionment. The diary resentation had been lost: tion that Liberals felt at being of Ernest Simon, newly elected as thereafter expected to file dutifully into the Liberal member for the Withing- There is a strong feeling among government lobby with noth- ton division of Manchester, well Liberals that we ought to agree at and with- ing being offered in exchange. A charts the party’s changing mood. once on some policy of Electoral out even week later, in a widely reported To begin with he congratulated Reform, and make a bargain speech at Llanfairfechan, he com- Labour for avoiding ‘impracti- with Labour to push it through. trying to pared Liberals to oxen whose job cable and Socialistic legislation’. I spoke to the Chief Whip last it was to ‘drag the Labour wain Judged by its initial programme week. He was taking no inter- extract over the rough roads of Parlia- Labour merited Liberal support est in the matter as a Commit- ment for two to three years, and it was in the latter’s interests tee had been appointed under commit- goaded along, and at the end of to keep the government in office. Pringle. I saw Pringle; he said he ments, the journey, when there is no fur- The Liberal Party: thought there was no agreement ther use of them, they are to be and did not think the Commit- such as slaughtered. That is the Labour … must be constantly on the tee would take any action.14 idea of co-operation.’17 By July watch against extravagance or electoral C. P. Scott recorded that ‘the feel- against any action contrary to At a time when decisive and pur- ing against the Liberals was gen- Liberal principles. Subject to poseful leadership was needed, reform, of eral in the [Labour] party. Social this the Liberal Party should give Asquith in particular revealed his benefit to intercourse had almost ceased. active support to the Labour worst failings: J. H. Thomas was perhaps now Government. They should avoid itself. the only man who ever asked a anything that could be construed Except on a few big points, he Liberal to tea.’18 A few weeks later into a policy of pin pricks, which took no real trouble to under- the Manchester Guardian, while would be playing the Conserva- stand the problem, his only expressing its appreciation for tive game, and should be ready action was inaction; a policy of MacDonald’s conduct of foreign to help the Government by masterly inactivity carried to policy, complained that ‘the Prime supporting the closure to avoid extreme lengths. Anything fur- Minister, who can be so sweet to unreasonable obstruction … ther removed from ‘leadership’ the foreigner from whom he dif- Liberal Members should treat in any true sense of the word it fers most widely, has nothing but the Labour Government with a is difficult to conceive. His brain unconcealed dislike and exagger- considerable proportion of the is excellent, probably as good as ated suspicion for those who in regard and self-restraint which ever, if he would only apply it. It this country stand nearest to him they would show to a Liberal is the interest that is lacking.15 in politics’.19 Government. Any other policy But Labour’s behaviour was would make the three-party sys- Denied a controlling hand at the not just a case of political bad tem impossible, would prevent top, the Liberal Party’s scarcely manners. Rather, it represented Parliament carrying out any use- concealed divisions re-emerged. a clearly thought-out strategy ful and effective social legisla- Old Coalitionists welcomed which precluded the sort of co- tion and would create a certain any opportunity to vote with operation with the Liberals for amount of sympathy amongst the Conservatives; radical Liber- which Lloyd George and oth- the electors for the Labour Party als tended to side with the gov- ers hoped. On forming a gov- and corresponding injury to the ernment. On questions such as ernment the Labour leadership, Liberal.12 Labour’s decision to discontinue and in particular the new Prime the Singapore naval base, the Minister Ramsay MacDonald,

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 11 holding the balance

had a number of key objectives. Not the least of these was that the experience of Labour gov- ernment, however brief, should have the effect of hastening the demise of the Liberal Party as a serious force in British politics. This would be done by displaying Labour’s credentials as a respon- sible, moderate party of reform, fully capable of governing in the national interest. Any help offered by the Liberals would be grate- fully, if not graciously, accepted, but the idea of in any way assisting Liberalism was outside Labour’s vision. ‘The first Labour govern- ment’, writes Ross McKibbin, ‘cannot be understood other than in these terms.’20 In such circum- stances Liberal hopes were bound to be thwarted. As Hugh Dalton confided to his diary in the first month of Labour government, ‘I hope we shall be able to avoid giving the Liberals either Propor- tional Representation or Alterna- tive Vote in this Parliament. Then they mayn’t live to ask for either in the next.’21 The fact that moderate Labour and radical Liberalism overlapped at so many points was not, in the Labour view of things, a reason for the re-establishment of the pre- war Progressive Alliance; it merely confirmed the good sense of those Liberals who had already trans- ferred their allegiance to Labour. ‘The only kind of co-operation which is possible’, MacDonald told Gilbert Murray, ‘is the co- operation of men and women who come over and join us.’22 MacDonald fully understood that there was not room in the politi- cal spectrum for two parties of the progressive left and, if only one could survive, he was determined that it should be Labour. If Lib- eralism could be held down long enough, the built-in bias of the electoral system would eventu- ally work against it. By contrast, the granting of proportional rep- resentation would guarantee it a solid base in parliament for the The dangers of holding the foreseeable future, while depriving balance: Punch, Labour of any prospect of an inde- 30 April 1924 and pendent Commons majority. The 23 July 1930. short-term price of this strategy

12 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 holding the balance might well be lengthy periods of MacDonald it also seems reasonable to assume the Liberals 59. Once again, then, majority Conservative govern- that Liberalism had been dam- the third party held the balance, ment (as had existed between fully under- aged by its conduct during the but on this occasion Labour was 1924 and 1929), but this would be previous Parliament. For those in a theoretically stronger posi- a small price to pay if the longer- stood that who had never wanted a Labour tion as the largest single party. term achievement were to be the government in the first place, Liberal support would be less removal of the Liberal Party from there was Liberals had committed a gross crucial to the government’s sur- serious contention. not room in act of betrayal. The Conservatives vival. The statistics showed how The first Labour government were now seen as the only reli- much the Liberals were now suf- in Britain’s history came to an the politi- able bulwark against the supposed fering from an electoral system end over the celebrated Camp- threat of socialism. On the other which suited the interests of two bell Case. The government first cal spec- hand, for those who had been rather than three contestants. proposed to prosecute the editor prepared to give Labour a chance, On average there was one Lib- of the Worker’s Weekly for publish- trum for the late government’s very mod- eral MP for every 91,000 votes; ing two articles which seemed two parties eration appeared, as Labour of a Conservative for every 34,000; to incite members of the armed course intended, to render Lib- and a Labour member for every forces to disobey orders. But of the pro- eralism irrelevant. For more elec- 28,000. ‘You can imagine’, wrote within a few days all charges were tors than ever before the basic John Simon, ‘that our Liberals feel dropped. When Parliament reas- gressive political contest had become one rather sore about this.’27 sembled after the summer recess, between the Conservative and As in 1923, and notwithstand- the Conservative opposition pro- left and, Labour parties. ing the experience of the last posed a motion of censure on if only one Liberal comments on the MacDonald administration, there the government’s handling of the experience of ‘holding the bal- was a predisposition for Liberals to case. The Liberals, anxious not could sur- ance’ are instructive. Ernest Simon look sympathetically upon Labour. to bring the government down bemoaned a lost opportunity. Ever since the general election of and thereby precipitate a general vive, he ‘Liberal and Labour together’, he 1924, in which Asquith had lost election, the third in two years, insisted, ‘should have stayed in for his Commons seat, and more par- which they could ill afford, tabled was deter- years and carried through radical ticularly since 1926 when he had an amendment for the appoint- mined that legislation.’24 In like vein Lloyd stepped down from the party lead- ment of a select committee to George suggested that Labour ership, Lloyd George had moved examine the matter. This proposal it should could have remained in power for the party in a distinctly more radi- offered the government a means another three years and ‘formed a cal and anti-Conservative direc- of escape from the crisis which its be Labour. working alliance with Liberalism tion than at any time since before own actions had created. There that could have ensured a progres- the First World War. Frances Ste- was no need for it to take the sive administration of this coun- venson, his secretary and mistress, Liberal amendment, as opposed try for twenty years’.25 He insisted sensed a change in the Labour to the Conservative motion of that the real mistake had been Party’s attitude towards him and censure, as a matter of confidence, to put Labour in office without wrote of his ‘gradual conquest of but this is what it proceeded to insisting upon any understand- Labour’. ‘Now he speaks almost do. By 364 votes to 198 the gov- ing or conditions. But ‘it never as the Leader of the Opposition’, ernment came to an end. occurred to me that we could she recorded in April 1926, ‘with In the subsequent election be treated as we were treated. I the Labour and Liberal benches Liberals faced predictable disaster. took for granted that the relations around him, the former hanging The Conservative Party secured between the two parties would on his words and loud in their a landslide victory with more be analogous to those between praises.’28 She believed that Lloyd than 400 seats in the new House the Irish and Liberal parties in the George’s aim was to co-ordinate of Commons. Labour lost nearly Home Rule period.’26 Such an and consolidate all the country’s forty seats, but its vote held up imperfect understanding of what progressive forces against Conserv- well. The real significance of this had happened did not bode well atism and reaction. ‘Thus he will election was the damage it did to if chance should once again leave eventually get all sane Labour as the Liberal Party, reduced now the Liberal Party holding the bal- well as Liberalism behind him.’29 to just forty MPs. It was, thought ance of parliamentary power. Lloyd George discussed the Sidney Webb, ‘the funeral of a possibility of a renewed Lib- ~ great party’.23 Part of the explana- eral–Labour partnership in the tion for this disaster lay in the fact The situation created by the gen- next Parliament over dinner with that, for largely financial reasons, eral election of 1929 was super- C. P. Scott in December 1928. the party had abandoned 136 ficially similar to, but in reality He seemed determined to take seats fought in 1923 and fielded significantly different from, that a tougher line than Asquith had only 340 candidates. It could not, which had existed at the end of done five years earlier. MacDonald therefore, credibly present itself as 1923. Labour emerged with 288 ‘must not imagine he could have a potential aspirant for power. But seats, the Conservatives 260 and Liberal support for the asking’.

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 13 holding the balance Nonetheless he believed that, in the debate on the King’s Speech Despite ­administration, he would not be the end, Labour would have to when Herbert Samuel reminded able to support it and would join come to terms. Otherwise the Lib- the House of the Liberal Party’s giving with the Conservatives in any eral Party, despite its diminished long-standing commitment to subsequent vote of confidence. status, was still strong enough to electoral reform and asked for a Scott the ‘We are in danger’, he concluded, deny Labour any chance of a clear definite assurance from the gov- ‘of carrying offers of assistance parliamentary majority for a gen- ernment that the issue would be fleeting to the point of subservience and eration to come.30 addressed. But there was an ele- impres- I do not believe that this is the To a large extent, then, Lloyd ment of bluff in this Liberal stance. way in which Liberalism is likely George’s thinking had not The state of the party organisa- sion that to become a more effective force changed. But neither for that tion and the morale of its workers in national and imperial affairs.’36 matter had Ramsay MacDonald’s. were such that it could not risk Labour The extent of the Liberal Party’s Despite giving Scott the fleeting pulling the rug from under the disarray became evident when impression that Labour might be government and precipitating might be the Conservatives put down a interested in a formal coalition another general election. ‘Their interested critical motion on the King’s in the event of the next general marriage of convenience with the Speech. The official Liberal line election producing a similar par- Labour Government thus rested in a formal was to abstain, but five Liber- liamentary situation to that of on a constantly maintained but als including, incredibly enough, 1923, his basic strategy of destroy- utterly unreal threat of imminent coalition in the Chief Whip, voted with the ing the Liberal Party remained divorce.’34 Tories, while four others backed intact. A diary entry for Novem- It was not long before the first the event the government. Such three-way ber 1928 summed up the Labour fissures began to appear in the of the next voting splits now became increas- leader’s thinking. ‘If the three- façade of Liberal unity. On the ingly the norm. party system is to remain’, he second reading of the govern- general John Simon was clearly ready noted, ‘it is obvious that the ques- ment’s Coal Mines Bill in Decem- to bring the government down tion of coalition in some shape or ber, forty-four Liberals went into election should the opportunity arise. By form has to be faced.’ Therefore the opposition lobby, two voted contrast, Lloyd George continued ‘our immediate duty is to place with the government and six producing to insist that it be kept in office. every obstacle we can in the way abstained. But this anti-Labour a similar The key to his thinking was the of the survival of the three-party demonstration was only author- belief that Labour could be per- system’.31 Unless the course of ised after it had been ascertained parliamen- suaded to move on the question events moved MacDonald from that sufficient Conservatives were of electoral reform. A three-party this position, it would not be absent to ensure that the govern- tary situa- conference on the subject had easy for the Liberals to derive any ment was not defeated.35 A year been set up in early December benefit from again holding the later the intra-party divisions tion to that 1929, but it had reached no agree- parliamentary balance. were becoming more apparent. of 1923, ment and it collapsed the follow- For the time being Liberals The key factor was the perform- ing summer. In September 1930, seemed determined to present ance of the Labour government his basic however, MacDonald held talks a united front and to avoid itself. In the face of the mount- with Lloyd George and Samuel the damaging splits which had ing scourge of unemployment, strategy of at which the Liberals demanded characterised the Parliament of Labour appeared beset by intel- electoral reform in return for their 1924. At the first party meeting lectual bankruptcy. In late Octo- destroying continued support. The Cabinet after the election John Simon ber 1930, just before the opening the Lib- agreed only to undertake further ‘smote his breast and declared of the new parliamentary ses- investigations into the Alternative that except on matters which sion, John Simon wrote to Lloyd eral Party Vote. This was not proportional could only be fitly decided in the George about his current feelings representation but was seen as a sacred court of conscience – or on relations with the Labour gov- remained step in the right direction or, as words to that effect – no matter ernment. Simon argued that, after the Manchester Guardian put it, ‘a of opinion would induce him to seventeen months in power, the intact. good starting off point for more do other than follow the crack of government had proved a total comprehensive reforms’.37 Mac- the whip’.32 But those who still failure in almost all respects. As a Donald tried to persuade Lloyd dreamt of a recreated Progressive result, while Liberals derived no George that the Alternative Vote Alliance were worried by Lloyd benefit from keeping Labour in would result in significant Liberal George’s hard-line attitude. ‘It power, they exposed themselves gains at the expense of the Con- seemed to me’, recorded Ernest to the charge that they were only servatives.38 Yet Labour’s sincerity Simon, ‘that the general tone of interested in saving their own is open to question. Any change his speech was threatening, rather skins by avoiding another gen- to the voting system would take than looking forward to legisla- eral election. Simon gave notice at least two years to implement; tion on the fruitful field which is that, should the government but the government would have common to both parties.’33 This try to repeal the trade union its life extended by Liberal sup- firm attitude was still apparent in legislation of the last Baldwin port during this period.

14 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 holding the balance

Gradually, two rival Liberal somewhat sketchy, Lloyd George a steady erosion of Liberal sup- factions began to coalesce around seems, by the summer of 1931, to port. The party contested only a Lloyd George and Simon. Within have been pondering a formal minority of the thirty-four con- a year this division over how to coalition and even speculating tests between 1929 and 1931 and deal with holding the balance upon the possible distribution of invariably performed disastrously. of power would split Liberalism offices. ‘Ramsay would be Prime And there are many clear point- apart, a split which, unlike that of Minister,’ recorded Frances Ste- ers in the general election itself. 1916, would never be repaired, but venson, ‘Lloyd George would be The Liberal optimism present which, arguably, would be of equal Leader [of the House] at the For- in 1929 had almost completely importance in the story of the eign Office or the Treasury.’42 evaporated. Though the number party’s decline. On 20 November But it was the Simonite faction of Liberal MPs went up over- Lloyd George put forward a plan which made the decisive move. all – thirty-three for the main- to his senior colleagues for a for- On 26 June 1931 Simon, accom- stream party, now led by Herbert mal pact with Labour to last for panied by Ernest Brown and Samuel, thirty-five Simonite two years. Simon was fundamen- the former Chief Whip, Robert Liberal Nationals and a third tally opposed, arguing that the Hutchison, formally resigned the group of four Lloyd Georgeites Labour government was already Liberal whip. The occasion of the who had opposed the hold- discredited and that nothing was breach – the government’s mod- ing of an election – the party’s to be gained by putting Liberal erate land tax proposals – scarcely vote had dropped dramatically, assets into a bankrupt concern. At justified Simon’s scathing com- largely because of a reduction in a subsequent general election no ment that the parliamentary Lib- the number of seats contested. Liberal candidate could effectively eral Party had reached a ‘lower Strikingly, only ten Liberals were oppose a Labour candidate, hav- depth of humiliation than any victorious in the face of Conserv- ing so recently sustained his party into which it had yet been led’.43 ative opposition. Above all, the in power.39 At a second meeting But this event merely set the seal election seemed to confirm that a week later Simon, supported on a process which had been the Conservative–Labour contest now by Lord Reading, coun- long developing. Thus, when the was now the only one that really tered Lloyd George’s revised plan government fell in August, to be mattered in British politics. for a pact for a shorter period. replaced, to general surprise, by ~ An arrangement for one year a National administration still would inevitably be extended to headed by MacDonald, the Lib- Unlike the situations of 1924 two, since after twelve months it eral Party was effectively already and 1929, that of 1977 was not would be said that more time was Above divided into two. On 23 Septem- the direct creation of a gen- still needed to secure concessions ber twenty-nine Liberals joined eral election. It is true that the from the government.40 all, the Simon in a memorial to Mac- Labour government elected in Though the formal breach was Donald supporting any measures February 1974 lacked an overall repeatedly delayed, the two fac- election which the new Cabinet might parliamentary majority, but the tions were now ready to go their seemed think necessary to deal with the Liberals alone, with just four- separate ways. While Simon began trade imbalance – a declaration teen MPs, were not on their negotiations with the Conserva- to con- which, by its implicit acceptance own strong enough to hold the tive opposition, Lloyd George of tariffs, created a further deep balance. Prime Minister Harold argued that ‘the great majority firm that breach in the Liberal ranks. Simon Wilson went to the country again of our party are in accord with soon accepted the invitation of in October and secured a slender yours [Labour] in the general the Con- more than two dozen Liberal overall majority of three seats. line of advance for the next ten servative– MPs to lead the so-called Liberal By the end of 1976, however, years. The differences are not National group and on 5 Octo- by-election losses at Workington vital and can easily be adjusted.’41 Labour ber this group formed a separate and Walsall North had reduced Such was the desperation of the organisation for the specific pur- Labour once more to minority government, beset as it was by contest pose of fighting the next election status. The crisis came in March political and economic crises, in alliance with the Conservatives of the following year when the that MacDonald may even have was now and with MacDonald’s small band Conservative opposition under taken Lloyd George’s approach the only of National Labour followers.44 Margaret Thatcher announced its seriously, notwithstanding his The peculiar circumstances intention of tabling a confidence long-term commitment to the one that surrounding the general election motion which appeared likely destruction of the Liberal Party. of October 1931 make it difficult to bring the government down. The government did agree to the really mat- to assess accurately the impact on In this situation, and after some introduction of the Alternative the Liberal Party of ‘holding the preliminary soundings involving Vote, but the necessary legisla- tered in balance’ over the previous two Bill Rodgers, Labour’s Transport tion was delayed in the House of British years. What is beyond dispute is Secretary, and Peter Jenkins of the Lords and lost when the govern- that the by-election history of Guardian, Prime Minister James ment fell. Though the evidence is politics. the Labour government suggests Callaghan and Liberal leader

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 15 holding the balance

David Steel hammered out an agreement which would save the government from defeat. The Lib–Lab Pact was very much the creation of the two men. There was no discussion with the parliamentary Liberal Party about the precise terms of the pact and no vote on those terms. Still less was there consul- tation with the wider party in the country. The parliamentary party acquiesced in what Steel had done with varying degrees of enthusi- asm and in some cases a complete absence of it, the former leader Jo Grimond being perhaps the most sceptical. Similarly, a meeting of the Labour Cabinet was held on 23 March, the morning before the ‘no confidence’ motion, and with the pact having already been initialled by the two party leaders the previous night. Calla- ghan experienced fewer difficul- ties with the Cabinet than might have been expected because he had been careful to carry Michael Foot, the standard-bearer of the left, along with him. In the event only four ministers voted against the pact and none of these took the matter as far as resignation. Most agreed with the Chancel- lor, Denis Healey, that the gov- ernment had no alternative: ‘You can’t rely on the minorities – the Nats and the nutters will want to bring us down.’45 A variety of motives was involved. The one thing that the two parties had in common was a desire to avoid an election at this time with its almost inevitable consequence of a large Conserva- tive majority. The Labour gov- ernment was deeply unpopular following the financial crisis of the previous year and the humili- ation of IMF intervention to bail out a failing economy. The pact offered, as Bernard Donou- ghue argued in an analysis later

How journalists saw the Pact: ‘Jim’s protector’ (Trog, Observer, 19 June 1977); and ‘The unpaid piper’ (Gibbard, Guardian, 13 December 1977).

16 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 holding the balance drawn up for the Prime Minister, suggestion that he might himself Consider- and Healey was never likely to a moment of opportunity which at some point become a Cabinet veer too far in the direction of might give time for an economic minister.49 ing the gov- the Labour left. Tony Benn’s fears recovery and the electoral advan- Considering the government’s – ‘that the Liberals will be in a tage which this would bring.46 precarious parliamentary situa- ernment’s dominant position in discussions The Liberals were equally wary tion, it cannot be said that the Lib- with the Government; we shall, of an early general election, suf- eral leader drove a hard bargain. precarious in effect be unable to do anything fering heavily from the impact of Indeed, there were always crit- parlia- without their approval’ – were the scandal involving the former ics who argued that he had been considerably wide of the mark.51 party leader, Jeremy Thorpe, and outgunned by the Prime Min- mentary In practice, Callaghan had not his alleged involvement in a plot ister’s experience and guile. The given away very much. Consul- to murder the male model, Nor- pact contained four main points. situation, it tation was not the same thing as man Scott. At two recent by- There would be a consultative a veto. Liberals could claim little elections in Walsall North and committee of the two main par- cannot be more than ‘the seductive whiff of Stetchford Liberal candidates ties to which major bills would be said that marginal participation in govern- had finished behind the National referred. There would be regular ment … after sixty-two years of Front. meetings between Healey and the Liberal isolation’.52 But Steel’s motivation was his Liberal shadow, John Pardoe. The Lib–Lab Pact lasted for more complex and reflected his There would be direct elections leader eighteen months. In practical fundamental attitude towards to the European Parliament, with terms it worked more smoothly the party leadership. A disciple a free vote on the voting system to drove than might have been anticipated. of Jo Grimond, he believed that be adopted and the government a hard Callaghan and Steel developed a the Liberal way forward lay in a ‘taking account’ of the Liberal mutual respect for one another, realignment of the left in British preference for proportional rep- ­bargain. but Healey and Pardoe had a ‘tal- politics. If the opportunity arose, resentation. And there would be a ent for rubbing each other up Liberals should seize it and join renewed effort to enact devolution the wrong way’. After one bruis- with others for the more effective for Wales and Scotland. In return, ing encounter Healey’s deputy, promotion of Liberal values. His the Liberals would ensure that the Joel Barnett, suggested that he parliamentary experience, nota- government would not face defeat and Steel should attend future bly his sponsorship of a reform of on a matter of substance in the meetings between the two men, the law on abortion in 1967, had House of Commons. ‘if only to hold the coats’.53 The already convinced him that much Understandably enough, Steel pact’s achievements were more could be achieved on cross-party sought to present the pact in more obvious from the point of view of lines. The party’s disappointing heroic terms than it probably the government than of the Lib- electoral performance in 1970 had merited. The Liberal Party was eral Party. ‘We took them to the shown, he believed, the futility of paraded as a force for moderation, cleaners’ was the somewhat exag- the long-haul approach to Liberal standing in the way of Labour’s gerated assessment of one of the revival. It made no sense for the socialism on the one hand and Prime Minister’s aides on the bal- party to ‘plod on as before, spend- Thatcherite Conservatism on the ance of advantage derived by the ing the next ten years building other. His public statement was two parties.54 Labour continued back up to a dozen MPs only to unequivocal. ‘Either the Govern- in office without the ever-present face near annihilation again on a ment now proceeds on the basis threat of parliamentary defeat sudden swing of the pendulum’.47 of agreed measures in the national and, during this period, made Both in his campaign for the interest for the next two years, in some progress in stabilising the party leadership in 1976 and which case we would be willing economy and, for the time being in his first pronouncements as to consider supporting such a pro- at least, bringing down the rate of leader, Steel made no secret of the gramme, or else we have a general inflation. It could even have led direction in which he intended to election.’50 But neither then, nor to a further Labour victory at the go. Interviewed by the Guardian at other moments of crisis in the subsequent general election had within weeks of becoming leader, pact’s lifetime, did the govern- Callaghan not delayed going to Steel suggested that Liberals had ment take seriously the Liberal the country until 1979, by which to ‘start by getting a toe-hold on leader’s declared readiness to face time the so-called ‘Winter of power which must mean some the electorate. The parallels with Discontent’ had left its indelible form of coalition’.48 His enthu- 1924 and 1929 are only too clear. impression upon the mind of the siasm for the Lib–Lab Pact must Steel’s later claim that the pact electorate. be seen in this context. Having a had the effect of blocking further But the pact’s impact upon the share in power, however small, was left-wing legislation is difficult to Liberals was of questionable value. more important than the details of sustain. The high tide of socialism As even David Steel came to rec- policy set out in the pact. Indeed, had already passed before Calla- ognise, the major problem was that there is some evidence that Steel ghan became Prime Minister and ‘we were lambasted for simply may have been seduced by the a government headed by himself keeping in office a government

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 17 holding the balance which had outstayed its wel- Blair–Ashdown ‘project’ of the The Lloyd George Lecture, 8 September come’.55 This was a fact which the 1990s. 1991, p. 15. Conservatives were only too ready 2. I have excluded the experience of ~ the mid 1990s when John Major’s to recall to the public mind at the government lost its parliamentary time of the 1979 general election. What conclusions may be drawn? majority, as on that occasion several The loss of Liberal support in the The history of the twentieth smaller parties could be said to have country was evident as early as the century does not suggest that ‘held the balance’ and there was no serious question of the Liberal Dem- local elections of May 1977, when the Liberal Party has drawn any ocrats entering into a pact to ensure the party lost three-quarters of its great benefit from the superfi- the government’s survival. county councillors. In ten parlia- cially attractive position of hold- 3. C. F. G. Masterman, The New Liberal- mentary by-elections between ing the parliamentary balance. ism (London, 1920), p. 191. the creation of the pact and the Most obviously, the discredit of 4. Ibid., p. 194. 5. M. Stocks, Ernest Simon of Manchester announcement of its termina- an unpopular government easily (London, 1963), pp. 70–1. tion, Liberals saw their share of transfers to those who sustain it, 6. The Nation, 1 December 1923. the vote drop by an average of 9.5 while the credit for success is usu- 7. T. Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of per cent. Nor was it easy to argue ally retained. At the very least, the C. P. Scott 1911–1928 (London, 1970), that the government was being need to extract a generous pack- p. 450. 8. House of Lords Record Office, Lloyd forced into a conspicuously ‘lib- age of concessions prior to any George MSS G/17/11/8, Lloyd eral’ direction by the constraints commitment being entered into George to C. P. Scott 27 December of the pact. Steel tried to squeeze is surely apparent. That package 1923. as much credit as he could from should almost certainly include 9. R.W. Lyman, The First Labour Govern- the introduction of tax relief for proportional representation. At a ment 1924 (London, 1957), p. 73. 10. Wilson (ed.), Scott Diaries, p. 450. profit-sharing schemes, but it was time when the Liberal Democrats, 11. Ibid., p. 451. relatively small beer. The failure in by distancing themselves from the 12. Manchester Central Library, E.D. November 1977 to secure propor- tarnished edifice of New Labour, Simon MSS M/11/11, parliamentary tional representation for European seem to have put to one side diary 1924, note by Simon on Liberal elections left many in the party the goal of sharing power with policy 22 Feb. 1924. The his- 13. Ibid., note March 1925. feeling bitter and let down. Steel another party, it may be that these 14. Ibid., diary 12 March 1924. was personally prepared to extend tory of the historical lessons have been learnt. 15. Ibid., note March 1925. the pact into the autumn session It is instructive to conclude with 16. P. Harris, Forty Years in and out of Par- of 1978, but realised that renewal twentieth the words of Paddy Ashdown, a liament (London, n.d.), p. 97. would be impossible if he failed to leader whose strategy seemed in 17. J. Campbell, Lloyd George: Goat in the century Wilderness 1922–1931 (London, 1977), extract a major concession from many ways to be based on secur- pp. 94–5. the government. When Callaghan does not ing a hung parliament. Consider- 18. Wilson (ed.), Scott Diaries, p. 461. ruled out a referendum on pro- ing such a future prospect in the 19. S. Koss, Asquith (London, 1976), p. portional representation, the pact suggest summer of 1991, he recorded: 266. was effectively dead in the water 20. R. McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910–1924 (Oxford, that the The most difficult option turns and formal notice of its termina- 1983), pp. 120–1. tion was given on 25 May 1978. Liberal out to be … Labour refusing to 21. B. Pimlott (ed.), The Political Diary of In all the circumstances the talk to us and putting down a Hugh Dalton 1918–40, 1945–60 (Lon- Liberal Party probably emerged Party has Queen’s Speech which has most don, 1986), p. 37. less badly from the general elec- of the things we want in it (e.g. 22. M. Bentley, ‘The Liberal Response to Socialism 1918–29’ in K. D. Brown drawn any Scottish Parliament with PR, tion of May 1979 than might have (ed.), Essays in Anti-Labour History been feared. Steel performed well PR for local government, PR (London, 1974), p. 57. as leader and had the satisfaction of great ben- for Europe), but not PR in West- 23. Beatrice Webb diary 29 October seeing his party’s rating increase in efit from minster … A hung parliament 1924. the course of the campaign. Even would not be a dream. It would 24. E. D. Simon MSS, M/11/11, par- liamentary diary 1924, note March be a nightmare.56 so, the party lost a million votes the super- 1925. compared with October 1974 and 25. P. Rowland, Lloyd George (London, saw its share of the vote drop from ficially 1975), p. 612. 18.3 to 13.8 per cent. As in 1924 David Dutton is Professor of Modern 26. Wilson (ed.), Scott Diaries, pp. 470–1. and 1931, the electorate appeared attractive History at the University of Liverpool. 27. British Library, Simon MSS, Eur not to have rewarded the party for His History of the Liberal Party in F77/5/56, Simon to Irwin 6 June 1929. position of 28. A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: A its proximity to power. Arguably, the Twentieth Century was published Diary by Frances Stevenson (London, however, Steel could take some holding the by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004. He 1971), p. 244. credit for having demonstrated is currently preparing a study of the 29. Ibid., pp. 245–6. that parties could work together, a parliamen- National Liberal Party. 30. Wilson (ed.), Scott Diaries, p. 494. 31. D. Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald lesson which would be developed (London, 1977), p. 483. tary bal- 1. Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, ‘Learning during the era of the Alliance in 32. University of Newcastle, Runciman the Lessons of History: Hung Parlia- the 1980s and, tentatively, in the MSS 221, note by D. Maclean 14 June ance. ments and Coalition Governments’, 1929.

18 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 holding the balance

33. E. D. Simon MSS, M/11/11/5, parlia- George to Lansbury 16 February 49. Morgan, Callaghan, p. 567. mentary diary 18 June 1929. 1931. 50. D. Steel, ‘An Experiment in Power’, 34. B. Wasserstein, Herbert Samuel: a Politi- 42. A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), My Darling Pussy Observer, 8 April 1979. cal Life (Oxford, 1992), p. 306. (London, 1975), p. 144. 51. Benn, Conflicts of Interest, p. 91. 35. British Library, Irwin MSS, Eur 43. J. Simon MSS 68, Simon to A. Sinclair 52. Morgan, Callaghan, p. 570. C152/8, Lane Fox to Irwin 22 26 June 1931. 53. J. Barnett, Inside the Treasury (London, December 1929. 44. G. Shakespeare, Let Candles be Brought 1982), pp. 142–3. 36. Bodleian Library, J. Simon MSS 249, In (London, 1949), p.138; The Times, 54. A. Michie and S. Hoggart, The Pact Simon to Lloyd George 25 October 5 October 1931; Lord Hemingford, (London, 1978), p. 183. 1930. Back-bencher and Chairman (London, 55. D. Steel, A House Divided: The Lib–Lab 37. Manchester Guardian, 16 January 1931. 1946), pp. 152–3. Pact and the Future of British Politics 38. John Rylands Library, MacDonald 45. T. Benn, Conflicts of Interest: Diaries (London, 1980), p. 153. MSS, RMD/1/14/132, MacDonald 1977–80 (London, 1990) p. 87. 56. P. Ashdown, The Ashdown Diaries to Lloyd George 29 September 1930. 46. K. O. Morgan, Callaghan: A Life 1988–1997 (London, 2000), p. 120. 39. J. Simon MSS 249, diary 20 Novem- (Oxford, 1997), p. 569. ber 1930. 47. D. Steel, Against Goliath: David Steel’s 40. Ibid., 27 November 1930. Story (London, 1989), p. 70. 41. Lloyd George MSS, G/11/4/2, Lloyd 48. Ibid., p. 119. 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.

Aneurin Williams and Liberal internationalism and pacificism, specifically on Liberal candidates in the area in the two general elections 1900–22. A study of this radical and pacificist MP (Plymouth 1910; of 1910, would be most welcome. Family papers especially appreciated. North West Durham/Consett 1914–22) who was actively involved in Ian Ivatt, 84 High Street, Steyning, West Sussex BN44 3JT; ianjivatt@ League of Nations Movement, Armenian nationalism, international tinyonline.co.uk. co-operation, pro-Boer etc. Any information relating to him and Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Chris location of any papers/correspondence welcome. Barry Dackombe. 32 Fox, 173 Worplesdon Road, Guildford GU2 6XD; christopher.fox7@ Ashburnham Road, Ampthill, Beds, MK45 2RH; [email protected]. virgin.net. Cornish Methodism and Cornish political identity, 1918–1960s. Political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. Study of the Researching the relationship through oral history. Kayleigh Milden, political life of this radical MP, hoping to shed light on the question Institute of Cornish Studies, Hayne Corfe Centre, Sunningdale, Truro TR1 of why the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the primary popular 3ND; [email protected]. representatives of radicalism in the 1920s. Paul Mulvey, 112 Richmond Hubert Beaumont MP. After pursuing candidatures in his native Avenue, London N1 0LS; [email protected]. Northumberland southward, Beaumont finally fought and won Eastbourne Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935. in 1906 as a ‘Radical’ (not a Liberal). How many Liberals in the election Aims to suggest reasons for defections of individuals and develop an fought under this label and did they work as a group afterwards? Lord understanding of changes in electoral alignment. Sources include Beaumont of Whitley, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW; beaumontt@ personal papers and newspapers; suggestions about how to get hold of parliament.uk. the papers of more obscure Liberal defectors welcome. Cllr Nick Cott, 1a Letters of Richard Cobden (1804–65). Knowledge of the Henry Street, Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE3 1DQ; N.M.Cott@ncl. whereabouts of any letters written by Cobden in private hands, ac.uk. autograph collections, and obscure locations in the UK and abroad for a SDP in Central Essex. Contact with anyone who had dealings with complete edition of his letters. Dr A. Howe, Department of International the area, and in particular as many former SDP members of the History, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A area as possible, with a view to asking them to take part in a short 2AE; [email protected]. (For further details of the Cobden Letters questionnaire. Official documents from merger onwards regarding the Project, see www.lse.ac.uk/collections/cobdenLetters/). demise of the local SDP branches and integration with the Liberals Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Focusing particularly on Liberal would also be appreciated. Elizabeth Wood, The Seasons, Park Wood, anti-appeasers. Michael Kelly, 12 Collinbridge Road, Whitewell, Doddinghurst, Brentwood, Essex CM15 0SN; [email protected]. Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim BT36 7SN; [email protected]. Student radicalism at Warwick University. Particulary the files affair Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. Sources, in 1970. Interested in talking to anybody who has information about particularly on Sinclair as Air Minister, and on Harcourt Johnstone, Liberal Students at Warwick in the period 1965-70 and their role in Dingle Foot, Lord Sherwood and Sir Geoffrey Maunder (Sinclair’s PPS) campus politics. Ian Bradshaw, History Department, University of particularly welcome. Ian Hunter, 9 Defoe Avenue, Kew, Richmond TW9 Warwick, CV4 7AL; [email protected] 4DL; [email protected]. Welsh Liberal Tradition – A History of the Liberal Party in Wales Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Andrew Gardner, 1868–2003. Research spans thirteen decades of Liberal history in 17 Upper Ramsey Walk, Canonbury, London N1 2RP; agardner@ssees. Wales but concentrates on the post-1966 formation of the Welsh ac.uk. Federal Party. Any memories and information concerning the post- 1966 era or even before welcomed. The research is to be published Liberal politics in Sussex, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight 1900– in book form by Welsh Academic Press. Dr Russell Deacon, Centre for 14. The study of electoral progress and subsequent disappointment. Humanities, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Cyncoed Campus, Research includes comparisons of localised political trends, issues Cardiff CF23 6XD; [email protected]. and preferred interests as aganst national trends. Any information,

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 19 BATTLING BATH LIBERAL

The story of a Liberal activist in Bath in the late nineteenth century, in his own words. Stephen Tollyfield introduces the reminiscences of his great-grandfather, Alf Wills, as part of his ongoing efforts to restore Wills’ position as a formidable figure in Bath’s political history.

s an old man, living on Alfred Wills of ‘Victoria the Good’. All I we did, we lost jobs, patronage, Bathwick Hill, Bath, (1872–1949) can say is the memories of my everything and incurred bitter my great-grandfather early youth leave the impres- hatred. Right up till the time of A. W. Wills (1872– sion that the democracy thought the Great War, I was persecuted 1949) started writing of her in other terms. Probably for my Politics and my Religion. Aan account of his life. He never Gladstone’s extension of the finished it and it remains in my Franchise, which was bitterly The Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 mother’s possession. However, it opposed in the early 1880s, had and 1884 increased the total contains his account of his early a good deal of effect and the fact electorate to over five million. political experiences in a knocka- that Edward, Prince of Wales, The introduction of secret bal- bout way that, quite literally, pulls was declared to be a friend of lots in 1872 freed working men no punches. Gladstone and a Liberal helped from voting deferentially. At the Alfred started life as a plumber to keep the Peace. time of the Great Reform Act of and builder, working for his Election times were times of 1832 and of municipal reform in father, also Alfred Wills. His turbulence. My earliest memory 1835, Bath increased its constitu- father, who was with good rea- is my father going to Bristol on ency from 30 to over 3,000 vot- son concerned for his business, business, during an election, tak- ers with a quarter drawn from advised his son against display- ing a blue and a red scarf with the working class.1 By October ing his politics too openly. Young him so as to display either, in 1900 there were 7,346 voters on Alfred, however, could not be case he met a procession. At the register. Alfred writes of how restrained for long. His stories election meetings it was not he acquired his first vote: paint an enjoyable picture of uncommon to have free fights early Liberal politics in Bath – and all the chairs, or nearly all, When I was 18 (I looked years smashed. Gangs were organised older) I thought I aught to have My father was an advanced to disturb opponents and parade the vote, though the law said I Radical with a definite leaning the streets, seeking for a fight. A must not. Votes were obtained to Republicanism. It is astonish- torchlight parade with hundreds by making claims through Party ing to look back and remember taking part, carrying lighted Agents and the Revising Barris- how many were only waiting torches, was always organised by ter; who held an annual enquiry for the opportunity to declare the Liberals at least. But we dared to decide between claims and a Republic. Many people think not openly display our politics. If objections. One Party made a

20 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 battling bath liberal

claim; the other side made all What fun we used to have! Alfred’s recollection in this possible investigations to raise Every year there was a Ward respect was defective. The result an objection. If there were no Meeting at which members as recorded by the Bath and Chel- objection it was agreed that rendered account to their con- tenham Gazette of 26 April 1893 the claim was good and was stituents. We attended to ask was as follows: allowed. To prevent frivolous questions. We always found the objections the Barrister could disgruntled members and asked M Baggs 677 allow ‘time and expenses’. This their questions for them – if C B Oliver 665 tended to keep things in proper they would not do it. It was bet- Majority 12 proportion. ter than pantomime! I went to see Sam Hayward I remember one incident in The paper goes on to record that the Conservative Agent and laid a Municipal election at Walcot. Oliver gave a speech from the my claim. He was delighted to Oliver (Conservative) was fight- steps of the Guildhall saying how see me and asked no questions. ing our man Baggs. We knew amicable the fight had been. They All he said was, ‘But your father that it was going to be the closest had nothing to reproach them- was always a Liberal.’ possible contest and every vote selves for and neither had the I countered with, ‘But it of special value. In the middle of other side! doesn’t follow that a son shares the afternoon, three of us, Trude Alfred clearly felt that the his father’s political views does Young and myself were stand- additional resources of the Tories it? He does not know of my ing in the street, near the polling justified a little skulduggery – visit here and I want you to station. A lady came along in a keep it quiet.’ pony wheelchair – openly car- The Tories always had a multi- This was sufficient. Father rying Oliver’s polling card – and plicity of conveyances, carriages did not know, but the Lib- asked us where she had to vote and pairs galore, but the poor eral Agent did. My father had for Oliver. radicals could hardly ever get proudly commenced to trade as Trude steps forward, raises half enough ponies and traps. ‘A Wills & Son’. I took advantage his hat and says, ‘Beg pardon lady, So in every ward where there of this; it being presumed that I but are you over 70?’ were invalided stalwarts, they was a partner, of age, and there- ‘What has that to do with the were instructed to suggest that fore a joint tenant of the business question?’ she asks. they were going to vote Tory premises. I got my vote and used ‘Don’t you know lady, that ‘this time’. They were polled in it two or three times before I was ladies over 70 can’t vote now?’ carriages and pairs, but we knew legally qualified to do so. says Trude. how they really voted. ‘Oh dear dear. I didn’t want Bath had seven wards, which to come and they’ve been wor- Alfred had an enemy in the Rec- included Bathwick and Walcot. rying me all day. Take me home tor of Bathwick, George Tugwell. Each ward elected six councillors Mr —.’ Rev. Tugwell had been Rec- to Bath City Council. Mr —, one of our ardent tor whilst Alfred had been at supporters, was happy to do so. the Parish Church School and A year or two after I was 21 I We won by only 3 votes! there was evidently no love lost came out into the open and was made Chairman of the Liberal Ward Committee for Bathwick. Though we had not the slight- est chance in the Ward I was able sufficiently to impress the other side that they would consult me as to a Candidate for the City Council, to avoid a contest. More than once I found an alternative Conservative candidate to the proposed official one.

I can find only one instance of my great-grandfather nominat- ing anyone in Bathwick. This was William Adams, the pro- prietor of the Fernley Hotel, in the Municipal Elections of 2 November 1903.

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 21 battling bath liberal between them. The Rector had Liberals wheeled in a poor man the P.O. and said quietly, but as refused to allow Alfred to tender who could not write or speak clearly as possible, ‘Mr Presiding for the work of building a wall at properly following a stroke. It Officer I call upon you in the the cemetery, on the grounds of was therefore necessary for the Queen’s Name to do your duty his Nonconformist religion and Booth to be cleared of all but and have this person removed Radical politics. This was despite sworn men whilst the Presid- or prosecuted for brawling in a the fact that the architect – also ing Officer got from the voter Polling Booth. I call upon you to a Tory and Anglican – wanted his directions as to his vote. The so instruct the Police Officer.’ A. Wills & Son included in the Bathwick School was being The complete collapse of firms invited for tender. Alfred used, as always. the Rector was the best reward was, however, to have his revenge, As I was closing the door I could ever have. as he relates in the next election at the direction of the Presid- story: ing Officer I saw Rev. Tugwell Alfred was sanguine at the brib- pompously walking along the ery and corruption that occurred During a General Election at long path towards the school. during elections. He accepted it which Home Rule was the issue In a minute or two the Rector as inevitable. The problem for and feelings were running high, was knocking on the door. Get- the Liberals was that they simply I was Party Agent inside the ting no answer he increased his could not afford it. They were not Polling Booth. Each side had knocking, shook the door and averse to paying for votes, but an Agent to ensure fair play. In then kicked it violently. needed to be sure they were get- the middle of the afternoon the The Presiding Officer asked ting value for money: me to see who it was, but on no account to let anyone in. Pulling The Tories paid over their half General election results in Bath, 1880–1900 the bolt back gently but keep- sovereigns on the promise to 1880 April ing my foot against the door I vote – probably two or three days opened it slightly. I was met with before the election. Our men Hayter Lib 2712 a tornado of words from a man only ever paid after the man had Wodehouse Lib 2700 who was almost in an apoplec- polled as an illiterate. This meant Hardy Con 2359 tic state. ‘How dare you keep me that an agent took the man right Smyth Con 2241 out of my school!’ he said, trying into the Polling Booth. The man 1885 November to push in. would declare that he could not Blaine Con 3208 Using my flat hand I pushed read or write and so in a Sworn him so hard that he staggered Room the voter would openly Wodehouse Lib 2990 back four yards and fell back- declare for whom he voted. No Laurie Con 2971 wards over the step. Fortunately half crowns for nothing was our Hayter Lib 2953 another gentleman had just slogan. 1886 July arrived and rushed to brake his Wodehouse Lib Unionist 3309 fall. I at once rebolted the door Bath at the time elected two MPs and informed the P.O. that it Laurie Con 3244 to parliament. Voters could vote was the Rector. In a minute the for up to two candidates. The Hayter Gladstonite 2588 kicking and rattling resumed, but table shows the spread of vot- Verney Gladstonite 2529 shortly ceased. ing from 1880 with the top two 1892 July The Sworn Room lasted 20 being elected. Murray Con 3198 minutes, because of the condi- Wodehouse Lib Unionist 3177 tion of the voter, who died 2 I got a fair intuition into politi- days later. When the door was cal methods. The year Donald Baptie Gladstonite 2981 opened and the voter wheeled Maclean lost I told him at 11 Adye Gladstonite 2941 out, a Policeman who had now a.m. on Polling Day, ‘You are 1895 July arrived held the Rector back. 2 going to lose.’ Murray Con 3445 or 3 other voters had also arrived He asked me how I could be Wodehouse Lib Unionist 3358 in the interim. The Rector such a pessimist – the only one stamped into the Polling Booth in Bath. I replied, ‘The Publicans Conway Lib 2917 calling upon the Policeman to are quiet … and confident.’ Fuller Lib 2865 follow and take me in charge for Years later, when I saw Maclean 1900 October assault. in the House of Commons, he Murray Con 3486 The Polling Officer did not reminded me of the incident. Wodehouse Lib Unionist 3439 know what to do. I stood laugh- Maclean Lib 2605 ing while he tried to calm the Sir Donald Maclean KBE (1864– Rector. Suddenly I turned to 1932) became the Liberal MP Fuller Lib 2549

22 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 battling bath liberal for Bath in the Liberal landslide ­Suddenly I heard a voice, far of 1906. Maclean’s total vote away at first and then, ‘That’s was 4,102 and his fellow Liberal Alf’s voice! Hold on Alf I’m Gooch received 4,069. The two coming!’ Tories mustered 3,123 and 3,088 In a moment I was fight- respectively. The last time Bath ing side by side with my old had elected two Liberals was in colleague O’Leary. The best of 1880 (see chart). In 1910 he left which was O’Leary had left A Bath and became MP for Peebles Wills & Son and set himself up and Selkirk. He was chairman of in competition to us. I had not the Liberal Party from 1919 to seen him for three or four years. 1922. He was also the father of It was a famous victory. the other Donald Maclean, the infamous spy. One last vignette perhaps conveys My great-grandfather records the rather more colourful charac- an incident in that election of ter of politics at the time: 1906: There were two brothers who I was outside the Old Herald both owned home brew public Office watching the results of houses. Enoch Tutton in Bath- the polling come in. There was wick Street was a Radical. Rob- an immense crowd reaching ert Tutton in Walcot was a Tory. from St Michael’s, Bridge Street, They were both successful men to the top of New Bond Street; but absolutely divided on their excited, pushing and swaying. politics. Both owned high step- Of course it was mostly a Lib- ping horses and dogcarts. eral crowd. Standing by my side At election times one of the was a little man, named Barnes, a sights was to see these brothers photographer. He was absolutely driving round Bath with har- dumb with astonishment as the ness, whip, horses, dogcarts and Balfour figures were put out. themselves decorated with their party colours. It looked like a Arthur James Balfour, the Tory competition for the best-dressed Prime Minister from 1902 to dogcart. 1905, lost his seat for the constitu- How they glowered at each ency of East Manchester in the other as they passed, but never 1906 general election. The mem- spoke! oirs continue: Alfred was persuaded to stand in I did not know him well enough the Bath City Council elections to carry out any sort of conver- of 1908 as a Liberal candidate sation. But there he stood with a in Walcot. This was in place of blue Conservative handkerchief Mr W. Tonkin who retired from tucked well down inside his the Council through ill heath. breast pocket. But as he was so Despite being an employer small even I could see it by look- himself, his Radical credentials his early politics, for which he ing down into his pocket, which nevertheless made him accept- clearly felt a singular degree of slightly gaped open. able to the working man. If he nostalgia. Suddenly a gang of Avon were not an employer himself, Street hooligans forced them- he announced, he would be a Stephen Tollyfield is a Principal Legal selves through the crowd, trade unionist. He went on to Adviser for the South Derbyshire pushing and shoving by way of become Mayor of Bath in 1918. Magistrates’ Court. He is married diversion. As they passed Barnes, He was also food controller for with two children and now lives in one of them saw his handker- Bath during the Great War. He Swanwick, Derbyshire. chief and without hesitation suffered a nervous breakdown bashed Barnes’ hat over the eyes. in 1919 following the national 1 Graham Davis, ‘Sir Jerome Murch and the ‘civic gospel’ in Victorian In a moment my fist had rail strike, which greatly dis- Bath’, Journal of Liberal History 37, p. contacted with the hooligan’s rupted food distribution. His 14 jaw and he went sprawling. His conflicts had moved beyond the pals were at me like panthers. robust physical confrontations of

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 23 Berwick-upon-Tweed: A venal borough?

Michael Wickham examines Berwick’s reputation for electoral corruption during the nineteenth century and assesses the impact of bribery on voting behaviour.

24 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 Berwick-upon-Tweed: A venal borough?

hen the English during the eighteenth and nine- ­people of Berwick, who believed electoral system teenth centuries. The electors’ that the case against them had was reformed ingratitude towards the Whig been somewhat overstated. Thus, in 1832, it was member John Delaval, who had in January 1833, the Advertiser, hoped that the spent thousands of pounds on referring to the conduct of the Wbribery and corruption that had them during the 1760s, prompted town’s electors on former occa- characterised the old system would Captain Nethercott to refer to sions, warily observed: become a thing of the past. How- them as ‘a herd of swine that the ever, such hopes were soon dashed Devil possesses’.2 Similar senti- We are far from believing that as many of the old practices con- ments were expressed by J. Lam- they were all guiltless, – yet the tinued unabated. Indeed, in some bert, Esq. when he informed Earl borough has been more sinned boroughs the situation was even Grey in 1832 that: against than sinning, and why worse than it had been before should six or seven hundred the 1832 Reform Act. In Ber- … the Berwick electors are such In Berwick- good men bear the odium wick-upon-Tweed, for instance, a a venal pack that I fear there can attached to the sins of fifty or series of election scandals resulted be little hope entertained of their upon-Tweed perhaps sixty who desecrate the in the appointment of a Royal supporting even so straightfor- privileges which they enjoy?7 Commission to investigate the ward and uncompromising a a series of alleged venality of the electors of reformer as Sir F [Francis Blake] The newspaper was highly con- England’s most northerly parlia- upon the principle of political election scious of the borough’s reputation mentary borough, which, until feeling only … corruption has scandals for venality and was determined the Liberal victory of 1852, saw become so much a habit at Ber- that such notoriety should be laid its representation shared by the wick that I think no candidate resulted to rest along with the old electoral two major political parties, except could rely on success, if opposed, system. With this object in mind, during the 1830s, when first the unless he was prepared to spend in the it constantly urged the electorate Whigs and then the Conservatives something.3 to pursue a more honest course. were briefly dominant. appoint- For instance, on 15 September In 1817 the Reverend Thomas Indeed, it was a well-known fact ment of a 1832 it beseeched the electors: Johnstone, minister of the Low that electioneering at Berwick Meeting House, Berwick, wrote: was a costly business. Even the Royal Com- Will you permit the name of Berwick Advertiser acknowledged your native place to be obnox- It is not uncommon for the Bur- this when, in 1831, it declared, mission to ious to the very nostrils of gesses of Berwick to promise ‘The expensiveness of the elec- honest men? – Will you have it their vote to a favourite Mem- tion for this borough are suf- investigate written in corruption, and hack- ber of Parliament, several years ficiently known, to terrify any the alleged neyed round the land as a stand- before an election takes place; prudent person from engaging in ing and evil jest with Gatton and and, much to their honour, a contest for it.’4 Similarly, another venality of Grampound?8 they have seldom been known local newspaper, the Kelso Mail, to break this promise. Hence observed on the eve of the 1832 the elec- Such exhortations fell upon deaf the Borough is often canvassed, general election, ‘Unless a pretty ears, however, and the electors of and secured, long before a dis- considerable REFORM has tors of Berwick continued with their solution of Parliament, and the actually taken place, the purses of England’s venal practices. Consequently it Representative who is fortunate the honourable candidates may was reported that, in 1832, both enough to obtain the promise of undergo a fearful change.’5 Ber- most Whig and Tory candidates gave a vote, has no doubt of its being wick’s notoriety spread far beyond money to the electors, especially literally fulfilled.1 the locality. In January 1833 the northerly towards the close of the poll Weekly Despatch referred to the on the second day, when ‘large Unfortunately, this glowing town as ‘This once most corrupt parliamen- sums were asked and given for assessment of the political integ- and close Tory borough’.6 tary bor- votes’.9 Likewise, in 1835, Sir rity of the Berwick electorate was Not surprisingly, such attacks Rufane Shaw Donkin (Liberal) not one that was widely shared were deeply resented by the ough. spent ‘immense sums’, James

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 25 berwick-upon-tweed: a venal borough?

­Bradshaw (Tory) ‘pulled out’ a none of these produced an inves- (Before 1832 the electorate con- small amount, while Sir Francis tigation as thorough as that of the sisted exclusively of the freemen Blake (Liberal), who later had the Commissioners. of the borough – thereafter, it audacity to blame his defeat on The first successful petition included only those freemen bribery, was ‘cleaned out’.10 As a was in 1852 and it resulted in who lived within a seven-mile result of this high expenditure, no a void election after the Select radius of the borough, as well as candidate could be found to rep- Committee had determined that the ten-pound householders of resent the Conservative interest at John Stapleton (Liberal) was, by the town.) Another witness, Mr the by-election four months later, his agents, guilty of treating (i.e. Jeffrey, a solicitor from Jedburgh, although it was reported that entertaining the electors with who was sent to Berwick in 1859 William Holmes was prepared food and drink at the candidate’s to collect evidence in support of to stand provided he could be expense) and that Matthew For- the prosecutions initiated by the assured of ‘one hundred volunteer ster (Liberal) was, by his agents, Northern Reform Union against votes’ before the commencement guilty of bribery.14 The second some of the electors for bribery, of his canvass.k His failure to con- was in 1860 and it led to a recom- told the Commissioners that he test the seat suggests that such an mendation for a Royal Commis- had heard in the town itself that assurance was not forthcoming. sion to investigate the borough ‘an election never took place Rather than erase its tarnished after the Committee discovered without extensive bribery on image under the new electoral that bribery extensively prevailed both sides’. And Matthew Forster, system, Berwick’s notoriety seems at the by-election in August the Liberal member from 1841 to to have increased in the years 1859.15 The third was in 1863 Thomas 1852, stated that, although it was after 1832. Following the election and it culminated in the conclu- difficult to ascertain what number petition of 1852, which resulted sions that no case of bribery was Phinn, the of electors were bribable, his own in the election of that year being proved, and that it was not proved Liberal impression was that, while he sat declared void, Thomas Phinn, the that corrupt practices extensively for the borough, ‘two-thirds of Liberal member for Bath, said prevailed at the election.16 The member the freemen and some portion of in the Commons that it was the fourth successful petition was in the householders were corrupt’.20 opinion of people acquainted 1880 and it produced the ruling for Bath, This would mean that in 1852, for with elections in Berwick that ‘It that corrupt practices had not example, about 235 freemen were is of no use going down to Ber- prevailed on either side.17 said in the bribable. wick unless you are prepared to The 1861 Commission sat Commons Collating this evidence of gen- pay the freemen all round.’12 He daily in Berwick (except for an eral reputation with the fact that also said he believed that the cor- adjournment for one week) from that it was large amounts were spent by the ruption of Berwick was quite as 30 July to 1 September, and after- various candidates at the elections notorious as that of Sudbury and wards six times in London. Since the opinion of 1837, 1841 and 1852, and with St. Albans, two towns which had the Commissioners found no the fact that the two successful been disfranchised after a Royal suspicion of corruption attached of people candidates were unseated in 1852, Commission had found evidence to the 1853 election, they did not acquainted the Commissioners concluded of gross bribery and corruption.13 enter into the details of that or of that ‘we could feel no doubt that Indeed, seven years after Phinn’s any previous election. However, with elec- the parliamentary elections at damning pronouncement Ber- they did receive ‘general informa- Berwick down to the year 1853 wick itself became the subject of tion as to the previous political tions in were attended with very consid- a similar investigation. reputation of the borough’.18 Of erable corruption’.21 The aim of this article is to particular significance is the fact Berwick In contrast, the 1853 by-elec- consider two important questions. that the freemen were generally that ‘It is tion was characterised by its First, did Berwick deserve its rep- presented as ‘the most accessible integrity, although, as the Com- utation for venality? And, second, to the influence of bribery’.19 of no use missioners observed, ‘As that what effect, if any, did corruption Thomas Bogue, the mayor, for election followed immediately on have on voting behaviour in the instance, told the Commission- going down the avoidance for bribery of the borough? ers that before 1853 ‘bribery was return of the members elected Any attempt to answer the first reported to have extensively to Berwick in 1852, its purity has been rea- of these questions will inevita- prevailed, principally among the unless sonably attributed to the fear of bly rely heavily upon the report freemen’; while John Graham, a ulterior consequences induced by of the 1861 Royal Commission resident of Berwick for fourteen you are the recent exposure’.22 In other appointed to inquire into the years, said that ‘since he came to words, the election was pure only existence of bribery at the Ber- Berwick the opinion has always prepared because the electors were afraid wick elections of 1859. Although prevailed that the freemen will that another inquiry might lead there were four successful elec- not vote unless they are paid for to pay the to their disfranchisement. tion petitions between the Elec- their votes’, but he added to this freemen all However, the main task of the toral Reform Act of 1832 and his opinion ‘that the household- 1861 Royal Commission was to the Redistribution Act of 1885, ers are as bad as the freemen’. round’. investigate the elections of 1857

26 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 berwick-upon-tweed: a venal borough?

Table 1: Result of the general election at Berwick, 28 Edinburgh on the morning of a year at Berwick. However, this March 1857 the nomination. However, John was not the limit of his largesse. Renton Dunlop, the chairman He also retained William McGall John STAPLETON (Lib) 339 of his committee, and the Rever- as his agent, by a fee of £50, for Dudley Coutts MARJORIBANKS (Lib) 271 end George Hans Hamilton were the purpose of cultivating the Captain Charles William Gordon (Con) 269 more sanguine, and Gordon was Conservative interest in the bor- Matthew Forster (Lib) 250 persuaded to return to the bor- ough, and gave him money to dis- ough, where he was defeated by tribute among the poor. Gordon’s and 1859. In the event, it was an only two votes. The Liberals were motives were perfectly clear: investigation fraught with dif- certainly surprised by the unex- ficulty. As the Commissioners pected support he had received. I gave McGall the money with a observed in the introduction of Marjoribanks, for example, said sort of mixed object; one was, no their report: he thought that Gordon’s posi- doubt, to keep up my influence tion was due to the promises he in the place; it had also reference had made about what he would to the peculiar poverty of the In the investigation which we do for the town after the elec- place, which had struck me very were charged to conduct, the tion (Gordon had said that if he much. I instructed McGall not difficulty experienced by us in was elected he might give money to exclude voters; he was to give obtaining any reliable informa- for some public building for the money in all cases where there tion upon which to shape our benefit of the whole town).25 On was poverty; but then he was not inquiries soon gave ground for the other hand, Hamilton argued to exclude voters, because a great believing that nothing would be that the presence of three Liberal many of the voters were more disclosed which could be with- candidates, each trying to get as needy than many of the paupers. held. During the inquiry itself many single votes as possible, had I gave him a general discretionary the majority of the witnesses given Gordon a chance of success. power. He saw that it had refer- displayed a mental reservation After considering the testimony ence to the election, that I was through which it was difficult of all concerned, the Commis- charitably disposed, and that I to break; while not a few pre- sioners decided that ‘nothing was wished to help the people. There varicated and perjured them- adduced in evidence to warrant us were no details gone into.29 selves with the utmost hardened in concluding that Captain Gor- effrontery.23 don’s election was not, so far as he In all, McGall spent £540 in the The Commissioners attributed was personally concerned, legiti- advancement of Gordon’s object. 26 this pervasive dishonesty partly mately conducted’. However, it It was distributed by him ‘to some to an apprehension that a truthful was established that others, such hundreds of individuals, of whom disclosure would result in either as the erstwhile Conservative a large proportion were free- 30 personal or general disfranchise- member for Berwick, Richard men’. A further £100 was spent ment, and partly to ‘a perverted Hodgson, were especially active by McGall within a few days of notion of duty’ which made some in furthering the cause of the the poll. Indeed, according to of the witnesses reluctant to betray Conservative candidate ‘by treat- Johnson How Pattison, who was 27 those who had bribed them.24 ing electors in public houses’. It himself bribed, McGall paid sixty Yet, despite this general reti- is little wonder that Dunlop and or seventy voters from £1 to £3 cence on the part of the witnesses, Hamilton were more optimistic in his house, popularly known as the Commissioners were able to than Gordon about his election the ‘gull-hole’, the night before 31 paint a fairly comprehensive pic- prospects (see Table 1). the election. ture of the 1857 and 1859 elec- If Gordon had been a politi- So confident of a Conservative tions. In 1857, for instance, there cal novice in 1857, he certainly victory was Gordon that he invited had been some suspicion that the learned how to curry favour with R. A. Earle, Disraeli’s private secre- Conservative Charles Gordon’s the Berwick electors in time tary, to stand with him at Berwick position on the poll had been for his next foray into electoral in 1859. Gordon assured Earle that achieved by illegitimate means. As politics. Not only did he donate his election would be inexpen- a stranger who came to Berwick over £2,000 for the building of a sive, since he was certain to ben- only ten days before the election, church, but he made regular trips efit from Gordon’s popularity in he was not expected to do very to Berwick in 1858–59, visiting the borough. And indeed he did, 28 well. His canvass was not a favour- the sick and giving them money. coming second in the poll behind able one, and he confessed to one He also employed Hamilton Gordon. The Commissioners were of his opponents, the Liberal to dispense his charities. These in no doubt that Earle’s election D. C. Marjoribanks, that he had included the distribution of coals, owed much to ‘the potent mon- no more than a hundred pledges. the payment of occasional sums etary influences which had been Indeed, his chances of success to the poor and subscriptions to discreetly employed by McGall looked so slim that he retired to charitable societies. In all, Gordon for the promotion of the Con- had resolved to spend about £200 servative interest in the town’.32

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 27 berwick-upon-tweed: a venal borough?

Table 2: Result of the general election at Berwick, 30 April this did not prevent the Berwick ern Reform Union, Mathison 1859 Conservatives from mounting a describes the bribery and treating challenge at the August election. that occurred at Berwick between Captain Charles William GORDON (Con) 366 As in April, corruption played 1832 and 1859, drawing particular Ralph Anstruther EARLE (Con) 348 a prominent part in the contest. attention to the ‘Capital election’ Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks (Lib) 330 The Commissioners reported of 1852 and the ‘bribery election’ John Stapleton (Lib) 257 that bribery was committed on of 1859.38 According to Mathison, both sides by individual support- after the 1859 election he heard ers of the two candidates, but that ‘a Gentleman who did “business” Table 3: Result of the by-election at Berwick, 20 August they were unable to determine for the Whigs at many elections’ 1859 the exact extent to which it was say that there ‘are two hundred Dudley Coutts MARJORIBANKS (Lib) 305 carried on. They entirely absolved voters who will not poll without Marjoribanks from the suspicion money’. Mathison told Reed that Richard Hodgson (Con) 304 that he either directly or indirectly he believed this to be true.39 supplied money for the purpose If this evaluation of the cor- ­Gordon himself concurred with of corruptly influencing the con- ruptibility of the Berwick elec- this view, although he was inclined stituency. Although they failed torate is accurate, it would mean to believe that other factors played to discover the existence of any that of the 703 electors who were a part: organisation for the purpose of entitled to vote in 1859, just over bribery on the Liberal side, they 28 per cent of them were bribed It is only natural to suppose that did find that on polling day three to do so. On the other hand, if the money distributed through individuals were ‘actively engaged Forster’s estimate of the number McGall had a considerable influ- in endeavouring to promote Mr. of corrupt electors is taken into ence in securing the election, Marjoribanks’ election by cor- consideration, the figure rises to although I believe that people rupt payments and offers’.34 Yet above 35 per cent. Either way, voted according to their predi- this was nothing compared to the this is bribery on a large scale. It lections, and on other grounds bribery practised by the Conserv- would place Berwick on a par as well.33 atives, which the Commissioners with boroughs like Yarmouth, described as ‘more systematic, where 33 per cent of the elec- This may well have been the case. and almost wholly performed by tors were proved to have given However, the return of two Con- the agency of William McGall’.35 or received bribes,40 and Beverley, servatives in 1859 was very much McGall had been very active on where 37 per cent of the elector- against expectations. Since their polling day, visiting the ‘George’ ate were open to bribery;41 but landslide victories in 1852 and 1853 and the ‘Woolpack’ public houses, behind the most venal boroughs the Liberals had dominated Ber- where he had bribed a number of the period, such as Reigate, wick politics; and although there of electors to vote for Hodgson where the proportion of the elec- was always enough Conservative with money which was believed torate affected by bribery was support in the borough to allow to have been provided by Hodg- nearly 50 per cent,42 St. Albans, for the possibility of returning one son for that express purpose (see where almost 64 per cent of the Conservative candidate, the likeli- Table 3).36 electors habitually took money,43 hood of achieving a double vic- In their report the Commis- Lancaster and Totnes, where cor- tory by legitimate means was fairly sioners named four individuals, ruption involved about 66 per remote. It certainly did not happen including Gordon and McGall, cent of the electorate,44 and the again, although Richard Hodgson who were guilty of bribery in incorrigible Bridgwater, where only narrowly failed to become April 1859 by corruptly giving or 75 per cent of the constituency Berwick’s second Conservative promising money for votes; and were ‘hopelessly addicted’ to giv- member at the 1859 by-election. fifteen who were guilty of brib- ing or receiving bribes.45 Since all However, this election too was far ery by receiving money for their of these boroughs were disfran- from pure (see Table 2). votes. In addition, they named chised for corruption, Berwick The 1859 by-election was twelve individuals, including can count itself lucky to have brought about by the resigna- Hodgson and McGall, who were escaped a similar fate. tion of the Conservative member guilty of bribery in August 1859 With such a high propor- R. A. Earle. A compromise had by giving or promising money for tion of the electorate susceptible been reached between Marjorib- votes; and twelve who were guilty to bribery, it would be easy to anks, Gordon and Earle, whereby of bribery by receiving money.37 assume that the outcome of an the latter would retire following The damning conclusions of election would be determined the withdrawal of Marjoribanks’ the 1861 Royal Commission are by the amount of money that petition against the two Con- supported by Robert Mathison’s found its way into the pockets servative members; in return, account of corruption in the of the voters. However, there is ­Marjoribanks would be allowed borough. In a letter to Richard compelling evidence to suggest to stand unopposed. However, Reed, the secretary of the North- that this was not the case. In his

28 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 berwick-upon-tweed: a venal borough? study of electoral politics in mid- not only in the north east, but in – sold again to the Tories and thus nineteenth century Lancashire, other large towns as well’.50 Not- did him in two ways at once’.53 M. A. Manai has shown that poll- withstanding all the evidence of Similarly, in 1865 it was said that book evidence casts doubt on the extensive bribery and treating many of those electors who were alleged importance of corruption unearthed by Election Com- charged in Alexander Mitch- on the outcome of elections. By mittees and Royal Commissions, ell’s (Liberal) petition with hav- tracing a number of voters over Nossiter warns that, ‘it would ing received bribes in 1863 had a period of time, he discovered be perhaps unwise to assume broken their pledges to William that they did not change their that a voter necessarily accepted Cargill (Conservative) and voted political allegiances and were not money from a party he would for Mitchell.54 If such claims are swayed by money. Other factors, not have supported anyway’.51 true, the number of voters who such as occupation, age, location Such a cautious approach to sold out to the highest bidder and religion, were much more the relationship between money must have been small. This is significant determinants of vot- and voting behaviour would confirmed by the author’s own ing behaviour than money. ‘Brib- appear to be justified by evidence investigation of voting consist- ery’, argues Manai, ‘may have from this investigation. Using ency at Berwick elections during confirmed rather than changed the reports of the 1852 Election the period 1832–72.55 It is further political views.’46 Committee and the 1861 Royal supported by Manai’s analysis of Other historians have also Commission in conjunction with individual voting behaviour at questioned the importance of existing poll books (which record Lancaster, which suggests that bribery in determining election the way electors voted), it was ‘the majority of voters remained results. For instance, in his analysis possible to trace the voting behav- loyal to specific parties rather of 3,716 electors during four Col- iour over a series of elections of than changing their political alle- chester elections, Andrew Phillips the twenty-eight voters who took giances in line with whichever found that their voting behaviour bribes at the general elections of party offered them monetary appeared consistent and parti- 1852 and 1859 and at the by-elec- incentives’.56 san.47 He concludes, ‘If Colchester tion of 1859. As all of these voters Taking into consideration the voters were venal, they were con- are known to have been corrupt- poll-book evidence of Berwick sistently so: only 1% of four-time ible, they are amongst those most and of other constituencies, it is voters switched party twice.’48 likely to have allowed their vot- difficult not to concur with John Likewise, J. R. Vincent has shown ing behaviour to be influenced by Phillips’ conclusion that: that in constituencies throughout money. Yet an analysis of their vot- the country there was a strong ing record, which in some cases Nossiter The survival of bribery and other correlation between occupation spans as many as eight elections, undue influences notwithstand- and political affiliation, suggest- produces an overall impression, warns that, ing, most electors after 1832 ing that corruption had a limited not of a group of electors who chose to give their support to impact upon voting behaviour. As were constantly changing their ‘it would one of the parliamentary parties he observes: political allegiance, but rather of be perhaps … Moreover, once an elector had a group which was consistently chosen a party and cast his votes … though the relative will and loyal to one particular party. Such unwise to for it, he was likely to continue to power of each party to buy a picture of partisan voting would support that party for the rest of votes varied enormously from appear to confirm Manai’s asser- assume his parliamentary voting career. election to election and from tion that money confirmed rather If bribery was an active force at candidate, the patterns of occu- than determined the voting pref- that a these elections, it seems to have pational preference remain rela- erences of those who took bribes voter nec- been notably ineffectual.57 tively stable from year to year at elections. and from one place to another. Of course, there were always essarily Croesus fought many elections, electors to whom this rule did not Michael Wickham is a Lecturer in but he never made shoemakers apply. At Beverley, for instance, it accepted History at North Tyneside College. into good Tories, or butchers was reported that out of the 1,000 into good Liberals.49 voters who were open to brib- money 1 Rev. T. Johnstone, The History of Ber- ery in 1868, a good third (over 12 wick-upon-Tweed (Berwick, 1817), pp. from a 149–50. This view is endorsed by per cent of the electorate) were 2 Quoted in F. Askham, The Gay Delav- T. J. Nossiter, who, in his study of known as ‘rolling stock’. In other party he als (London, 1955), p. 124. voting behaviour in the north- words, an adequate bribe would 3 J. Lambert to 3rd Earl Grey, 13 May east of England, points out that, make them roll to the other would not 1832, 3rd Earl Grey MSS., Box 113, even if the case is not conclu- side.52 No doubt most constitu- file2 . have sup- 4 Berwick Advertiser, 7 May 1831, p. 4. sive, ‘there are good grounds for encies had their share of these 5 Quoted in the Berwick Advertiser, 15 believing opinion to have had voters. It was alleged that Donkin ported any- September 1832, p. 4. a continuous relationship to lost at Berwick in 1837, ‘because 6 Weekly Despatch, 5 January 1833, ­occupation from 1832 onwards, the men who took his money way’. quoted in the Berwick Advertiser, 12

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 29 berwick-upon-tweed: a venal borough?

January 1833, p. 4. 52 O’Leary, The Elimination of Corrupt and Electoral Behaviour in the Mid 7 Berwick Advertiser, 12 January 1833, p. Practices, p. 52. Nineteenth Century’, p. 161. 4. 53 Mathison to Reed, 29 September 57 John A. Phillips, ‘Unintended Conse- 8 Berwick Advertiser, 15 September 1832, 1859, MSS. Account Berwick Elec- quences: Parliamentary Blueprints in p. 4. See also, for example, the Berwick tions, 1832–59. the Hands of Provincial Builders’, p. Advertiser, 28 July 1832, p. 4. 54 Berwick Warder, 14 July 1865, p. 4. 97. 9 Mathison to Reed, 29 September 55 M. J. Wickham, ‘Electoral Politics in 1859, MSS. Account Berwick Elec- Berwick-Upon-Tweed, 1832–1885’, tions, 1832–59, Cowen Papers, C763 pp. 116–120. and C764. 56 M. A. Manai, ‘Influence, Corruption 10 Ibid. 11 Berwick Advertiser, 25 April 1835, p. 2. 12 Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, Vol. CXXVI, 1853, 1129. 13 Ibid., 1126. Bibliography 14 Power, Rodwell and Dew, Reports of the Decisions of Committees of the House of Commons, Vol. 2, p. 217. Primary Sources 15 Wolferstan and Bristowe, Reports of Cowen Papers the Decisions of Election Committees, p. 185. 3rd Earl Grey MSS 16 Ibid., p. 233. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series 17 Bean, Parliamentary Representation, p. 63. Parliamentary Papers 1861 (2766), xvii, Berwick Bribery, Royal Commission 18 P. P. 1861 (2766), xvii, Berwick Bribery, Royal Commission, p. v. Berwick Advertiser 19 Ibid., p. vi. Berwick Warder 20 Ibid., p. vi. 21 Ibid., p. vii. Weekly Despatch 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., p. v. 24 Ibid. Secondary Sources (published) 25 Ibid., p. vii. Askham, F. The Gay Delavals (London: J. Cape, 1955) 26 Ibid., p. vii. 27 Ibid., pp. viii–ix. Bean, W. W. The Parliamentary Representation of the Six Northern Counties of England … from 1603 28 Ibid. to … 1866 (Hull: The Author, 1890) 29 Ibid., p. ix. 30 Ibid., p. x. Gwyn, W. B. Democracy and the Cost of Politics in Britain (London: University of London: The Athlone 31 Ibid., p. xi. Press, 1962) 32 Ibid., p. xii. Johnstone, Rev. T. The History of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and Its Vicinity (Berwick: H. Richardson, 1817) 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., p. xiv. Nossiter, T. J. ‘Aspects of Electoral Behavior in English Constituencies, 1832–1868’, in E. Allardt and 35 Ibid., p. xv. S. Rokkan (eds.), Mass Politics: Studies in Political Sociology (London: Collier-Macmillan; New York: 36 Ibid., pp. xv–xvii and xvii. Free Press, 1970), pp. 160–189 37 Ibid., p. xxii. 38 Mathison to Reed, 29 September Nossiter, T. J. Influence, Opinion and Political Idioms in Reformed England: Case Studies from the 1859, MSS. Account Berwick Elec- North East, 1832–74 (Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1975) tions, 1832–59. O’Leary, C. The Elimination of Corrupt Practices in British Elections 1868–1911 (Oxford: Clarendon 39 Ibid. Press, 1962) 40 C. O’Leary, The Elimination of Corrupt Practices, p. 29. Phillips, A. ‘Four Colchester Elections: Voting Behaviour in a Victorian Market Town’, in K. Neale (ed.), 41 Ibid., p. 52. An Essex Tribute (London: Leopard’s Head, 1987), pp. 199–227 42 Ibid., p. 29. Phillips, John A. ‘Unintended Consequences: Parliamentary Blueprints in the Hands of Provincial 43 W. B. Gwyn, Democracy and the Cost of Builders’, in Parliamentary History, 17 (1998) Part I. Politics in Britain, p. 65. 44 O’Leary, The Elimination of Corrupt Power, Rodwell and Dew, Reports of the Decisions of Committees of the House of Commons in the Practices, pp. 29–30. Trial of Controverted Elections During the Sixteenth Parliament of the United Kingdom, Vol. 2 45 Ibid., p. 53. 46 M. A. Manai, ‘Electoral Politics in Seymour, C. Electoral Reform in England and Wales: The Development and Operation of the Mid-Nineteenth Century Lanca- Parliamentary Franchise 1832–1885 (reprinted Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1970) shire’, p. 190. Vincent, J. R. Pollbooks: How Victorians Voted (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967) 47 A. Phillips, ‘Four Colchester Elec- tions: Voting Behaviour in a Victorian Wolferstan and Bristowe, Reports of the Decisions of Election Committees During the Eighteenth Market Town’, p. 205. Parliament of the United Kingdom (London, 1865). 48 Ibid., p. 206. 49 J. R. Vincent, Pollbooks: How Victorians Voted, p. 11. Secondary Sources (unpublished) 50 T. J. Nossiter, Influence, Opinion and Political Idioms in Reformed England, p. Manai, M. A. ‘Electoral Politics in Mid-Nineteenth Century Lancashire’, (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, 170. Lancaster, 1991) 51 T. J. Nossiter, ‘Aspects of Electoral Wickham, M. J. ‘Electoral Politics in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, 1832–1885’ (Unpublished M.Phil. Thesis, Behavior in English Constituencies, Durham, 2002) 1832–1868’, p. 161.

30 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 He was an assiduous writer of letters to the papers. When Conrad Russell Tony Blair claimed he never gave Memorial service, 14 June 2005 money to beggars, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph Conrad sug- Address by Sally Hamwee gested that:

n February 2002 an amend- It was his intellectual integrity He should remember that need ment was tabled to delete that meant that he respected – may happen to anyone. Belisarius the term ‘etc’ from the State and said so – people with whose in his day was the best general in Pension Credit Bill by peers views he may have profoundly the Roman Empire, but ended who just wanted to know disagreed, if those views were up at the gates of Rome chanting Iwhat on earth it meant in the coherent. Though, for instance, ‘Give a ha’penny to Belisarius’. context. Conrad Russell contrib- he took such a different view of If, after Mr Blair has reformed uted to the discussion: the notorious Section 28 from the welfare state and gone out Janet Young, he quite clearly held of office at the moment his pen- My Lords, if I were to be given her personally in high regard. But sion fund goes broke, I find him one of those word-association then, as he once muttered to me at King’s Cross chanting ‘Give a tests and offered the word ‘etc’, I on the bench during an exchange tenner to Tony’, I will give it to do not believe that the first word on zero tolerance, ‘One should him, even if my gorge rises at it. that would come back would be have zero tolerance only of zero precision. On one famous occa- tolerance itself’. He was not one for small talk, sion in 1640 the Convocation of That love of liberty drove him, and as for recreations he listed Canterbury required people to and his love of language enabled ‘uxoriousness’ in Who’s Who. His take an oath to the government him to express it. He spoke in speeches were full of mentions of the Church, by archbishops, beautifully honed paragraphs, of Elizabeth, always to make a bishops, deans, ‘etc’. Many people both in private and in public wider point. believed, or affected to believe, – from sparse notes, just a few He may have looked the cari- that ‘etc’ meant the Pope. lines in capitals, some of them cature of a scatty academic, with One London preacher main- very deliberately in red (I never his hair standing to attention (or tained that ‘etc’ was the curled worked out the colour code), in sometimes less disciplined) and lock of the Antichrist. I do not an exercise book to which he his portable filing system of Wait- need to express agreement with rarely referred once he was on rose carrier bags, but he loved that preacher to say that the his feet. When names for his new That love nothing more than a good gossip, Government might be wise to granddaughter were being con- of liberty and better still a good plot. Many chose a word a little more pre- sidered he said ‘Liberty would be of us will have had late-night cisely defined. a good name, but you can’t say to drove him, phone calls (we knew never ever a three year old: “Liberty, don’t to call him early in the morning) Anyone who worked with Con- do that”.’ and his which began ‘Conrad here’. rad would not be surprised at that Along with liberty, his values The party loved him and he example: a historical reference, were justice and liberalism rooted love of lan- loved the party. During a late often preceded by ‘It reminds me firmly in the belief that power night, when the Liberal Demo- of …’ – the seventeenth century of all sorts should be dispersed guage ena- crats were voting alone – one of as vivid to him as the twentieth and accountable. He wrote: ‘As bled him to our principled futile gestures on – and the assumption that all the far back as I can remember, I an issue of liberalism – we went rest of us knew exactly what he assumed the purpose of politics express it. through the lobby singing tradi- was talking about. I have to say was to fight injustice, poverty and tional songs; Conrad’s refrain was that, sitting alongside him in the oppression; what else could be He spoke ‘Lloyd George jailed my father’. Lords, I realised that ministers worth all that sweat?’ It was entirely consistent that opposite were often bemused, but And in doggedly pursuing in in beauti- he gave huge support personally some were better at disguising it. Parliament the causes of student fully honed to individuals. He supported his Conrad paid all of us the com- poverty and the treatment of asy- students, in his teaching and pas- pliment of assuming we were his lum seekers, he pioneered ways of para- torally. He encouraged individuals intellectual equals, and I never drawing attention to unimpor- within the party – his foreword knew whether I fooled him – my tant-looking regulations which graphs, to his book An Intelligent Per- laughter often had to take its cue were likely to have a devastating son’s Guide to Liberalism thanked, from his own. An intellectual aris- effect on the lives of vulnerable both in pri- ‘for reactions at party functions tocrat he may have been, but his people, without flouting the con- vate and in which have been constructive, respect for other people was not ventions which govern the Lords’ informative and helpful’, a list dependent on their attainment. relationship with the Commons. public. concluded on page 52

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 31 Jaime Reynolds examines the life of the Liberal Member of Parliament for Bermondsey 1923–24 and Ashford 1929–31, and a leader in the ‘The Fighting Parson’ ‘tithe war’ of the 1930s: Reverend Roderick Kedward (1881–1937).

32 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 ‘The Fighting Parson’

n December 2002 Simon in which Liberals played a promi- refused to do so until the Home Hughes unveiled a plaque nent part. Office had issued a warrant at Bermondsey Under- Roderick Morris Kedward ordering his release and declaring ground Station in tribute was born at Beachbrook Farm, him innocent of any offence. He to Dr Alfred Salter, a much- Westwell in Kent, a stone’s throw became a minister in 1903 after Irespected radical Member of Par- from the present-day Eurostar training at Richmond College liament and tireless campaigner station at Ashford, on 14 Septem- and served at Lydd, Kent, for four for health and social improve- ber 1881, one of fourteen chil- years while continuing to tour ment in the borough in the early dren of William Wesley Kedward the country, recruiting converts to decades of the twentieth century. and Eliza (née Morris), originally Methodism under the auspices of Less remembered is Salter’s chief from Herefordshire, who moved the Connexional Home Mission political adversary in the early to Kent in the 1870s and con- Committee. These were years of 1920s, the man who defeated tinued farming there. The family revival in the Methodist church, him at the general election of farm of 129 acres seems to have fuelled in part by the noncon- 1923: the Reverend Roderick provided a good living, sufficient formist opposition to the 1902 Kedward. Yet Kedward also dedi- to have the children privately Education Act and the revival of cated his life to combating social educated. This was a heavily agri- the movement in Wales.3 deprivation in south London and cultural area, one of the best hop- Kedward married Daisy Annie was a hugely popular local figure, growing areas in the country. Fedrick in 1906. They had three whose funeral cortege through The Church of England and sons and three daughters. In the the streets of Bermondsey in the Tory party dominated the 1920s messages to the voters from 1937 was attended by a crowd of rural areas, but in the Wealden Daisy Kedward featured promi- thousands. And while Salter was a parishes nonconformity and Lib- nently in her husband’s election left-wing socialist, Kedward was a eralism were strong.1 The Ked- literature. Liberal, the last to be elected in wards were firm Methodists and In 1908 Kedward was this area until Simon Hughes’s Liberals and four of their sons appointed as minister of three victory in 1983. were to become Wesleyan minis- Wesleyan congregations in the Kedward’s achievements in ters. Roderick became a Sunday- slum area of Sculcoates in Hull, a Bermondsey are not the only rea- school teacher and local preacher Methodist stronghold. It was there son for remembering his contri- while still in his teens, and spent that he gained the title of ‘the bution to Liberal history. He was some time at the Mission Home Fighting Parson’, after beating off a charismatic and colourful fig- in Rochdale, a headquarters of a drunken, wife-battering docker. ure who typified two important the Methodist evangelist move- It was said that ‘ever afterwards strands of the inter-war Liberal ment led by Thomas Champness.2 Mr Kedward was treated with cause: urban social Liberalism, Kedward himself soon became a the greatest respect in that part and rural nonconformist pro- travelling evangelist. He caused a of the city’. His ‘muscular Chris- test. In 1929 in Ashford, Kent, he furore when, after refusing to stop tianity’ also extended, it seems, pulled off one of the most stun- preaching illegally on a village to intervening to prevent bailiffs ning wins scored by a Liberal at green, he was briefly imprisoned evicting his parishioners. One any general election. During the Picture: Kedward in Worcester gaol, charged with of Kedward’s main tasks in Hull 1930s he was the leading figure (holding placard) obstruction and refusal to pay a was to whip up support for the and his daughter in the rural revolt against pay- at a tithe protest fine. After protests by the local construction of a new Methodist ment of tithes, a campaign of civil at Beechbrooke Methodists the governor asked Central Hall. This was opened as disobedience and demonstrations Farm, 1935. him to leave voluntarily, but he the King’s Hall in October 1910,

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 33 ‘the fighting parson’ with a weekly congregation of Kedward was transferred back to the West- that justified Methodists taking some two thousand people, and ern Front where it suffered hor- up social concerns on theological one of the largest Sunday schools continued rendous casualties in the assault grounds and, as an active Liberal, in the country. The establishment on Serre at the start of the Battle also served as an alderman on of such ‘Central Halls’ in urban this tradi- of the Somme in July 1916.6 Ked- Bermondsey Borough Council centres, acting as a focus for both ward’s health broke down soon and from 1905 to 1928 as a mem- religious and social welfare activ- tion of afterwards, doubtless aggravated ber and alderman of the London ity, formed a key element in the Methodist by the horrors of war that he later County Council, where he led attempts by the Methodists to admitted to having experienced. the Progressive group from 1918 reverse the decline in their sup- social and He spent three months in a field to 1928.9 port that started before the First hospital before being invalided Kedward continued this tra- World War. Liberal out of the army in October 1916 dition of Methodist social and Kedward involved himself in with trench fever. He remained a Liberal political activism after local government in Hull as a political highly popular personality with succeeding Lidgett as superin- member of the Board of Guardi- activism the troops and served as president tendent of the Mission at the end ans, where he campaigned against of the ex-Soldiers and ex-Sailors of the First World War. He was a the practice of forcing vagrants after suc- Federation for three years after member of Bermondsey Borough to work at stone-breaking when the war. His empathy with the Council from 1920–25, serving as they were given shelter in local ceeding trials of the front-line soldiers was Chairman of the Finance Com- Poor Law shelters. To expose this evident in his later attacks on the mittee, and also sat on the Board scandal, Kedward disguised him- Lidgett as Labour government for failing of Guardians. self as a tramp and spent a day in superin- to live up to its promises to abol- Bermondsey was one of the the workhouse, returning later ish the death penalty and intro- poorest and most deprived bor- to show his bruised and blistered tendent of duce appeals for court-martialled oughs in London, with large hands, and shame the authori- ‘deserters’.7 stretches of old and dilapidated ties into ceasing the practice.4 the Mission Kedward’s first attempt to Victorian cottages and ill-lit and According to his later election enter Parliament, as Liberal can- unsanitary tenements. It con- propaganda, he was also twice at the end didate for Hull Central in the tained some of the worst over- selected to represent the ‘artisans’ of the First ‘coupon’ election of December crowding and highest mortality of Hull in industrial disputes. 1918, was a failure. He lost to a rates in the capital. It was over- Despite his Protestantism, World War. couponed Conservative by a mile whelmingly working class, with Kedward was a vociferous advo- in a seat that the Liberals were an estimated middle-class popula- cate of Irish Home Rule. On one to capture at a by-election a few tion of only 2.4 per cent and not occasion, when due to speak for months later and hold into the a single middle-class street in the the cause in Londonderry, the early 1920s.8 entire borough. The main sources house where he was staying was By that time Kedward had of employment were the Surrey attacked by an ‘Orange mob’ who taken up the post of minister at Docks, Thames riverside work broke several windows. Never- the South London Methodist of various kinds, the centuries- theless Kedward went ahead with Mission based at the Bermond- old tanning and leather-dressing the meeting where, according to sey Central Hall on Tower Bridge industry, street trading, and, for his later election propaganda, ‘his Road. The South London Mis- women, domestic service, char- invincible courage quelled even sion had been founded in 1889 to ring and making clothes. Health the most violent of his antago- propagate Wesleyan Methodism problems, alcoholism (only nists and there, right in the heart in the slums of Bermondsey and Shoreditch had a higher number of Orangedom, he delivered a the surrounding areas of South- of pubs per capita) and extreme powerful speech in support of wark and Camberwell. In 1900 poverty were rife.10 Irish freedom’.5 a vast Central Hall was opened In the 1920s and even into the He became a popular figure in with room for congregations of 1930s, the political battle in such Hull and soon after the outbreak two thousand worshippers. It also deprived areas of south and east of the First World War the soldiers served as a welfare, cultural and London was generally between of the East Yorkshire Regiment educational centre for the dis- the ascendant, and locally usually petitioned the War Office for trict. The superintendent from leftist, Labour Party and socially Kedward to become the chaplain 1909 to 1918 was Reverend Dr progressive Liberals, often with sig- of one of the Hull ‘Pals’ battalions John Scott Lidgett (1854–1953), nificant nonconformist or some- formed in 1914 and attached to regarded by some as the greatest times Jewish backing.11 Before the the 31st Division in June 1915. Methodist preacher since Wesley, First World War Bermondsey had This unusual request was granted. who went on to serve as the first mostly been a solidly Liberal seat In December 1915 he was sta- president of the unified Meth- with only occasional Tory victo- tioned with the division in Egypt odist Conference in 1932. Scott ries. The new Bermondsey West where it was defending the Suez Lidgett was an exponent of the seat was a rare Asquithian Lib- Canal. In March 1916 the division Methodist Forward movement eral victory in the 1918 general

34 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 ‘the fighting parson’

­election when the sitting MP, H. J. essentially endeavouring to put Glanville, held the seat comfort- these principles into practice …’ ably against a Lloyd George Coali- tion Liberal and Dr Alfred Salter, Compared with this, the Rever- the Labour candidate.12 Glanville end Kedward’s appeals to religion retired in 1922 and Kedward was were moderate.13 selected as Liberal candidate in his In 1922 Salter more than tre- place. This was the first of three bled the Labour vote to win the tough contests between Kedward seat against a divided opposi- and Salter. tion. Kedward, standing as an The saintly Salter was a formi- Asquithian Liberal against a dable opponent. A prize-winning Lloyd Georgeite, gathered up the medical student, he had dedicated majority of the Liberal vote, and himself to practice in the Ber- an unofficial Conservative came mondsey slums where, after serv- in fourth.14 ing as a Progressive (Liberal) on Salter’s victory prompted the LCC and Bermondsey Bor- the anti-Labour forces to unite ough Council, he helped form behind Kedward for the 1923 the Bermondsey Independent general election. As a Liberal– Labour Party in 1908 and stood as Labour straight fight the issue of an ILP candidate in a parliamen- free trade versus protection that tary by-election in 1909. He was dominated the election elsewhere a Quaker, pacifist, republican and was less of a litmus test in Ber- prohibitionist. During the First mondsey West. Kedward stood World War he had been a con- for free trade, but declared that scientious objector. His wife Ada it was ‘not enough in itself’, and was also a Labour pioneer, serving called for a constructive social as Mayor of Bermondsey in 1922, programme of housing and infra- the first woman Labour mayor in structure investment, training and the country. education, extension of health Salter’s appeal to the voters and unemployment insurance and captured well the millenarian wider old-age pensions. Salter’s vision of the Labour Party’s radi- attitude to the tariff issue was: ‘We calism in the 1920s. He declared know how bad things are today that ‘frankly I am in politics to under Free Trade. Under Protec- abolish the existing system’. The tion they would be worse.’ Labour Party’s aim was to win a It was a rowdy campaign. The parliamentary majority ‘so that Liberals put out a leaflet claim- peacefully, constitutionally and ing that two of their meetings in the orderly British fashion we had been broken up by Labour may effect the transition from supporters. Labour retorted with the tottering, crumbling, worn- leaflets accusing the Liberals of out capitalist state to a juster and lying and Kedward of ‘whining better Social Order’. He was and snivelling about interrup- not backward in identifying the tions’.15 Despite a small further Labour Party with God’s work: increase in the Labour vote, Ked- ward won the seat for the Liber- I derive my politics from my reli- als.16 The Salter camp attributed gion. I believe that Jesus Christ their defeat to personal attacks came here to tell men … how and the ‘Turkey vote’: during the Kingdom of Heaven might the campaign the South London be established on earth. Jesus Mission had distributed 3,628 Christ … taught us certain prin- Christmas turkeys ‘with Mr Ked- ciples, which if applied to our ward’s compliments’, compared personal, social and collective with only half that number the 17 life, will make a new world, and previous December. Roderick will redeem mankind from the In the 1924 Parliament Ked- Kedward, ‘The present hell which the ignorance, ward spoke a few times, mainly Fighting Parson’; scenes from folly and wickedness of states- on constituency and ex-service- the Tithe War men and peoples have created. I men issues, and he also seems to protests; Kedward believe that the Labour Party is have taken a firm Gladstonian line election logo.

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 35 ‘the fighting parson’ on sound public finance. He was ­organisations, amenity groups cause he energetically took up. It one of thirteen Liberal rebels to or pressure groups outside the was to become the focus of the vote with Conservatives in pro- Labour Party.’22 The independent latter years of his political career. test at the Labour government’s Liberal cause was extinguished The ancient but declining decision to cancel the order pre- to revive only in the 1980s when practice of collecting tithes in venting George Lansbury’s Poplar Simon Hughes won his famous the form of a proportion of crops Board of Guardians from exceed- by-election victory.23 harvested was converted by the ing the cap on outdoor relief.18 Kedward evidently under- Tithe Act of 1836 into fixed cash The pact with the Tories and stood that West Bermondsey was payments that were effectively a loud anti-communist propaganda unlikely to return him to West- tax on land rather than produce. directed against the Labour Party minster after 1924. Perhaps he felt The revenues went mainly to the were not enough to save Kedward too, after his bruising fights with Church of England to pay for in the Liberal debacle at the 1924 Salter, that to continue high- the upkeep of the rural clergy, general election. Salter won back profile political activity would although some went to secular the seat with a swing of nearly 10 compromise his religious and recipients such as certain Oxford per cent as the Labour vote surged social work in the borough. He colleges. The burden of tithes was by over 3,000, drawing in both transferred his political attention unevenly distributed, with some new and ex-Liberal voters.19 The to his home town of Ashford in land free of tithes, and land tradi- assault on Labour over the Rus- Kent. On the face of it this was tionally used to grow corn or hops sian loan and the Zinoviev letter even less promising territory for a subject to higher rates. The tithe appeared to have had little impact, Liberal. Ashford had been solidly was naturally a bone of conten- perhaps because of the lack of Tory since the constituency was tion with nonconformist farmers, middle-class voters in the con- formed in 1885 and had stayed whose grievance was taken up by stituency. The Liberals put out a Conservative even in the Lib- the Liberal Party. In the 1880s a leaflet blaming their defeat on the eral landslide of 1906. The Lib- ‘tithe war’ in Wales had helped to wealth of the Labour machine, its erals had not contested the seat bring the young Lloyd George to continuous ‘Socialistic propaganda’ between 1910 and 1924, when prominence and fuelled the calls and its control of the local council their candidate came in a distant for the disestablishment of the and relief committees and claimed runner-up with 22 per cent of Welsh Church that were finally that Kedward had been subjected the votes, 38 per cent behind the enacted in 1919. to false allegations, personal abuse Conservative.24 The conflict subsided between and intimidation.20 Nevertheless, Kedward won 1891, when landlords were made It was true that the local the seat at in 1929 in perhaps the liable for the payment of the tithe, Labour organisation was crush- biggest upset of that general elec- and 1920–21, when farmers again ing the Liberals. By 1925 Labour tion with a swing of over 20 per became liable at the same time had established the monopoly of cent.25 None of the other Kent as wartime production subsidies power in Bermondsey that was to seats showed anything like this were removed and the agricul- last for over fifty years.21 The 1929 Liberal surge. Doubtless Ked- tural depression of the inter-war election confirmed Bermondsey ward’s local connections, popu- period began. Many small farm- West as a safe Labour seat with Kedward larity and campaigning flair were ers who had bought farms in the over 60 per cent of the vote, while important factors in his victory. short-lived boom after 1918 not the Liberals fell back to just over won the His granddaughter recalled that only now faced collapsing food 20 per cent, a little ahead of the ‘as a child attending worship and land prices but also, to their Conservatives. Salter managed to seat at in in the various country chapels, surprise, found themselves liable hold his seat in the Labour col- 1929 in my grandfather’s reputation was to pay tithes. The penalty for non- lapse of 1931 (one of only five such, that I basked in a kind of payment was distraint of goods, in London Labour MPs to do so) perhaps warm glow every time our con- other words the seizure and auc- and remained an MP until his nection was mentioned! People tion of crops or farm animals. The death in 1945. By the late 1930s the biggest genuinely loved him.’26 His Ber- burden of the tithe was felt par- Labour had some 3,150 mem- mondsey election battles, during ticularly in south-east England, bers in West Bermondsey – 25 upset of which he produced a range of and especially in the corn- and per cent of their voters. Between that gen- leaflets and letters to the voters, a hop-growing areas of Kent and 1945 and 1964 Bermondsey was very professional local newssheet East Anglia. a virtual ‘one-party state’. As one eral elec- and eye-catching publicity mate- From the mid 1920s a move- pro-Labour observer later wrote: rial, showed him as being every ment of protest and passive resist- ‘with the exception of the Com- tion with bit as effective as modern Lib- ance to the tithe gathered strength, munist Party, and the short-lived eral ‘community politicians’. He led by the National Tithe-payers and unstable tenants’ associations a swing of also benefited from the fact that Association (NTA). Although organised in private tenements, over 20 per Ashford was one of the hotbeds non-party and non-sectarian, the there were no other com- of the growing protest movement NTA attracted significant support munity organisations, tenants’ cent. against the payment of tithes, a from nonconformist Liberals. In

36 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 ‘the fighting parson’ the 1920s the Liberals remained war’ puts it, ‘during the years 1931 Kedward what always happens in a panic. a force in many rural areas and to 1935 the tithepayers’ mood People everywhere are frightened at the 1923 election, and to a generally was one of angry defi- threw him- and are calling for dictatorships.33 lesser extent in 1929, were the ance against the Church such as main beneficiary of the protest had not been witnessed in rural self single- However it was clear that the vote in the countryside. Kedward Britain for a very long time’.30 anti-tithe cause was only a lim- became the leading spokesman Kedward’s flair for publicity was mindedly ited vote-winner for the Liberals, for the NTA in Parliament, and evident in the NTA’s passive into the even with Kedward as candidate. in 1931 unsuccessfully attempted obstruction of distraint raids on This was largely because of its to introduce a Tithe Remission farms. One such confrontation anti-tithe all-party character. Even Mosley’s Bill.27 took place in 1935 when Ked- British Union of Fascists tried In the 1931 Liberal split Ked- ward’s farm in Kent was raided for movement to jump on the bandwagon and ward sided with Sir John Simon non-payment of tithes to Merton nineteen blackshirts were arrested and defended Ashford as a Liberal College. Twenty-one pigs, eight … he in an extended ‘siege’ at Wrotham National. He had never been an cows and two calves were seized, resumed in Suffolk in 1934. Its appeal was ardent free trader and no doubt but no bids received in the sub- also limited to farmers. The farm- recognised that he stood little sequent auction. An effigy of the his youth- workers’ trade union, linked with hope of holding his seat without Archbishop of Canterbury was Labour, was lukewarm. Conservative support. He was burnt and a pig sold by the Tithe- ful career Following a Royal Commis- one of a number of radical non- payers Association for £20.31 sion, a new Tithe Act in 1936 conformists whose social Liberal Both wings of the Liberal as a ‘peri- converted the tithe into an annu- outlook was no barrier to their Party stood formally aloof from patetic ity redemption payment, inte- choosing the Liberal National the campaign, but it received loud grated into the tax system, which camp. However, Kedward was support from Lloyd George and agitator’, would phase out the tithe alto- too radical for the Ashford Tories, individual support from Simonite gether over sixty years. Kedward who objected to his record of MPs, in particular Edgar Granville, touring the and the NTA opposed this and frequent voting for the Labour J. Morris Jones and Viscount Elm- 130 MPs, including almost all the government, and above all his ley. The Liberal News Chronicle and country Liberal MPs, voted against. identification with the anti-tithe The Star also backed the protests. whipping Kedward died following a sud- campaign. The critics were led by Kedward returned to the Liberals den illness (a duodenal ulcer) on 3 Sir Auckland Geddes, a former and stood as candidate in a by- up resist- March 1937. The tithe movement minister under Lloyd George, election in Ashford in March 1933. subsided soon afterwards. His piv- and Edward Hardy, chairman of Lloyd George came to speak for ance. otal role was commemorated in the Ashford Conservative Asso- him and was given a tumultuous the Tithe Memorial, erected by ciation, who attacked Kedward’s reception. However the Liber- the A20, just outside his home support for ‘lawless attempts’ to als again lost,32 a defeat that Lloyd village of Hothfield: defeat payment of tithes. In the George, in a letter to Kedward, absence of a Labour candidate, attributed to the failings of Her- In memory of Roderick Mor- the Tories decided to stand against bert Samuel’s leadership: ris Kedward, President of the Kedward, who was thus one of National Tithepayers Association only three Liberal National MPs The result of the election must 1931–37, MP for Ashford 1929– to face Conservative opposition. have been a great disappointment 31. Born 1881. Died 1937. This The tithe issue seems to have to you as it was to all of us, but stone is a token of gratitude for counted against Kedward who I am convinced that no one else the splendid service he rendered was defeated by a wide margin.28 could have done nearly as well in the tithepayers’ cause and of Paradoxically the anti-tithe cam- as you did. You put up a first-rate admiration of his character. This paign included Conservatives fight. You are the only man who site forms part of Beachbrook amongst its prominent support- would have polled 11,000 votes Farm where he was born and ers, including later the chairman for Liberalism in a Kentish con- where he suffered repeated dis- of the neighbouring Canterbury stituency. I am afraid that it means traints of tithe.34 Conservative Association.29 that for the time being Liberalism Following his defeat Kedward is down and out in the English threw himself single-mindedly constituencies. Its fortunes have Dr Jaime Reynolds studied at the Lon- into the anti-tithe movement. In been mishandled very badly don School of Economics and works in 1932 he became president of the during the last two years. We ral- international environmental policy. NTA, remaining in that post until lied 5,300,000 voters to our flag his death in 1937. He resumed his in 1929. I doubt now whether 1 See P. Harris, Forty Years in and out of Parliament (London, 1947), p. 31 for youthful career as a ‘peripatetic we could gather together one- a description of the constituency agitator’, touring the country third of that number. There is, of before 1914. Harris was candidate for whipping up resistance. As Carol course, a reaction in the world Ashford in 1906. Twinch, the historian of the ‘tithe against Liberal principles. That is 2 Thomas Champness (1832–1905), a

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 37 ‘the fighting parson’

leading nineteenth-century Method- 17 F. Brockway, Bermondsey Story – the cent), Follick (Lab) 3,885 (11.4 per ist evangelist preacher and founder of Life of Alfred Salter (Geo Allen & cent), L majority 1,174 (3.4 per cent), Joyful News. Unwin, London, 1949), p. 118. turnout 75.3 per cent. 3 C. Twinch, ‘Roderick Morris Kedward 18 C. Cook, The Age of Alignment, p. 26 Letter from Georgia Reed to the (1881–1937)’, Bygone Kent, Vol. 24, no. 235–6. author, 16 June 2004. I am grateful for 11 (November 2003), pp. 642–51. 19 Result: Salter (Lab) 11,578 (57.2 per Georgia Reed and Prof. H. Roderick 4 Methodist Recorder, 20 October 1960 cent), Kedward (L) 8,676 (42.8 per Kedward for sharing information 5 1922 election leaflet, ‘R. M. Kedward cent), turnout 75.0 per cent, Lab with me on their grandfather. They – By One of his Admirers’ Southwark majority 2,902 (14.4 per cent). have confirmed that apart from a Local Studies Library 20 SLSL, Bermondsey Liberal Associa- few photographs, press cuttings and 6 http://www.1914-18.net/31div. tion leaflet, November1924 . the quoted letter from Lloyd George, htm. See also the novel Covenant 21 They held the Parliamentary and none of their grandfather’s political with Death by J. Harris (1961) which London County Council seats and papers have survived – ‘he was rather describes the raising and slaughter of dominated Bermondsey Borough secretive about his later life and didn’t the 31st Division. Council and the Board of Guardians. keep any biographical material’. 7 Bermondsey Election News 1924: How The composition of Bermondsey 27 On the tithe war see further: C. the Labour Party deserted. Southwark Borough Council over the decade Twinch, Tithe War 1918–1939 – The Local Studies Library was as follows: Countryside in Revolt (Media, Nor- 8 Result: Sykes (Coalition Conserva- 19-- 19 22 25 28 wich, 2001); and on the historical tive) 13,805 (80.1 per cent); Kedward background see E. J. Evans, The Con- Labour 24 35 48 48 (L) 3,434 (19.9 per cent), turnout 54.9 tentious Tithe – the Tithe Problem and Progressive 27 5 0 0 per cent, C majority 10,371 (60.2 per (Liberal) English Agriculture 1750–1850 (London cent). Electoral 1976). Association 9 John D. Beasley, The Bitter Cry Heard 0 10 6 6 28 A. Thorpe, The British General Elec- and Heeded – The Story of the South (anti- tion of 1931 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, Socialist) London Mission 1889–1989 (South 1991), p. 175. Result: Knatchbull London Mission, London, 1990); Independent 1 4 0 0 (Con) 20,891 (58.7 per cent), Ked- Rev. W. Spencer, Glory in the Garret ward (L Nat) 14,681 (41.3 per cent), 22 S. Goss, Local Labour and Local Gov- (Epworth, London, 1932); A. Turber- Con majority 6,210 (17.4 per cent), ernment – A study of changing interests, field,John Scott Lidgett – the Archbishop turnout 75.9 per cent. politics and policy in Southwark from of British Methodism? (Epworth Press, 29 The president of the NTA in 1931 1919–1982 (Edinburgh, 1988), p. 41. Peterborough, 2003). The main Cen- was Viscount Lymington, a Tory MP. 23 Salter held the seat in 1931 by ninety- tral Hall was demolished in 1967. Other Tory supporters included R. A. one votes against a Conservative 10 Sir H. Llewellyn Smith et al., New Butler. and a Communist. Labour had very Survey of London Life and Labour Vol 30 Twinch, Tythe War, p. 81. comfortable victories over Liberal iii Social Survey 1– Eastern Area (P. S. 31 The Star, 5 March 1937. Nationals in 1935 and 1945 and a King, London, 1932) p. 357–60. 32 Result: Spens (Con) 16,051 (47.7 Liberal also stood in 1945 winning 11 Other working-class Liberal strong- per cent), Kedward (L) 11,423 (33.9 just 8 per cent of the vote. holds in the 1920s and 1930s included per cent), Beck (Lab) 6,178 (18.4 per 24 Result: Steel (Con) 15,159 (60.4 per Lambeth North, Southwark North, cent), Con majority 4,628 (13.8 per cent), Humphrey (L) 5,487 (21.8 per Bethnal Green South-west and North- cent), turnout 70.9 per cent. cent), Noble (Lab) 4,473 (17.8 per east, Shoreditch and Whitechapel. 33 Twinch, Tythe War, p. 126. cent), Con majority 9,672 (38.6 per 12 Result: Glanville (L) 4,260 (40.6 per 34 http://www.historic-kent.co.uk/ cent), turnout 70.4 per cent. cent), Scriven (CoL) 2,998 (28.5 per vill_h.htm. It was moved to the new 25 Result: Kedward (L) 15,753 (46.0 per cent), Salter (Lab) 1,956 (18.6 per Ashford cattle market in the 1990s. cent), Steel (Con) 14,579 (42.6 per cent), Becker (Ind) 1,294 (12.3 per cent), turnout 48.5 per cent, L major- ity 1,262 (12.1 per cent). 13 Election Address of Dr Alfred Salter, 6 December 1923; and leaflet: ‘Back to Sanity: Vote for Kedward, A Worker for the Workers’, 1923, Southwark Local Studies Library 14 Result: Salter (Lab) 7,550 (44.6 per cent), Kedward (L) 5,225 (30.9 per Reports cent), Scriven (Nat L) 2,814 (16.6 per cent), Nordon (Ind C) 1,328 (7.9 per cent), turnout 64.6 per cent, Lab majority 2,325 (13.7 per cent). Liberals and organised labour Scriven received official Conservative endorsement. Fringe meeting, March 2005, Harrogate, with David 15 Liberal leaflet: Fair Play and Labour leaflets Foul Play versus Fair Play and Powell and Keith Laybourn Foul Play: that is a lie. Southwark Local Studies Library Report by Chris Gurney 16 Result: Kedward (L) 9,186 (52.5 per cent), Salter (Lab) 8,298 (47.5 per cent), turnout 66.1 per cent, L ith the 2005 general hotel in Harrogate for a scintillat- ­majority 888 (5.0 per cent). There election not too far in ing discussion from two academ- was a definite Liberal–Conservative the future, Liberal Dem- ics about the relationship between pact, see C. Cook, The Age of Alignment W – Electoral Politics in Britain 1922–1929 ocrats gathered in a packed-out the Liberal Party and organised (Macmillan London 1975), p. 160. Charter Suite in the conference labour. The loss of support from

38 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 REPORTS organised labour during the late into the late nineteenth century, The loss century was to see the rise of a Victorian and Edwardian period despite evident tensions in areas ‘New Liberalism’ that sought to was clearly a central element in such as trade-union reform. of support respond to both unionism and the decline of the Liberal Party as Many of the first working men Marxism and to demonstrate a significant electoral and politi- elected to the House of Com- from organ- the continuing relevance of cal force. Once this confidence in mons were members of the Lib- Liberalism for the next century. the party was gone, the Liberals eral–labour alliance, helping to ised labour Hobhouse’s 1893 text The Labour never got it back and trade union provide further cross-fertilisation during the Movement argued for the positive and labour issues have never since and co-operation between the and progressive role that could be had the same high priority in two groups. For many, Liberals late Victo- played by trade unions as well as Liberal politics. Our two speakers, and organised labour were ‘natu- more traditional liberal concerns whilst coming from very differing ral allies’ and they saw no reason rian and such as the importance of organ- perspectives and with differing for this to change. ised self-interest and competition motivations, sought to examine The second period that was Edwardian for the good of all. Things were why and how it was that organ- important in the Liberal–labour period was not quite this simple, however. ised labour broke away from the alliance began in the mid 1880s. Hobson, writing in 1899, warned Liberal Party and the impact this In comparison to the earlier clearly a of the dangers that an over-pow- had on the Liberal vote. period of co-operation, this was erful trade union might have. He David Powell (Head of the one of challenge and contest central ele- saw that the possibilities of a con- History Programme, York St John within the relationship. The flict between trade-union interests College, and author of British changing context of industrial ment in the (whether directly those of work- Politics and the Labour Question: relations, characterised by the decline of ers or indirectly those generated 1868–1990) began the session by increasing numbers and militancy by bureaucratic organisations) and explaining that the brief that he of disputes and increasing hostil- the Liberal the wider ‘social good’ meant that had been given, the history of ity from both employers and the there remained a vital role for the Liberals and organised labour courts towards organised labour, Party as a state in regulating union activi- since the nineteenth century, meant that the assumption by ties and preventing them from was both rather vague and too many of harmony between the significant becoming too powerful. broad for the time allotted to him. interests of the ‘two halves’ of electoral The years either side of the He stressed that the relationship industry was becoming more First World War provided the third between the Liberal Party and difficult to sustain. Some organi- and politi- of the periods that Dr Powell organised labour was not static sations, such as the Social Demo- argued was essential for under- and that its dynamism reflected cratic Federation and militant cal force. standing the relationship between the evolution of both in changing union groups, sought to challenge the Liberal Party and organised contexts. He therefore hoped that the ‘closeness’ of the relationship labour. This period saw the final by focusing on the organisational and the very ‘naturalness’ that dissolution of the relationship and intellectual elements of the had been taken for granted in the between the two groups. Whilst relationship between the Liberal earlier period, seeking to develop the early twentieth century’s Lib- Party and organised labour he organisations and alliances that eral governments adopted many could elucidate three distinctive would represent the workers trade unions reforms and legisla- periods that serve to demonstrate themselves. tive proposals that found support the dynamism of a gradually This increasing confrontation in the labour movement, the trend distancing and disintegrating did not mean that co-operation was by no means unidirectional. relationship and also to prompt was impossible, and at the 1892 Many in the labour movement, some interesting questions in the general election twenty candi- for example, considered Church- present context. dates stood on a Lib-Lab platform ill’s policy of labour exchanges to The earliest period that Dr demonstrating the strength of be, in fact, a source of non-union- Powell wished to focus on was the alliance in many areas. Liberal ised labour, the ‘industrial reserve in the mid-nineteenth century Party support for many union army’ that Marx had prophesied, and saw the origins of both reforms had secured continu- revealing Liberals as being in the Liberal Party and labour ing loyalty from many sections league with capital. Whilst on the organisation. This period was of labour. This was not to the other side trade union demands when relations between the two ­satisfaction of all, however, and the for freedom from liability revealed groups were at their best, partly, Independent Labour Party was them to be the anti-individualist he argued because of the strong set up in 1893 seeking to provide organisations that many Liberals relationship between Gladsto- an ‘independent’ (from Liberals) had always said they were. nians and skilled labour. Many voice for organised labour in the Increasing industrial unrest members of both groups believed House of Commons. placed the Liberal government in the ‘common interests’ of This challenge to the alliance in a difficult position. Traditional capital and labour in society and was to have interesting ideological Liberal attitudes suggested that this helped to sustain the alliance consequences. The late nineteenth the state’s role as mediator would

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 39 REPORTS place it in a perfect position number of skilled workers in were active in local Liberal associa- to act as ‘referee’ between the the labour market. These factors, tions. Not only this but the refusal interests of labour and capital. combined with weakening insti- of many Liberals to support the However, use of the army to quell tutional links between the trade adoption of trade-union-friendly industrial unrest only served to union movement and the Labour candidates further served to drive create greater distance between Party, suggests that there may now people away from the Liberal Party. the Liberal Party and organised be ‘something of an opportunity ‘Illingworthism’ (attempts to sub- labour. To many this was sufficient for a renewal’ of links between sume union demands under the evidence that the Liberal state, far Liberals and organised labour. Liberal banner) gradually gave way from being an impartial referee The breakdown of ‘class,’ the rise to ‘Hardieism,’ which pushed for (as it and Liberals claimed it was), of the multiple interests of labour the democratic involvement of the was actually firmly in the pocket combined with increasing focus trade union movement in political of capital. The Miners Federation on both political and economic activity. was the first union formally to citizenship mean that Liberals, Liberal Party responses to affiliate to the new Labour Party. always the ones to exalt the indi- industrial unrest in the West By 1913 union ballots for political vidual and their interests, may be Riding in the 1880s and 1890s funds were donating most of their in an ideal opportunity to exploit provided further impetus for the resources to the Labour Party, this new position. breakdown of relations between and, worst of all, local election The focus of our second Liberals and organised labour. In arrangements for a progressive speaker, Professor Laybourn the Huddersfield textile strikes alliance to keep out the Conserv- (Professor of History, Hudders- in 1883, Liberals came down on atives had broken down. field University, and author of the side of the employers against If the situation was not already Liberalism and the Rise of Labour, labour. The Manningham mill bad, the First World War only 1890–1918), was somewhat dif- strikes of 1890–91, which lasted worsened it. The splits in the ferent from that of Dr Powell. six months, saw 5,000 people Liberal Party over entry into the Rather than focus on organisa- on strike, acts of violence and war meant that the focus of much tional and ideological changes in the reading of the Riot Act. Liberal attention was directed the relationship between the Lib- It was felt Local Liberals dominated the at reuniting the Liberal ‘family’ eral Party and organised labour, ‘watch committee’ and tried rather than seeking to maintain he sought to provide a case study by many to stop union meetings that an even more complicated alli- on relations between Liberals and that the Lib- sought to discuss strike action. ance with organised labour. labour in the textile district of They also supported the use of The Liberal Party was slowly West Riding between 1880 and eral Party troops against strikers. Given the pushed into the political wilder- the eve of the First World War. importance that was often placed ness. Despite positive attempts to This had traditionally been a Lib- was insen- on strikes as a form of political ‘rethink’ Liberalism (such as The eral heartland (in 1886 nineteen activity by those in the labour Yellow Book in 1928), in the new of the twenty-three MPs from sitive to the movement it was hardly surpris- context of ‘industrial politics’ the West Riding were Liberals) but needs of ing that using the army would Liberal Party remained politically by 1914 the Independent Labour drive more support away from unpopular as the Labour Party Party had seriously challenged the labour the Liberal Party. All this added became the new ‘natural’ home of this hegemony and by 1929 only further credence to the idea that organised labour. one Liberal MP remained. Profes- move- both Liberals and Conserva- Dr Powell closed his remarks sor Laybourn sought to explain tives were ‘capitalists first’ and by bringing us back to the present why this situation had developed, ment, and only ‘politicians second’. Trade day. He suggested that the rela- such that by 1913 the Huddersfield the trade unionists began to appreciate that tionship between the Liberal Herald was able to declare the ‘you cannot give political sup- Party and organised labour had ‘passing of Liberalism.’ unions were port to a man who economically to be seen in the light of the The first factor that Professor opposes you’. The Liberal Party changing content and context of Laybourn focused on was a strong to play a was offering harmony and com- the labour question. This raises sense of anti-Liberalism among promise whilst trade unionists questions for us in the present. trade unions and the labour move- central role wanted support and independent Thatcher’s reforms in the 1980s ment. It was felt by many that the in capturing ­representation. have created a different and Liberal Party was insensitive to the These developments were shifting industrial context. We needs of the labour movement, working- coupled with the rise of socialist have seen the decline of union and the trade unions were to play a societies and independent work- membership and the destruction central role in capturing working- class sup- ers’ movements across the region. of Britain’s manufacturing and class support from the Liberal Party. These provided a sphere in which extractive industries, the tradi- These views were reinforced by port from workers could organise together, tional backbone of the union the fact that local employers seen as the Liberal develop self-reliance and also movement. There has also been exploiting workers (such as Alfred develop political programmes. a commensurate increase in the ­Illingworth and Sir James Kitson) Party. These included the formation of

40 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 REPORTS the Socialist League in Bradford What had twentieth century. Whilst both necessarily dangerous. Is the idea and Leeds, Labour Union clubs brought differing perspectives to that the Labour Party is the ‘natu- as well as more ‘cultural’ aspects been the bear on the question of this rela- ral’ home of the working class an of life such as socialist Sunday tionship, it was interesting how idea that has come to an end? Is schools, the Clarion cycling clubs, hope of both presentations brought out the Labour Party aware of this? Is and support from some Anglicans the problem of the Liberal Party’s now a time for new possibilities of and nonconformists. In this way John Stu- assumption that it was the ‘natural’ articulating alliances between Lib- organised labour began to arise as art Mill in home of the working class and erals and organised labour groups a genuinely independent move- the effect that that had on atti- on issues of mutual concern? ment from the Liberal Party and the 1850s tudes towards organised labour Who knows, but what seems clear to break the hegemony of Liberals and socialist movements. After all, is that it cannot get worse than as the ‘best representatives of the was being if you are their ‘natural home’ any Liberal–labour relations in the working class’. What had been the challenge to that is likely to be early and mid-twentieth century. hope of John Stuart Mill in the utterly seen as misguided, rather than as 1850s was being utterly refuted by refuted locally organised labour groups developing outside the Liberal by locally Party giving organised labour the opportunity to develop their own organised Civil liberties in war and peace interests and increasingly to see themselves as the best guarantors labour Evening meeting, January 2005, with Professor Clive of their fulfilment. groups Emsley and Julian Dee Laybourn finished by argu- ing that the Liberal Party had develop- Report by Neil Stockley neglected the needs of workers at their cost. It was a pity that he ing outside ince the events of 11 antecedents really champion civil had not focused more on how September 2001 and the liberties, even when the state per- the Liberal Party had failed to the Liberal so-called ‘war on terror’ ceived itself to be under threat? articulate the needs of workers S Party. began, the question of balanc- This meeting gave answers that in its programmes, rather than ing the need to protect the state were different to what many Lib- simply describing the failure and against the desire to promote erals might expect, or, indeed, be Labour’s rise to fill the vacuum. individual freedom has been comfortable with. At times it seemed to him as at top of the political agenda. Professor Clive Emsley if it were self-evident that the Liberal Democrats take con- explained how the Whig Charles Labour Party should represent siderable pride in our steadfast James Fox had ‘kept the flame organised labour best, and that it commitment to civil liberties. We of liberty alive’ during the ‘reign was merely a matter of workers roundly condemned the deten- of terror’ of William Pitt the coming to realise this truth rather tion of foreign nationals for an Younger during the 1790s. When than of anything more complex. indefinite period without trial in the French Revolution hap- Nonetheless, it is important to Belmarsh prison. We were against pened, it was initially viewed remember that the trade unions the government’s proposals to sympathetically in this country. had often been suspicious of Lib- detain terror suspects without However, as Professor Emsley eral reforms (as in 1906–14) and trial and its plans to place them put it, ‘things went a bit nasty’ the failure of the Liberal Party to under house arrest and to apply after English and Irish radicals involve workers in decision-mak- other restrictions on liberty, with took inspiration from events ing processes could have only only limited appeal to judges. We over the channel. They wanted exacerbated this. The Liberal oppose Labour’s plans to bring in to reform Parliament and create Party, by assuming that it knew compulsory identity cards. In his a true democracy. Some spoke what the workers needed better personal introduction to Freedom, of overthrowing King George than they did themselves, only Fairness and Trust, the party’s ‘pre- III. In 1793, war broke out with served to drive itself further away manifesto’ document before the revolutionary France as the Pitt from organised labour movements 2005 general election, Charles ministry, which had been formed that sought actually to involve Kennedy declared that ‘our Lib- four years earlier and supported working people in the decisions eral background makes us wary by the majority of Whigs, sought that affected their lives. of an over-mighty state and dedi- to save the King and the state. Dr Powell and Professor Lay- cated to civil liberties’. Professor Emsley gave a grim bourn provided interesting and But is there really a Liberal summary of the steps taken challenging discussions on the heritage on matters of personal by Pitt’s government. These collapse of relations between freedom; if so, how can we included: the suspension of the Liberal Party and organised describe it? Did our political habeas corpus in 1794 and 1795; labour in the nineteenth and early

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 41 REPORTS the ‘gagging acts’ of 1795 that been conscripted. Above all, the altered the routing of supplies forbade criticism of the govern- war was ideological in character, so that munitions factories and ment; the extension of the laws against the French Revolution related industries had priority of treason and sedition; the Sedi- and spurred by the threat of a over non-essential enterprises. tious Meetings Act that required similar insurrection in Britain. By Once again, the government had any public meeting of more than the late 1790s, Fox was not merely a bold justification: the notion fifty persons to be authorised by a democratic reformer. He was that the country was embroiled a magistrate; the Incitement to inclined to use the language of in ‘a new kind of war’. Mutiny Act 1797 that followed ‘revolution and insurrection’ and Many Liberals were horrified naval uprisings; the legislation had even come to believe that if at this turn of events and there against the administration of such momentous events came were protests outside Parliament. unlawful oaths and the Supres- to pass in this country, he and his Although Professor Emsley did sion of Treasonable and Seditious supporters could head a revolu- not mention it, the conventional Societies Act, both of which tionary regime. wisdom is that most prosecu- were aimed primarily at secret Fox accused the Pitt govern- tions under DORA arose from societies in Ireland; the ‘ferocious’ ment of ‘treading on our liberties’. accidental breaches of the com- suppression of the Irish rebellion Professor Emsley then explained prehensive legislation rather in 1798; and the Combination how before, during and just after than protests against infringe- Acts of 1799 and 1800 that for- the First World War, ‘it was Liber- ments of civil or industrial bade societies or amalgamations als who were doing the tread- liberties. But DORA was also of persons for the purpose of ing’. After the Liberal Party won used after the war ended, most political reform. Pitt’s justifica- power in 1906, tensions between notably to deal with communist tion for these measures was that Britain and Germany became agitators, who seemed to be the they were necessary to preserve more acute. The two countries new threat to the state in the English liberties and the rights of were engaged in a naval arms race. wake of the Russian Revolution free Englishmen that had been so The Liberal government became of 1917. Lloyd George’s coali- hard won in 1688. Similar argu- more concerned about German tion replaced DORA with the ments have been many heard spies in this country and, in 1911, Emergency Powers Act of 1920, many times as governments of passed the Official Secrets Act, which gave the government different political measures have making the disclosure of any offi- (through the sovereign) powers tried to justify the suppression of cial information without lawful to declare a national emergency personal freedoms. authority a criminal offence. The by proclamation. For his part, Fox continued Act was introduced into Parlia- Professor Emsley concluded strongly to support the Revolu- ment late on a Friday afternoon that the way a party balances the tion and, with a small minority of and passed into law in just one protection of civil liberties with Whigs, vehemently opposed Pitt’s hour but was to provide the leg- the imperatives of war depends measures as excessive infringe- islative bulwark against open gov- on the situation in which it finds ments of personal liberties. He Fox’s ernment for some eighty years. itself. In short, there is plenty of even went as far as perjuring him- Even more draconian meas- room for principle in opposi- self when supporting one United actions ures were to follow. In the days tion but ‘if you’re in power, you Irishman who was put on trial for after war was declared in 1914, think you need to preserve gov- treason. In 1797, Fox became so are often the Prime Minister, Herbert ernment, the state and society frustrated with opposing the gov- Asquith, persuaded Parliament to as we know it’. In this respect, ernment in Parliament that he led treated as pass the Defence of the Realm he argued that Asquith, Lloyd around fifty followers in seceding a model Act (DORA). This legislation George and their Liberal col- from Parliament. and its successive amendments, leagues were no different to Fox’s actions are often treated of a Whig along with the regulations prom- members of the other parties. I as a model of a Whig taking ulgated under it, placed a wide believe that, as with the exam- a principled stance, however taking a variety of restrictions on free- ple of Fox, we should be careful lonely, against Tory excesses. But dom of movement and assembly. before drawing too many defini- Professor Emsley seemed gently principled DORA gave the government tive conclusions about the true to counsel the audience against stance, powers to control labour, requisi- nature of Liberalism. No political applying simplistic or anachro- tion buildings or land needed value system is frozen in time nistic thinking to the 1790s. He however for the war effort and, in time, to and Liberal attitudes towards stressed that the war with revo- take control of industry and food many of the challenges that faced lutionary France was different lonely, production. Professor Emsley Asquith and Lloyd George have from those that had gone before. might also have mentioned the developed considerably since that To those in power at the time, the against Munitions of War Act of June time. For instance, I have great future of the crown itself appeared Tory 1915, which made strikes and doubts whether a Liberal Demo- to be stake. The war was fought lockouts illegal, reduced factory crat government led by Charles by mass, national armies that had excesses. pay and working conditions and Kennedy, even if it found itself

42 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 REPORTS in similar circumstances, would of accountability may have been He told and one in particular, certainly immediately pass an Official expected to assume a greater helped to bring the issue to a Secrets Act or a DORA. It would ­significance. the story head. He told the story of Harry be even less likely to be respon- However, the subsequent dis- Willcock, a former Liberal coun- sible for a Belmarsh or the type cussion showed that the cards did of Harry cillor and parliamentary candi- of anti-terrorism legislation that not altogether prevent crime and date, who, in December 1950, Labour produced earlier this year. black marketeering, as they were Willcock, was stopped by police for speed- The second speaker, Julian quite easy to forge and, as Rob- a former ing and then refused to produce Dee, explored Britain’s experi- ert Ingham has noted, thousands his identity card. He was duly ence with identity cards and of deserters remained at large Liberal prosecuted for the latter offence, national registration during once hostilities ended. convicted in the magistrate’s the Second World War and the The rationale for identity councillor court and fined30 /-. For refus- post-war controversies that cards would have seemed to ing to produce his identity card, eventually led to their abolition. have disappeared when the war and par- the court felt bound to convict As researcher to the Convenor was over. But the Attlee Labour liamentary him of an offence, but he was of the Crossbench Peers in the government kept the identity granted an absolute discharge. House of Lords, Mr Dee has card regime in place for its candidate, Willcock opted to challenge studied this country’s experience entire six years in office. Julian the National Registration Act in with ID cards between 1939 and Dee explained that, by the early who, in the High Court. When his case 1952 in some detail. But he was 1950s, officials had thirty-nine was heard in June 1951, he was very careful neither to endorse official reasons for retaining the December represented by a formidable team nor condemn what took place. cards, including the prevention 1950, was of Liberal lawyers. The Attorney- Within days of declaring war of bigamous marriages! Minis- General, Sir Frank Soskice, suc- on Germany in September 1939, ters argued that identity cards stopped by cessfully argued that Parliament the Chamberlain government were required for the successful had legislated in 1939 not to deal persuaded Parliament to pass administration of the NHS as police for with one emergency but with the National Registration Act, well as to maintain conscription several, undefined emergencies which established the compul- and rationing on a viable basis. speeding and therefore, legislation requir- sory national registration regime However, as Mr Dee was quick and then ing the carrying of identity cards and required all citizens to carry to point out, none of these were remained valid. Despite ruling identity cards. Ministers argued adversely affected once identity refused to against Willcock, Lord Chief Jus- that such measures were needed cards were no longer used. He tice Goddard concluded that the for three purposes: facilitating mentioned that pre-war plans produce statute’s definition of ‘emergency’ conscription for the armed forces, for wartime rationing did not was ambiguous. He called on protecting national security and reportedly include an identity his identity the government to ask Parlia- enabling rationing to work. Mr card regime. card. ment to grant special powers to Dee suggested that national reg- In February 1952, Mr require the cards to be carried in istration had enabled the wartime Crookshank, the new Con- peacetime. Police officers were authorities to collect manpower servative Health Secretary, finally soon told that they could only data, to enforce night-time cur- announced that the public no require the cards to be produced fews in parts of the UK, to iden- longer needed to carry identity in exceptional circumstances. tify air raid victims and, after the cards. This decision was spun as a Between Willcock’s conviction war, to round up some deserters cost-cutting measure: £1million and his High Court hearing, the and avert a possible crime wave. was saved and 1,500 civil servants government began to come under In an interesting observation, were either redeployed or made pressure to get rid of ID cards. he speculated that ID cards may redundant. Julian Dee suggested Julian Dee described how mem- have provided something of an that the Prime Minister, Winston bers of the Freedom Defence icebreaker or a prompt whereby Churchill, may have provided Association (formed by Willcock) British reserve or politeness could the real impetus for the change. demonstrated on the steps of the be put aside, allowing everyday Indeed, not long before Ger- National Liberal Club and tore up life and transactions potentially to many surrendered, he had made their cards. Later, members of the be put into the framework of state an eloquent speech against using British Housewives League made officialdom. Perhaps ID cards put identity cards during peacetime. a similar protest outside Parlia- both sides of any given transaction The Liberal Party did not play ment. After the Willcock case was on notice that there was a duty of a direct role in the ending of determined, the Liberal Party identification and accountability identity cards. After all, the Liber- leader, Clement Davies, urged the of which the ID cards were a sig- als were not simply out of office government to repeal the 1939 nificant part. Still, other powers – the party was now reduced to emergency legislation. Still, there of identification such as common a tiny rump of MPs and fighting was no mention of identity cards sense, the usualness of an activity, for its very survival. Still, Julian in the party’s manifesto for the intuition and community lines Dee showed that several Liberals, 1951 general election. Mr Dee

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 43 REPORTS also explained that after the war a difficult to apply the principles As Harry while the Conservative govern- number of Labour and Conserva- followed by Liberals in the early ment was beginning to recover. tives MPs had also called for iden- twenty-first century to our coun- Willcock What alternative strategy would tity cards to be scrapped. But he terparts in the 1790s and the First have worked? noted that whereas Tories tended World War, or vice versa. But the said on Bill Rodgers to use arguments based on effi- instinctive attitude of modern ciency, Liberals objected because Liberals to being forced to carry refusing they believed that identity cards identity cards are, surely, beyond to produce Local pacts infringed basic freedoms of the argument. As Harry Willcock said Robert Ingham’s article ‘Battle individual. on refusing to produce his ID his ID of ideas or absence of leadership?’ I am sure that the actions of card when stopped by police on (Journal of Liberal History 47) Harry Willcock provided the that fateful evening in December card when embarks on the tortuous story of audience with a great deal of 1950, ‘I am a Liberal and I am Liberal electoral survival at the reassurance about the nature of against this sort of thing.’ stopped by municipal level after 1945. From the Liberal heritage. It may be police on a later perspective it is difficult to accommodate the idea of Lib- that fateful eral–Conservative electoral pacts but, having known a number of evening in those involved at the time, I am somewhat more sympathetic. December In many cases Liberal alder- letters 1950, ‘I men and councillors had run these boroughs for many years am a Lib- and the – relative – electoral SDP strategy As for our relations with the debacle of 1945 left them In issue 45 of the Journal, Stephen Liberals, the Gang of Four had eral and I stranded. Unwilling to see the Barber gave an account of what no internal discussions or discus- local Liberal heritage of their he called the SDP strategy. He sions with David Steel about am against earlier hegemony swept aside by Parliamentary seats before the concluded that in the 1983 elec- this sort of a mere national trend, they made tion the SDP was ‘never clear if launch of the SDP. But given that whatever local ‘dispositions’ they it wanted substantially to replace Liberals were well entrenched in thing.’ could to retain office. the Labour Party or the Tories’. a number of marginal Tory seats, By 1960 it was clear that That is not the case. it was certainly my view that the any residual political argument Shirley Williams, David Owen SDP should particularly chal- for local electoral pacts had and I had been deeply involved lenge Labour seats. disappeared and that even the in the Labour Party right up to The division of seats became electoral case was no longer sus- the general election of 1979. We a dispute between me – sup- tainable; Liberal candidates were were members of the Cabinet ported by Shirley Williams and polling better in three-cornered but increasingly concerned about Roy Jenkins – and David Owen. fights than in straight fights in the militant left and the influence Owen soon took the view that the same wards. of Tony Benn. As we approached the SDP should have contested The Bolton East by-election the painful break towards the end all or most seats, to try to squeeze of November 1960 signalled the of the following year, we believed out the Liberals. But his purpose formal end of the party’s national that Labour was in terminal was to make the SDP top dog, tolerance of such pacts. Pratap decline. Only a new social demo- not just to seize promising Tory Chitnis had become Liberal cratic party could fill the gap. seats. All the Gang of Four hoped Party Local Government Officer When we put together the to get a fair share of ‘silver;’ and in the same year and, among Limehouse Declaration in Janu- ‘gold’ seats and this included many other things, embarked ary 1981, it grew from our ideas some Tory seats. But that does on building a national database and values, an instinctive response not mean that we were equivocal of local election results. With to Labour’s failure. We were not about our primary aim. this it was eventually possible to calculating how best to write a Stephen Barber says that even identify where there were elec- programme that would win. before the Falklands War, there toral pacts and to demonstrate I had earlier written to Roy had been a decline of support what arrangements had been Jenkins that the ‘Conservative since the SDP peak of 1981. That made for which local wards. For Party will always be with us is correct. But I do not under- instance, in addition to the places … if a fourth party were to be stand how the leadership could mentioned by Robert Ingham, a launched, I would want it to be have adapted ‘this more realis- number of smaller boroughs such firmly social democratic’. This tic situation’. Our wish was to as Eccles and Dukinfield had approach was never in dispute at replace the Labour Party which electoral arrangements with the the time of Limehouse. had not yet reached its nadir, local Conservatives.

44 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 REVIEWS

Soon after I had taken over round, and Councillor Hep- District, at local government reor- from Pratap at Party HQ in mid worth rose to second it. I knew ganisation in 1974. 1962 I was sent on a grand tour we were going to have some fun!’ The Southport case is an of all the towns involved in order Under Hepworth’s persuasion example of a leader able to renew to give the local council groups able candidates came forward and the party locally and to create an the hard word that the party fought and won more and more electoral strategy without los- officially disapproved of elec- wards which Labour willingly ing many of the older brigade. toral pacts. Armed with both the abandoned to the Liberals. Even- Sadly Sidney Hepworth became political and mathematical evi- tually, ten of the fifteen wards the only Liberal involved in the dence of the damage caused by were being fought by Liberals Poulson corruption case and he these arrangements it was possi- and five by Labour, and a Lib- served a prison term, dying a few ble to make a strong case for their Lab administration took control years later. termination. I had little direct in 1962. Alas, it did not last long All pacts become greater than effect, but the pacts petered out enough to reap the electoral fruits the parties that make them and of their own accord as the senior of its bold planning policies and, they have a dangerous momen- Liberal aldermen and councillors of course, Southport CB disap- tum of their own. either lost or died off. But, at the peared into that bureaucratic Michael Meadowcroft time, it was a curious task, which nonsense, Sefton Metropolitan produced a number of eminently retellable anecdotes! By coincidence, I was also very much involved in the Southport Liberal scene which had one of the very rare instances of a Liberal–Labour electoral pact. This stemmed not from a reviews wish to maintain past glories but from a very different standpoint – a desire to abandon the staid Liberalism of the past in order Man of many talents effectively to challenge the mas- sive Conservative domination of Andrew Adonis and Keith Thomas (eds.): Roy Jenkins – A the County Borough Council Retrospective (Oxford University Press, 2004) – on which, at its peak, there were 56 Conservative members, Reviewed by Dr Julie Smith three Liberals (two aged alder- men and one elderly councillor) n 1994, Andrew Adonis sug- University. Overall they cover and a single Labour member (a gested to Roy Jenkins that eighty years of British politi- very dedicated socialist, Ernest Ihe would like to become his cal history, offering not only a Townend, who had been Labour biographer. Jenkins demurred range of fascinating insights into MP for Stockport). for three years before giving Jenkins’s own life but an excel- Following a disastrous parlia- All pacts Adonis a key to his East Hendred lent overview of British political, mentary by-election in Febru- become home and access to his papers. economic and social history from ary 1952, which saw the only Eight years on, the biography has the General Strike through to instance of a lost Liberal deposit greater yet to appear. In the meantime the New Labour government in Southport, there were strenu- Adonis has collaborated with that took office in1997 , from his ous efforts to rejuvenate the local than the Keith Thomas to edit a series of father’s time as an MP and on party. The advent of an able and essays about Jenkins by people through Jenkins’s own political charismatic local doctor, Sidney parties who knew him at various stages career. It takes us through the Hepworth, led to the convenient that make throughout his life, from friends internal divisions of the Labour absence of Labour candidates to political colleagues, academics Party – the differences between in his local ward and Hepworth them and and other writers. the Gaitskellites and the Bevan- scraped in at the first attempt. The essays are broadly ites, the pro- and anti-Europeans, Labour Councillor Townend they have a chronological, ranging from between Jenkins and Wilson, subsequently recounted the interviews about his early years and Jenkins and Callaghan, and moment at the first council dangerous with Jenkins’s cousin and his best the ultimate rupture that was to meeting after the election when momentum friend from secondary school, via lead to the creation of the SDP he rose to propose an amend- an essay on his time as an under- – recalls the social reforms of the ment – all of which had for of their graduate in Oxford, to one on 1960s which Jenkins did so much years hitherto failed for lack of a his period as Chancellor of the to facilitate, and the economic seconder – and, he said, ‘I looked own.

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Perhaps it was not surpris- (p. 272). As David Cannadine ing, therefore, that he should be notes (p. 293), after 1964 Jenkins sent to work at Bletchley Park did not undertake any ‘original in April 1944. He did not him- archival research’ work; neverthe- self work on the now-famous less, he believes that four at least Enigma codes, although con- of his works are likely to endure: tributor Asa Briggs did, as he Asquith (1964), the prizewinning recounts at some length in an biographies of Gladstone and essay that reveals rather more Churchill, and Jenkins’s autobiog- about Briggs and about Bletch- raphy, which Cannadine consid- ley than about Jenkins. Briggs ers ‘one of the few outstanding implies that Jenkins did not par- political autobiographies of the ticularly relish his time at Bletch- twentieth century’ (p. 305). ley working on ‘Fish’, yet Jenkins And, of course, it is Jenkins’s clearly retained an interest in career as a politician that leads the Enigma machine. Almost by many to read his work, and chance he met Robert Harris, works about him, such as this the author of Enigma, and upon Retrospective. Many of the con- learning that Harris had one of tributors note that Jenkins’s the machines on loan, Jenkins parents, particularly his mother, rapidly made plans to meet were very ambitious for their Harris and the machine, and only son. It is not so clear what thereafter ensued a deep friend- those ambitions were, though ship based, in part, on Jenkins’s Oxford was clearly mentioned determination never to eat lunch at an early stage. By contrast, alone (p. 308). Despite his pro- the young Roy’s own ambi- filic output Jenkins claimed to tions seem to have been obvi- crises that Jenkins sought to find writing much harder than ous from his youth. The son of tackle, and finally reminds us of politics. He told Harris that a miners’ leader, Arthur Jenkins, the ongoing British problem ‘the sheer deadweight effort’ of who became an MP and PPS with ‘Europe’. getting up in the morning and to Clement Attlee, his child- One of the dangers of a book trying to fill a blank page with hood was suffused with politics, such as this is that repetition words ‘is the hardest sheer intel- including visits from leading can creep in as each contributor lectual work, harder than any- Labour Party figures to the fam- seeks to give a definitive picture thing in a minister’s life, which ily home in Wales. And thus it of the subject. Yet the editors I’ve ever done’ (p. 312). seems that Roy’s ambition from have contrived to produce a set If Jenkins found writing dif- a young age was a life in poli- of essays that complement each ficult, it did not show. Although tics. As his friend from grammar other extremely well. True, there not trained as a historian (he school, Hugh Brace, remarks, are certainly episodes of Jenkins’s read Modern Greats – otherwise ‘Politics came absolutely natu- life, his origins or his personal known as PPE – at Balliol), he rally to him’ (p. 9). traits that are covered by more begin writing about political If national – Labour – politics than one entry but they are never history, and often about Liberal were to come naturally to Roy, repetitious. That Jenkins was a politicians, before his career in success in university debating man who loved numbers of any politics really took off. As Alan came perhaps less easily (col- sort – be it sums or railway time- Watkins recalls, when he first lege friend Ronald McIntosh tables, university league tables met Jenkins in 1959, he was noted that ‘he never achieved or the Enigma machine – came still ‘best known as the author the complete mastery of Union across from a composite of sev- of Mr Balfour’s Poodle, which audiences which he displayed in eral chapters, which stressed his was about the battle between the House of Commons dur- varying fascinations for counting Asquith’s government and the ing the 1960s’), and he failed (including the numbers of peo- House of Lords before 1914, and to achieve an early ambition to ple he met when out campaign- Dilke’ (pp. 31–32). And he did become President of the Oxford ing), distance and time . As his not stop writing for the rest of Union. Roy forged a number of cousin Pita Karaka put it, ‘The his life, winning prizes for his friendships at Oxford that were main thing about Roy as a child biographies of Gladstone (1996) to persist into later life – politi- was his addiction to numbers. He and Churchill (2001), and when cally with Tony Crosland, and was always silent and counting or he died he had almost finished a on a personal level with Madron working out some sum. He was book on Franklin D. Roosevelt Seligman, later a deeply pro- like that ever after!’ (p. 4). and was thinking about com- European Conservative MEP, mencing a biography of JFK and Mark Bonham Carter,

46 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 REVIEWS who would later also become a was reciprocated, according to cross-party Britain in Europe political ally. As McIntosh and Donald McFarlane. Similarly, as group, campaigning for Britain Asa Briggs remind us, Jenkins Chancellor of Oxford University, to stay in the Common Market was responsible, with Crosland, a mantel he donned in 1987 and in 1975. By that time, Jenkins and for splitting the Oxford Labour which gave him great pleasure, his followers were disillusioned Club in August 1939 over the he was loyal and deeply commit- with the Labour Party and its issue of participation in the war. ted, always recognising, Anthony attitude to Europe and thus, as McIntosh draws the parallels Kenny notes, that his role was David Marquand remarks, ‘the with Jenkins’s decision to leave ceremonial compared with that referendum was pure joy for the Labour Party in 1981: ‘in of the Vice-Chancellor who held Jenkins and the Jenkinsites’ (p. what was almost a dry run for the real power (p. 260–61). In turn, 132). Jenkins enjoyed working formation of the SDP forty years he inspired as much affection in with Liberals and Conserva- later, [Jenkins] created a breaka- Oxford as elsewhere. tives in that campaign, the mark way – and highly successful And what of Jenkins’s politi- of a politician who, despite his – social democratic organisation’ cal career? The book covers the undoubted convictions, was able (p. 16) – and one that left Denis many facets of his political life to deal with consensus and com- Healey behind, still associated – from Home Secretary and promise. In this he was in many with the Communist-dominated Chancellor, to President of the ways ideally suited to his next Labour Club. Commission, to leader of the task – as President of the Euro- Despite the decision to SDP – from a range of angles, pean Commission – and later for split the Labour Club, Jenkins too. If I have not gone into them co-operating with the Liberals. remained loyal to the Labour in more detail here, it is because Jenkins, a late convert (p. 119), cause and was desperate to in many ways his achievements was wooed to Europe by Helmut secure a seat in the 1945 general and legacies are so much better Schmidt’s suggestion that being election. He fought the unwin- known than his personal traits. President of the European Com- nable Solihull that year and then But they cannot be ignored. The Jenkins mission was like being ‘Prime agreed to stand in the Southwark chapter by Kenneth Baker per- Minister of Europe’ (p. 182). He Central by-election in 1948 – haps best summarises Jenkins’s enjoyed rapidly discovered it was not and even though he knew he would political career: through a piece friends found he was withdrawn not be able to fight the new seat on cartoons from Jenkins’s time work- in his early months in Brussels. after the next election, such was as Minister of Aviation (a job that ing with Yet, as with his time as Home his determination to enter Par- Alan Watkins believes he secured Secretary and Chancellor, so he liament. Thereafter, he secured because of his journalistic writ- Liberals left a positive legacy in Europe a safe Labour seat, Birmingham ings on the topic), then as Home too, having fought to secure a Stechford, which he served loy- Secretary and Chancellor of the and Con- seat at the table for himself, and alty and which treated him well Exchequer, through to becoming his successors as President, in for twenty-seven years. Long- the ‘Grand Old Man’ and men- servatives G7 and EU meetings. He acted time fellow Labour MP in Bir- tor of Tony Blair, Baker reminds in that as midwife for the European mingham, Roy Hattersley, argues, us of Jenkins’s notable achieve- Monetary System, the forerun- ‘Part of the rapport between ments and his problems with the campaign, ner of economic and monetary Jenkins and his constituency was Labour Party. union (pp. 206–07). For a while, the result of his ability to make Jenkins’s first stint as Home the mark he seemed disengaged from Brit- and keep friends’ (p. 54). This sort Secretary was ground-breaking ish politics, to the extent that of sentiment re-emerges time in many ways; legalising abor- of a politi- he did not even vote in 1979 and again in the book. tion and homosexual activity cian who, (p. 213). This was all to change Jenkins, it seems, put a great between consenting adults are with his Dimbleby Lecture later deal of effort into his friend- long-term legacies for which he despite his that year. Expected to be on a ships and was never pompous will be remembered. Both the European theme, Roy chose to or aloof in private, even if he relevant Acts came about because undoubted call for ‘a strengthening of the sometimes appeared so in public. Jenkins supported Private Mem- radical centre’. Some, like Mar- The same sort of warmth and bers’ Bills – the Abortion Act convic- quand, saw it as ‘a call to arms’ loyalty extended not just to close being introduced by opposition tions, was (p. 138); his friend and fellow personal friends but to support- Liberal MP David Steel, with member of the Gang of Four, ers in Birmingham and later in whom would later lead the Alli- able to Bill Rodgers, recalls being far less Glasgow Hillhead, the seat he ance. Such cross-party co-opera- impressed (pp. 214–15). Yet, the took for the SDP in the famous tion was something that Jenkins deal with lecture marked a turning point by-election. He took Glasgow, seemed to relish – he had worked – members of the Labour Party with which he had no previous with the Conservative Norman consensus seriously began to talk about links, so much to his heart that St John-Stevas on the Obscene and com- leaving and finally did so to form he referred to it as a ‘senile love Publications Act of 1959 and was the SDP in January 1981. With- affair’ (p. 239) – and the feeling later to serve as President of the promise. out Jenkins and his Dimbleby

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Lecture this would not have a sense of history, sympathetic ity remains elusive. His personal occurred. understanding of others, and magnetism, which attracted A historian, a politician, loyalty to his friends’. Adonis both intellectual advisers and Chancellor of Oxford Univer- and Thomas say in their Preface new recruits in large numbers, is sity, bon viveur: Roy Jenkins is (p. viii) that they sought to avoid referred to only in passing; so is remembered as a man of many hagiography in the contribu- his whimsical and self-deprecat- talents. In addition, what comes tions – and they succeed, just. ing air, as if he was looking down across most vividly throughout Yet each of the articles is essen- (from his considerable height) this book is what a warm- tially a memoir about Jenkins by at his audience and wondering hearted man he was – someone someone who held him at the why they took him so seriously. who nurtured friendships and least in high esteem and in most Barberis attributes ‘the sense whose friends appreciated him. cases rather more than that. The of Olympian distance’ (p. 157) This is perhaps best summed up biography is still avidly awaited that Jo sometimes displayed to by Sir Crispin Tickell, Jenkins’s but in the meantime this Retro- his growing deafness; but it was chef de cabinet during his time spective serves Jenkins well. evident long before he began to as President of the European go deaf. It’s a pity that there is no Commission, who writes, Dr Julie Smith is Deputy Director of photograph of Jo with a group of ‘Throughout, his most con- the Centre of International Studies, student Young Liberals. He was spicuous qualities were wide- Cambridge University and a Fellow at his most appealing with them, ranging intelligence, tolerance, of Robinson College, Cambridge. ranging widely across political principles and policy choices. The phrase that struck home best for me was: ‘Jo … had a lazy streak … yet his presence gener- ‘His presence generated electricity’ ated electricity.’ (p. 103). The strength of this biogra- Peter Barberis: Liberal Lion. Jo Grimond: A Political Life phy is in its focus on Grimond’s (IB Tauris, 2005) political ideas, their origins and evolution. Barberis sums him Reviewed by William Wallace up as ‘an anti-establishment establishment man’ (p. 169). From a comfortable Dundee second biography of Jo election, but all had been won family, he was educated at Eton Grimond in less than against two or more opponents; A five years, from a differ- in 1955 Grimond himself was ent (and more sympathetic) the only one of the six MPs who angle than Michael McManus, had won against a Conservative offers a chance to compare opponent. Party membership interpretations of the politician surged to a peak of 300,000 in who, more than anyone else, 1963, bringing in a new gen- gave the contemporary Liberal eration (myself included) who Party its shape – and, in his call stayed with the party throughout for a ‘radical realignment of the the ups and downs of the years left’, first spelt out the rationale that followed. He shifted the for the alliance with the Social party from an anti-socialist stance Democrats. Barberis does not to social liberalism, spelling out credit Grimond with saving the coherent themes and policies Liberals from extinction, though that held the party together. Clement Davies had saved them This is an academic study: from Churchill’s embrace only to carefully researched, and sup- remain a marginal party, in non- ported by a wide range of inter- conformist seats. It was Jo who views. It even references several led the party’s revival, in terms PhD theses on the Liberals. (I of policy and political appeal; he should admit, for future scholars, was, for example, one of the first that my own thesis contains two politicians to adapt successfully quotations from Jo Grimond that to television. I had myself written for him in Barberis underestimates the the 1966 election campaign – but scale of Grimond’s success as then, as Barberis makes clear, Jo party leader. The Liberals gained took ideas and drafts from a great only twelve seats in the 1996 many people.) But Jo’s personal-

48 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 REVIEWS and Oxford. As a young man he a deeply committed Liberal. ‘It of integrity, so giving politics a walked in the Highlands with was in a way his fortune never to good name.’ (p. 214). Sir Archibald Sinclair, and mar- have held ministerial office. Thus ried into the Asquith family. Yet, he was spared entanglement in Lord Wallace of Saltaire is joint Dep- Barberis argues, he had already the grubby realities of power uty Leader of the Liberal Democrats become a convinced Liberal politics – realities that he would in the House of Lords and President at Oxford, and chose in 1935 have found uncomfortable if not of the Liberal Democrat History to pursue a political career in a demeaning … to remain a man Group. declining party because he was a disciple of T.H. Green and John Stuart Mill, modified by A.D .Lindsay’s Balliol teaching about public service. Lloyd George and Churchill He inherited a party which had almost lost its radical wing, Robert Lloyd-George: David & Winston: How a Friendship leaving behind a group of anti- Changed History (John Murray, 2005) socialist libertarians. He shifted it rapidly from economic towards Reviewed by Dr J. Graham Jones social liberalism, writing exten- sively himself and drawing on the expertise of some of the best n a comparison of Lloyd the premiership in May 1940 academics in Britain. His themes George and Churchill, it has (though the important role of of active citizenship, community, Ibeen said that Churchill was Liberal MP Clem Davies at this wider distribution of wealth ‘He was the greater man, but that Lloyd juncture in not recorded at all). and power, and constitutional George was more fun. This We are, however, all too regularly reform, still resonate for Liberal spared fascinating book, thoroughly given lengthy quotations from Democrats; so do his doubts researched and exquisitely writ- the source materials which the on national sovereignty and entangle- ten by Lloyd George’s great- author used in his research. On independent defence (and on grandson, tends to confirm this occasion these are over-long, independent deterrence). Paddy ment in opinion. The author, Robert given that many are taken from Ashdown’s comment, when set- the grubby Lloyd-George, is the son of printed volumes which are ting out on a new cycle of reflec- the present (third) Earl Lloyd- within easy reach of most read- tive policy-making after the 1987 realities of George of Dwyfor. It takes as ers. The most glaring example election and party merger, that its main theme Lloyd George’s is Churchill’s tribute to Lloyd ‘we have been living too long power poli- influence on Churchill’s politi- George in the House of Com- off the intellectual capital of the cal career and, to some extent, mons on 28 March 1945, printed Grimond era’ (p. 210), recognised tics – reali- personal and family life. The on pp. 241–46. If it was consid- how much Jo had shaped the ties that author has read widely and ered necessary to reproduce this Liberal approach over the previ- thoughtfully through a rich at such length in the book, it ous thirty years. he would array of secondary, and some might well have been relegated In his later years, Jo grew primary, source materials, and to an appendix. increasingly gloomy about the have found has skilfully woven his findings The author’s writing style is possibility of striking a stable bal- into a lucid and compelling read. unfailingly succinct and lucid, a ance between autonomous local uncomfort- Although Mr Lloyd-George is real joy to read. This is immedi- communities, enterprise, and able if not not a professional historian, his ately apparent in the description an active state. As the 1974-79 understanding of the intricacies of Lloyd George at the begin- Labour government gave in to demean- of twentieth century political ning of the book: public sector unions, Jo flirted history is impressive. with the Institute of Economic ing … to Almost all the points at which Though only five foot six-and- Affairs, which had been founded the careers of the two politi- a-half inches tall, he had a pow- by economic liberals who left remain cians interact are thoughtfully erful frame and a deep chest. He the party as he had taken control. a man of covered in this comprehensive wore a magnificent moustache But he opposed Mrs Thatcher volume. Political history and and his carefully tended wavy both for her nationalism and her integrity, personal detail are dextrously hair was rather longer than was political illiberalism. There were, brought together within the the custom of the time. He had Barberis, accepts, many ‘loose so giving book. There is new, fascinating a large and distinctive head, a ends’ in his political philosophy. material on the 1913 Marconi broad forehead and striking But Liberals have to live with the politics crisis, the drift towards the out- greyish-blue eyes which spar- tension among the principles to a good break of the First World War, kled with humour one moment which they are committed; and and Lloyd George’s central role and flashed with anger the next. Grimond, this book argues, was name.’ in propelling Churchill towards (pp. 3–4).

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Liberals in 1906 (p. 36), and it Mr Lloyd George should note is unclear why Baldwin and that Frances Stevenson was born Chamberlain are described as in 1888 (not 1890), and that A. J. merely ‘nominal leaders of the Sylvester lived from 1889 until Conservative Party’ (p. 29). There 1989 (not 1885 until 1984). is some misunderstanding of the Perhaps the greatest weakness use and application of the infa- of the scholarly apparatus is the mous Lloyd George Fund in the rather inadequate notes printed 1920s (p. 192), and few historians on pp. 270–84. They are confined would agree that, had Lloyd simply to identifying the direct George remained in good health, quotations used in the book, and he ‘would have dominated the yet even these are highly selective National Government’ formed and many are incomplete, failing in August 1931. The undying to give the full call numbers of enmity of both Baldwin and the relevant documents. Many MacDonald would surely have important quotations in the text relegated ‘the Goat’ to the side- still remain unidentified. The lines of political life at this junc- reader would undoubtedly have ture. Is it really true to claim that been much better served by con- Lloyd George ‘hated writing let- ventional scholarly footnotes or ters’ (p. 151)? He always seemed endnotes. to relish writing regularly both Yet, given the huge number to his wife Dame Margaret and of biographies of both Lloyd his younger brother William. George and Churchill and the One surprising omission is spate of more specialised stud- the lack of any reference to the ies of certain aspects of their award of an earldom to Lloyd careers, Robert Lloyd-George George in January 1945. In the has still succeeded in producing LG’s predecessor as Prime Minis- previous November, at Church- a thoroughly worthwhile book, a ter, Herbert Asquith, ‘would have ill’s personal instigation, a Royal stimulating read for professional made a superb judge and was a Marines courier had arrived historians and interested laymen great peacetime prime minister. at LG’s North Wales home Ty alike, abounding with informa- By now [1916], however, it was Newydd, Llanystumdwy, bearing tion and fresh perspectives. It is clear that he lacked the dynamic the offer of an earldom from the certain to arouse great interest. energy and dedication required Prime Minister to a terminally ill in a war leader’ (p. 129). Lloyd George, who was by then Dr J. Graham Jones is Senior Archi- The volume is superbly wracked with cancer. The ‘Cast vist and Head of the Welsh Political illustrated with a wealth of car- of Main Characters’ printed on Archive at the National Library of toons taken from contemporary pp. 249–63 is most helpful, but Wales, Aberystwyth. newspapers and journals such as Punch and the Pall Mall Gazette. There are also a number of fas- cinating photographs, many pre- viously unpublished, taken from A hand-to-mouth man? the family album. All are nota- bly well chosen to reflect the Patrick Jackson: Harcourt and Son: A Political Biography themes in the text and they add of Sir William Harcourt, 1827–1904 (Fairleigh Dickinson much to the appeal and interest of the book. University Press, 2004) Given the amount of ground Reviewed by Martin Pugh covered in a relatively short volume, some factual errors and misjudgements are nigh on ir William Harcourt was ­Healey is perhaps the nearest inevitable. On page 14 there is the kind of politician we modern example. some confusion between Lloyd Srarely see nowadays. He Harcourt was undoubtedly a George’s eldest daughter Mair was intelligent, cultured and major figure in Victorian Liberal- Eluned (born in 1890) and the well-read but also robust and ism; he served as Liberal Leader second daughter Olwen Eliza- aggressive, and in fact a bit of a in the Commons from 1895 to beth (born in 1892). ‘Every seat verbal bully towards colleagues 1898 and effectively led the party in Wales’ did not fall to the and opponents alike. Denis there during several periods

50 Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 REVIEWS when Gladstone was absent and vulgar,’ he protested, ‘almost as more organised working class neglectful of the need for party bad as being a Baronet’. In these in his new seat? He gave every management. From an ideologi- early years Harcourt’s fellow appearance of being a strict cal perspective he can be seen as Liberals in Parliament disliked retrenchment Liberal, following the link between the politics of him so much that they hoped Gladstone’s line in holding down Gladstone and the New Liberal- he would join Disraeli. He cer- expenditure and resisting costly ism of the Asquith–Lloyd George tainly played a major part in policies of imperial expansion era. Harcourt’s papers have been the disintegration that eventu- and reform of the armed forces; available at the Bodleian Library ally resulted in the breakdown and he came unstuck in the 1895 for many years, and those of his of Gladstone’s government in election when he focused too contemporaries are plentiful, 1874. But Harcourt felt happier much on temperance. Contrast to put it mildly. Yet he has been in opposition, though he found this with Derby’s Labour mem- remarkably neglected by histori- Gladstone infuriating – as, of ber after 1906, Jimmy Thomas, ans; the only previous biography course, did almost all the GOM’s whose love of alcohol was legen- was by the Liberal journalist, colleagues. However, although dary. However, we are given little A. G. Gardiner, in 1923.1 he saw the merits of Lord Hart- indication of the interactions Despite this neglect, Harcourt ington as an alternative Liberal between Harcourt and his con- makes a fine subject for a biog- leader, Harcourt became more stituents. Derby gets only a brief raphy both as a person and as a appreciative of Gladstone as the mention in Patrick Jackson’s public figure. Impulsive, conde- one man capable of unifying book, which is focused almost scending, larger-than-life, he was the party; as a result – and rather entirely on high-politics sources. a brilliant public speaker who paradoxically – he stayed loyal The result is that in Harcourt enjoyed attacking his own party to Gladstone when he split the and Son, as in many academic as much as his opponents. He was party over Home Rule in 1886, biographies, the important ques- unable to resist the temptation even though he did not really tions tend to get swamped by to be funny and flippant, and, support the principle of Home the literary tsunami of private as with Churchill, his language Rule. For his part Gladstone rec- correspondence generated by was often over the top. In fact ognised that Harcourt’s energy Victorian politicians. For exam- Harcourt gave the impression and forensic talent fully justified ple, when the author reaches of enjoying the game too much, keeping him in office or on the the crisis over parliamentary hence the accusations of lawyerly front bench, hence his promo- reform in 1866–67 he plunges opportunism that followed him tion to Home Secretary in 1880 into the correspondence without throughout his career. That he and Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining the issues or putting failed to win the premiership on in 1892. Gladstone’s retirement in 1894 It was as the new Home was obviously due to Queen Secretary in 1880 that Harcourt Victoria’s hostility to him, but became a famous victim of the must partly be ascribed to his rule that a minister must vacate inability to curb his tongue and his seat and win re-election on conciliate his colleagues. His civil his appointment. He had elo- servants also found him trying, in quently defended the tradition the manner of a naughty child; if but now found himself obliged they pressed him to read a paper to fight again in the highly mar- he disliked he retaliated by hid- ginal and corrupt borough of ing it behind a bookcase. Oxford. He told the electors it Harcourt’s family were land- was now ‘my duty to consider owners who came over with the question of a cheap and pure William the Conqueror and supply of water for the people of had lived at Stanton Harcourt London … But how am I to do in Oxfordshire for centuries. so when I am kept here by the When his elder brother com- cheap distribution of more or plained that he did not have less beer in Oxford? [Hear, hear the right ideas about the land, and laughter]’.2 Harcourt lost Harcourt tartly replied: ‘You but promptly moved to Derby, ‘a have the land and may leave thoroughly respectable constitu- the ideas to me.’ After getting ency, which is more than can be elected in Oxford in 1868, he said for your last place’, Joseph was promoted to Solicitor Gen- Chamberlain told him. eral in 1873, which meant tak- Was Harcourt at all influ- ing a knighthood. ‘It is horribly enced by the presence of a

Journal of Liberal History 48 Autumn 2005 51 A Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting election 2005 in historical perspective The 2005 election saw the Liberal Democrats win a higher number of seats than at any time since 1923, and, for the second election in a row, gain both votes and seats after a period of Labour government – a historically unprecedented achievement. Yet many had hoped for an even better result, and the election campaign itself saw relatively little movement in the Lib Dem standing in the opinion polls. Does 2005 represent steady progress, or a missed opportunity?

Speakers: John Curtice (Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University), Andrew Russell (Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, Manchester University; author of Neither left nor right? The Liberal Democrats and the electorate), and Chris Rennard (Liberal Democrat Chief Executive). Chair: Tony Little.

8.00pm Sunday 18th September Louis Room, Imperial Hotel, Blackpool

Please note that due to increased conference security, only those with conference photo-badges will be able to attend. For those only wishing to attend fringe meetings, registration is free but is limited to Liberal Democrat party members; and please allow time to register and pick up your badge at the WInter Gardens in Blackpool.

Harcourt into context; for of the ideas of the New ­something in this comment, Conrad Russell the reader who is not already Liberalism.3 But there is lit- but whether it offers a sat- Continued from page 31 familiar with the details it is tle attempt in the book to isfactory perspective on his difficult to make much of the evaluate his thinking or the career remains in doubt. of colleagues, some of them account. evolution of Liberalism in the as young as his students. He This failing becomes seri- late-Victorian period. Instead Martin Pugh was Professor of was particularly supportive of ous in the remarkably brief the author presents the 1894 Modern History at Newcas- women candidates – when treatment of what was surely budget largely in terms of the tle University until 1999 and he died there was much ref- the peak of Harcourt’s career: infighting between Rosebery Research Professor at Liverpool erence to his role during the his famous budget of 1894. and Harcourt, as revealed John Moores University 1999– Brent East by-election, both Despite his orthodox past, in the correspondence. This 2002. His latest book is The his contribution to it and how this had some appearance of approach trivialises a crucial Pankhursts (Allen Lane, 2001). it provided him with a project. a break with Gladstonianism; theme in both Harcourt’s life Sarah Teather tells me that his the GOM certainly didn’t and the development of Lib- 1 A. G. Gardiner, The Life of Sir stories distracted others, and like it. Harcourt adopted eral politics. William Harcourt (London: Con- his practical ineptitude led the stable, 1923). several innovatory policies, It may well be that Har- 2 Daily Telegraph, 3 May 1880, in organisers to create a category including a scheme of gradu- court himself failed to see his Martin Pugh, ‘“Queen Anne is of jobs for ‘idiots or very clever ated death duties that reached innovations in terms of their dead”: The Abolition of Minis- earls’. Conrad was the worst a peak of 6 per cent pay- wider significance. When the terial By-Elections, 1867–1926’, envelope-stuffer in the world. able on estates worth a mil- party lost office in1895 , his Parliamentary History, 21, 2002, How lucky we were to work pp. 351–366. lion pounds. Harcourt also work as Leader in the Com- 3 See H. V. Emy, Liberals, Radi- with him, to learn from him, wanted to introduce a gradu- mons suggested that he had cals and Social Politics 1892–1914 and to be able to remember ated income tax. There is little consistent idea about (Cambridge University Press, him with so much affection. certainly a case for seeing this the direction Liberalism 1973); Bruce K. Murray, The Peo- budget as a crucial step on should be taking. As one col- ple’s Budget 1909–1910 (Oxford, Baroness Sally Hamwee is a Lib- Clarendon Press, 1989). the way to the radical meas- league remarked, Harcourt eral Democrat ODPM spokes- ures implemented by Asquith had ‘always been a hand person in the House of Lords and and Lloyd George after 1906 to mouth man and always is Chair of the London Assembly. and as an early manifestation will be’. There is clearly