Art at the National Liberal Club
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REviEWS from this comparatively minor Ultimately, this is a very well- question. By contrast, there is far written and insightful portrait of too little analysis of Stephen’s reac- a minor figure in the orbit of one tion to William’s famously ambigu- of the most remarkable men of the ous and posthumous confession to Victorian age. Stephen emerges as Stephen that he had never ‘been something of an irritating mille- guilty of the act which is known as quetoast, nagging at his father, yet that of infidelity to the marriage unable to act independently, and his bed.’ Nor is it made clear enough treatment of his wife Annie reflects that this ‘declaration’ was only poorly on his character, idolising opened in 1900, two years after the her in his courtship, yet failing to retired statesman’s death, so that defend her against the monumen- John Morley could use it in the tal busybody that was his mother, authorised biography of Gladstone Catherine, once they were mar- (Morley wisely chose to steer clear ried. Remarkably, considering the of the whole matter). unabated flow of scholarship on the Perhaps the text also hurries to four-time prime minister, Aitken’s a finish somewhat, with the last ten biography provides Liberal scholars years of Stephen’s life condensed with a completely original perspec- into a mere fifteen pages. In this tive on Gladstone; one which, in way, Aitken perhaps unwittingly this reviewer’s eyes at least, seems confirms that his importancehad substantially to confirm Clem- lessened once his father had died. ent Attlee’s judgement of William However, as these years included Gladstone as a ‘frightful old prig’, the First World War in which Ste- but which ameliorates it by reveal- phen’s second son, Charlie, was held ing that Gladstone had, after all, in a German P.O.W. camp for three spent his life in the company of and a half years, and his youngest prigs. son, Willie, was killed in the Brit- through his children. Gladstone ish army’s successful advance in Ian Cawood is head of history at New- seems to have wanted to control autumn 1918, it is a pity that more man University, Birmingham and is his children and keep them close to time and reflection could not have a member of the editorial board of the him, a trait that seemed to inten- been spent in reviewing the impact Journal of Liberal History. His latest sify, once he himself lost control of of the global cataclysm on those book is The Liberal Unionist Party his own party in 1886. That event hitherto protected from the harsh- 1886–1912: A History (I.B. Tauris, was largely caused by his appall- ness of everyday life such as Ste- 2012). ing mishandling of his Liberal col- phen Gladstone. leagues and he seems to have taken the feelings of his own family for granted, in much the same way. One has to admire his daughter, Helen, who escaped to Cambridge to become vice-principal of Newn- Art at the National Liberal Club ham College for nineteen years and who was only dragged back to Michael Meadowcroft, A Guide to the Works of Art of the Hawarden to nurse her ageing par- National Liberal Club, London (National Liberal Club, 2012) ents after William’s retirement. Inevitably, given the author’s Reviewed by Eugenio F. Biagini scrupulous concern for the use of primary sources to support all her assertions, there are frustrations. he art collection at the including works by leading Brit- The question of Stephen’s eyesight National Liberal Club ish and Irish artists such as Jack B. (he was blind in one eye and suf- T(NLC) is a great source of Yeats and William Orpen. Given fered restricted vision in the other) pride for its members and a delight the ‘pro-Europe’ tradition of the is given much attention in the for the visitor. This Guide is a gift to party, it is not inappropriate that first chapter, but seems to vanish both, and indeed to anyone inter- for over thirty years the person in once Stephen goes up to Oxford. ested in the history of British Lib- charge of new acquisitions and the Some minor issues, such as Ste- eralism. It is lavishly illustrated and conservation of the existing works phen’s thwarted plan to move away well supported by detailed descrip- was a Dutch citizen, J. E. A. Rey- from his father’s ambit in 1893, are tions of the works displayed, with neke van Stuwe (1876–1962), who explored in rather laborious detail short biographies of the subjects joined the Club in 1908. The author with precious little contextualising, and of the artists who portrayed of this book, Michael Meadow- as the defeat of Gladstone’s second them. croft, a former adviser to emerg- Home Rule Bill in the same year Since its foundation in 1882, the ing democracies as well as a Liberal must surely have been responsible Club acquired a substantial number MP for Leeds West, is himself an for distracting the prime minister of busts, monuments and paintings, example of such an internationalist 50 Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 REviEWS tradition of liberalism. Yet revolutionary hero John constitution (like Hampden). as the watchdog of the people’s the collection is surprisingly Hampden, the eighteenth- The most successful power rights, a force that contributes and exclusively ‘British’: you century Whig leader Charles politicians commemorated in to the governance of the coun- don’t find here any of the many J. Fox, the Victorian Quaker the collection – Gladstone and try by being critical, independ- champions of liberty Brit- John Bright, and, again, Glad- Lloyd George – were them- ent and rooted in the ideals of ish Liberals admired – such as stone, who has inspired several selves either ‘trouble-makers’ civic virtue, rather than in mar- Abraham Lincoln, Giuseppe works of varying artistic value. (in A. J. P. Taylor’s words) or ket forces, national chauvinism Garibaldi or Dadabhai Naoroji A whole room is dedicated to widely regarded as quasi-revo- or pressure-group shibboleths. (of the Indian National Con- women, first among them Lady lutionaries. There is also a bust In other words, the Club’s art gress, the first Asian MP and an Violet Bonham-Carter, in a of Sir Robert Peel: but then collection proclaims that there ardent Gladstonian). It is also portrait which does justice not he too was a trouble-maker of is more to British democracy surprising – and rather sad – only to her stunning beauty but sorts, having nearly destroyed than the obsession with power that the Club does not have a also to her indomitable political the Conservative Party to which defines the party’s more memorial to John Stuart Mill, resolve and visionary approach advance the cause of free trade, successful national competitors voted ‘the greatest Liberal’ in a to politics. ‘the food of the people’, which on either the right or the so- party-member poll a few years It is interesting to reflect was and long remained one of called left. Perhaps this should ago. on what this art collection the most important items on provide food for thought for Many of the paintings are suggests about party iden- the Liberal agenda. the present-day Coalition Lib portraits of leading radicals – tity and self-representation. The message is clear: NLC Dem MPs, as they survey opin- such as William Cobbett, G. J. Even this sanctum sanctorum of members perceived Liberal- ion polls and consider the party Holyoake and Charles Brad- the Liberal establishment cel- ism as ‘conviction politics’ in mood in the run-up to the next laugh – but most of them cel- ebrates not power, but opposi- an exclusive, absorbing and general election. ebrate the party leaders, from tion to power, and its heroes uncompromising way. This W. E. Gladstone to Paddy Ash- are often men and women does not mean that they had Eugenio F. Biagini is Reader in down (there are no portraits, as who never held office or did from the start the vocation of Modern History at Cambridge and yet, of Charles Kennedy, Men- so very briefly, who opposed the ‘party of protest’ – as the a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. zies Campbell and Nick Clegg). power with all their strength media incessantly claim about He has published extensively on the The busts and statues include (like Cobbett), or even died the Lib Dems – but that they history of Liberalism in Britain, the seventeenth-century in the attempt to overturn the defined themselves primarily Ireland and Italy. New from the Liberal Democrat History Group The Dictionary of Liberal Quotations ‘A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.’ (Leonard Bernstein) ‘I am for peace, retrenchment and reform, the watchword of the great Liberal Party thirty years ago.’ (John Bright) ‘Few organisations can debate for three days whether to stage a debate, hold a debate, have a vote and then proceed to have a debate about what they have debated. But that is why the Liberal Democrats hold a special place in the British constitution.’ (Patrick Wintour) Edited by Duncan Brack, with a foreword from Paddy Ashdown. Writers, thinkers, journalists, philosophers and politicians contribute nearly 2,000 quotations, musings, provocations, jibes and diatribes. A completely revised and updated edition of the History Group’s second book (published originally in 1999), this is the essential guide to who said what about Liberals and Liberalism.