Nancy Astor and Neville Chamberlain “People Are Beginning to Feel That Mr

Nancy Astor and Neville Chamberlain “People are beginning to feel that Mr. Chamberlain is not the wisest selector of men. Duds must be got rid of, even if the are one’s dearest friends.” Excerpt from a speech by Nancy Astor, 11 April 1940

(Arthur) Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) was born into a political family in Birmingham. During his formative years he managed a 20,000-acre estate in the Bahamas and worked for a firm of accountants. He became a local Councillor in 1911 and then Lord Mayor in 1915. In 1919, at the age of 50 he became an MP. He was the oldest parliamentary debutant to go on to become a Prime Minister. Chamberlain quickly rose from the backbenches to become Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1923-4. He also held the post of Minister of Health in 1923, 1924-9 and 1931 before becoming Chancellor again. Throughout his parliamentary career he had a long-running feud with David Lloyd George and even said he would immediately retire if they had to work together. Peace in our time He served as British Prime Minister from 1937-1940 and is best known for his policy of appeasement toward Hitler's Germany. Keen to avoid another conflict after living through the First World War, he believed that combat with Germany could be avoided and that dictators like Hitler could be reasonable. He signed the Munich Agreement of 1938 which handed over a region of Czechoslovakia to the Nazis and claimed that he had helped to secure ‘peace in our time’. The start of war In March 1939 Hitler went back on his word and invaded Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain was forced to abandon appeasement and introduce conscription. War was declared on 3 September 1939. He resigned in 1940 and died a few weeks later from bowel cancer. He was succeeded by Winston Churchill who said: “Whatever shall I do without poor Neville? I was relying on him to look after the Home Front for me.” Social issues Chamberlain disliked Nancy for a long time although he did come to regard her with more affection. She initially thought he was gloomy but the reforms he introduced such as the 1937 Factories Act which limited the number of hours worked by women and children, and the 1938 Housing Act which encouraged slum clearance and maintained rent controls focused on issues close to her heart.

The Appeasement Scandal Nancy and Waldorf were firm supporters of Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement, also believing that Hitler did not want war. Sections of the press began to portray them and their friends who gathered at Cliveden as sympathetic to the Nazis, even ‘a second Foreign Office.’ When Nancy spoke at a lunch party for the American and Canadian press about matters that had not been discussed in the House of Commons it became clear that politics were being talked about in detail around the Astor dinner table. Tales began to spread and Nancy, Waldorf and the ‘Cliveden Set’ found themselves in an unwelcome glare of publicity. Government policy was not being influenced from ‘behind closed doors’. However, as Michael Astor states in his book ‘Tribal Feeling’ there was group of people ‘engaged in public life, which normally met at Cliveden or at 4 St James’ Square, whose members shared a common view about the best methods of keeping the peace in Europe.’ In hindsight, appeasement was the wrong approach. Once Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia Nancy began to campaign for Winston Churchill, who had always taken a firm stance against dictators. However well-meant this may have been, the damage to her reputation had already been done.