Liberal history news Spring 2015

Obituary: Lord Mackie of Benshie The following eulogy was deliv- was to make proper use of them. he nevertheless described rightly as ered by David Steel at Lord Mack- One of the young striplings was wholly inadequate. ie’s funeral in Kirriemuir Old David Steel and another slightly He was not always gently toler- Parish Church on Thursday 26 Feb- older Russell Johnston. Needless ant. I was with him at a by-election ruary 2015. to say they were a damned nui- when he took our rather shy and One of the noticeable traits of sance at conferences, producing diffident candidate round the farm- George Mackie was his reluctance masses of resolutions of doubtful ers’ mart, after which, as we were to talk about his wartime exploits value … walking back to the by-election in Bomber Command. We of a I had frightful trouble office, the candidate was unwise younger generation wanted to hear with the Borders – they were enough to ask: ‘Mr Mackie, was more of the events which led to his extremely arrogant about candi- the speech I gave last night all remarkable survival and the awards dates. Their specifications fitted right?’ A by now quite exasper- of the DSO and DFC, but the tales only God or Jo Grimond. After ated George turned to him and said had to be coaxed out of him. He turning good people down they ‘the content was fine but when you was never boastful. were determined to have David are speaking I do wish you would It is a huge privilege to be asked Steel who was already in Pent- not hop from one foot to the other to speak here about his role in poli- lands, so I entered into nego- as though you had just shat your tics – for me it is a small labour of tiations with that constituency breeks’. The man’s confidence was love, because I owe my entire polit- association and they eventually not enhanced and he went on to ical career to him. In 1962, when I said no. So we simply removed lose his deposit. had just graduated in law but had David to the Borders and paci- On another occasion he thought no intention of becoming a law- fied Pentlands by having the that three young candidates, Steel, yer, he offered me a one-year post Party Executive pass a vote Johnston and, in Argyll, John Mac- as assistant secretary of the Scottish of censure on Mackie for his kay needed tuition in agriculture Liberal Party at the princely salary authoritarian conduct. and he invited us to spend a day on of £895. Because Alec Douglas- his farm at Benshie, after which he Home, the new Prime Minister, George was, as vice-chairman in reported to the Executive: ‘Steel delayed the election it turned out charge of organisation and later and Johnston were hopeless. Mac- to be two years during which I was chairman of the party, the organis- kay was quite good.’ John Mackay heavily involved in several by-elec- ing genius behind the Scottish par- went on to become an able Con- tion campaigns and in fund-raising. ty’s revival, working closely with servative minister in the Scottish I had already been adopted as Jo Grimond and John Bannerman, Office. prospective candidate for Edin- both charismatic figures but with Despite that justified adverse burgh Pentlands, where our only limited interest in the mechanics of opinion he remained a most loyal realistic prospect was to save my building the party. He organised a personal supporter, and when I was deposit. But the candidate in the research post in the party for Rus- fighting John Pardoe in the first Borders had resigned and this was sell Johnston, enabling him also to ever democratic contest for politi- a seat where Liberals had never be a full-time candidate in Inver- cal party leadership in Britain he been lower than second place and ness, and so in 1964 we swept to wrote in his memoirs: had indeed won the somewhat victory in the three Highland seats, changed seat in 1950. George him- to be followed six months later John Pardoe made the mistake of self had secured a notable second by my by-election in the Borders. alleging that because he was a bit place in South Angus at the previ- George led from the front by win- of a bastard that made him suita- ous election, and Squadron Leader ning Caithness & Sutherland. ble for taking the party through Arthur Purdom, whom he had He was already an acknowl- the difficult period ahead. We appointed as secretary of the party, edged authority on agriculture, had lots of fun and I wrote a famously observed that ‘what this not just in practice but on which he ditty about it: party needs is a few less brilliant had published a policy pamphlet. Pardoe’s crude –but he will fight seconds and a few more mediocre Members enjoyed his gentle spar- Scattering shot to left and right. firsts’. ring with his brother John who Must we – to gather votes in George later wrote as follows in was one of Prime Minister Wil- season an article for Liberal News: son’s agriculture ministers. George Abandon now the use of reason? was also later in the Lords deeply Perhaps young Steel can break A large crop of university stu- involved in the details of the Scot- the deadlock dents, inspired by Jo Grimond, tish devolution proposals during Although, alas, he’s born in had joined the party and my job the Callaghan government which wedlock!

4 Journal of Liberal History 86 Spring 2015 liberal history news

That was typical of the many enter- George Yull many extensive newspaper obituar- man had managed to get himself to taining ditties he wrote, and an Mackie, Baron ies last week: retirement, then voluntarily com- example of the wit with which he Mackie of mitted himself to twenty years always laced his speeches, which Benshie (10 George Mackie was a Liberal hard labour in the recesses of the made him such a popular mem- July 1919 – 17 of the old school, whose values Bodleian, the Public Record Office, ber of both the Commons and the February 2015), of public service and fairness and the British Library. Despite the Lords. Indeed, one story which in 1987 stemmed from his family’s sense fact that most scholars and students he told about failing to get off the of responsibility towards the of Victorian politics had occasion night sleeper at Carlisle was so land they farmed and the people to read and benefit from his work, funny that his colleagues always who worked for them. He was a few actually knew him. insisted that he repeated it at every big man who exuded geniality, Jackson was born on 10 Febru- dinner at which he was speaking. good humour and a sense of duty ary 1929. He was raised in Hud- George was also fortunate in the which he retained to the end. dersfield, won a scholarship to wholehearted support of his two University College Oxford, and successful marriages, first of Lind- in 1949 took a degree in modern say in fundraising and campaign- David Steel (Lord Steel of Aikwood) history. In 1952 he married his ing in the north, and then of Jacqui was MP for Roxburgh, Selkirk & Pee- sixth-form sweetheart, Kathleen in his role in the Assembly of the bles, later Tweeddale, Ettrick & Lau- Roper, a sharp young teacher who Council of Europe and the Inter- derdale, 1965–97, and Leader of the had studied English literature at Parliamentary Union. Judy and I Liberal Party 1976–88. the University of Hull, and who will always be grateful for the help shared his love of books and opera. he gave her campaigning during For anyone else I might say it was a general elections in my constitu- match made in heaven. In any case, ency when I was busy touring the Obituary: Patrick Jackson Patrick and Kate were loving com- country as party leader. It is with regret that I notice the panions through sixty-two years Last year, on my way back from death of Mr Patrick Jackson CB, on of marriage, and were justly proud speaking at a dinner for Malcolm 7 November 2014. It is with pleas- of their children Katharine and Bruce in Aberdeenshire I called in ure that I notice his life. Robert, and the grandchildren and to visit George. On leaving he came Jackson will be familiar to read- great-grandchildren that followed. out of the cottage on two sticks to ers of this journal as the author of I know nothing of Jackson’s see me into my car, and I think we five well-received political studies government work, except that both knew that would be our last of significant but secondary fig- he rose to the position of under- farewell. A colleague has written ures in the history of the Victo- secretary in the Department of to me saying it is the end of an era: rian Liberal Party.1 The fact that he Transport, and that his profession ‘I shall miss his wise counsel and served for many years in the civil enabled him to raise a family in enthusiasm for life’. service was much remarked upon the comfort of suburban Bromley. To conclude, I can do no better in reviews of his first two books. It When I remember him, however, than quote two sentences from the was apparently noteworthy that a I think first of Yorkshire and the

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Victorian facades of Huddersfield. Jackson employed a simple clarity, and thoroughness. Profes- Neither Patrick nor Kate were and consistent method: to read sor Bruce Kinzer’s assessment of believers, but they were certainly all the letters and manuscripts Jackson’s achievement in Morley of products of the Nonconformist of his subject, and every line of Blackburn may stand as a fair repre- culture into which they were born speech recorded in Hansard. He sentation of the ‘professional’ view as England entered into the Great seldom wrote to great themes or his career: Depression. I recall Kate once inferred from slight premises. As expounding on the iron truth of he observed at the beginning of his While no one can (or should) do the childhood mantra, ‘cleanliness work on Hartington, ‘This is essen- for Morley what Morley did for is next to godliness’. The phrase tially a political biography, and it Gladstone, neither should any- undoubtedly bore some Wesleyan will not often be necessary to inter- one feel the need to do for Mor- religious overtones, but to the rupt the political narrative in order ley more than Jackson has now Huddersfield young it admonished to consider Hartington as a private done for him. Not art, perhaps, discipline in the face of the relent- man.’ Recognising the impossi- but the well-wrought work of a less, penetrating dust from the tex- bility of an absolute proscription, proficient practitioner of politi- tile mills that dominated the city. Jackson devoted the introductory cal biography.3 Cleanliness was the necessary first chapter to Hartington’s private step in respectable sanctification. life. ‘Having thus intruded ini- Jackson gladly accepted this as a There must have been days tially upon his privacy’, Jackson laurel. During the last twenty-five when Jackson grew impatient with wrote, ‘we can tell most of the rest years of his life, he worked for the bureaucracy, but he was commit- of the story in what he would have pleasure of the task, and for the ted to the work of government. regarded as a decently impersonal memories of men who had devoted Politically nurtured during the way’ (p. 15). In this most unassum- themselves to the liberal cause Attlee years, he remained pas- ing manner, Jackson rendered, in which had made such a difference sionately committed to the ideals the words of Professor Jonathan in his life. of the welfare state. When I met Parry, ‘an impressive psychologi- Jackson in the late 1990s, ten years cal portrait’, capturing ‘a great deal John Powell is a member of the Editorial after his retirement, he was hap- of Hartington’s personality and Board of the Journal of Liberal His- pily immersed in Victorian Lib- The Liberal ambiguity’. 2 tory and Professor of History at Okla- eral politics. We sat at an outdoor Democrat As someone who came late to homa Baptist University. table at the King’s Arms in Oxford, History Group the profession, Jackson was reticent exchanged copies of our latest was present, about numbering himself among 1 The Last of the Whigs: A Political Biog- books, and unabashedly talked of as usual, at the professional historians of Vic- raphy of Lord Hartington, later Eighth archival discoveries and telling the Liberal torian high politics, and it was in Duke of Devonshire (1994); Education political phrases as if they were lays Democrats’ part for this reason that he refrained Act Forster: A Political Biography of W. in a heroic tale. I looked forward spring from studies of the upper echelons E. Forster (1997); Harcourt and Son: A to my (almost) annual visits with conference in of the Liberal Party. If he never Political Biography of Sir William Har- Patrick, for though he was in his Liverpool in produced a seminal work, how- court (2004) ; Loulou: Selected Extracts late seventies and I in my forties, March. Below, ever, he was there in company with from the Journals of Lewis Harcourt he was as vivacious as a debutante. Liberal Democrat the vast majority of professional (2006); Morley of Blackburn: A Literary I learned a lot from him, and often cabinet ministers historians. In terms of scholarship, and Political Biography of John Morley as not I was doubly rewarded, for in Ed Davey and he produced more academic work (2012), all published by Fairleig Dick- addition to the pleasure of his com- Nick Clegg chat than most and did it in half the inson University Press. pany he would treat me to a meal at to History Group time. His books were uniformly 2 Nineteenth-Century Prose 22 (Fall his beloved Le Deuxieme. chair Tony Little. praised for generosity, balance, 1995): 200.

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3 Canadian Journal of History XLVIII The tapes are an invaluable source Any prospective biographer (Spring/Summer 2013): 146. of Liberal history. should contact me at kettner_ The British Library were [email protected] to progress this interested in taking the tapes but matter. Taped interviews have decided against on financial Peter Whyte Between 1994 and 1997 I con- grounds. I wondered if any mem- ducted over 140 interviews with bers could suggest how I might be Liberals active between 1945 and able to ensue these recordings are Scottish Liberal Party’s 1964 as part of my DPhil research digitised for other researchers to evidence to the Royal (the results of which were later use – perhaps sources of funding I Commission on the published as Coming into Focus: the could gain access to or institutions Constitution transformation of the Liberal Party who may be interested in taking I am anxious to obtain or borrow 1945–64, available for rather a lot the tapes. a copy of the Scottish Liberal Par- of money on Amazon). I spoke Mark Egan ty’s written evidence to the Royal to some of the party’s leading Commission on the Constitution lights, including Jeremy Thorpe, (aka the Crowther–Kilbrandon Arthur Holt, Nancy Seear, George Biography of Rufus Isaacs Commission) of 1969–1973. Mackie and John Foot, but also My interest in Rufus Isaacs began It was published as a SLP book- many local councillors and activ- after finding that he rose to dizzy let in 1970 (?) and included input ists from across the UK. Some heights from relatively humble from our Structure of Govern- were active Liberals before the beginnings. He became first Mar- ment Committee, of which I was war, with one old-timer recalling quess of Reading, having started Convener. electioneering in 1910. Many were as the son of a Spitalfields fruiterer. Anyone who can help please inspired by Jo Grimond to join the Along the way he was Lord Chief contact me at s.waugh.bnchry@ party. Justice, Special Ambassador to the btinternet.com. Around 100 interviews were United States of America, Viceroy Sandy Waugh recorded on tiny cassettes using of India, and Foreign Secretary. a Dictaphone which no longer This inspired me to nominate him works. I transcribed a few but for for the blue plaque which went up Sir Edward Grey most I simply transcribed notes, in Curzon Street, Mayfair, in 1971, I am currently writing a biogra- using my own shorthand (LA for and to have a road named after him phy of Sir Edward Grey, and I am Liberal Association, for example). in Caversham, Reading, in 1994. always keen to discover any letters The tapes now sit in a carrier bag in (He was MP for Reading from 1904 or other documents relating to him my office and I would like to donate to 1912 and is still remembered in that may be in private hands. Alan them to a library or record office the town.) Beith very kindly made two let- which could digitise them and I believe that there has been ters available to me, which some- make them more widely available. no biography on him since Denis how had come his way. Who knows Many of the people I interviewed Judd’s in 1985 and I know that the what is out there? are now dead and most probably present marquess would be pleased Anyone who can help please did not record their memories of to see another book and would contact me at [email protected]. the Liberal Party in any other form. make family papers available. Thomas Otte On This Day … Every day the History Group’s website, Facebook page and Twitter feed carry an item of Liberal history news from the past. Below we reprint three. To see them regularly, look at www.liberalhistory.org.uk or www.facebook.com/LibDemHistoryGroup or follow us at: LibHistoryToday.

March 21 March 1910: The Parliament Bill is introduced in the House of Commons, ultimately establishing the primacy of the Commons over the House of Lords. The bill was a response to the constitutional crisis following the introduction of Lloyd George’s radical 1909 budget, which was rejected by the Conservative-dominated Lords, overturning the convention that the Lords did not interfere with money bills. The crisis was finally resolved when the Parliament Act received Royal Assent in August 1911.

April 3 April 1846: Birth of Robert Threshie Reid, 1st Earl Loreburn, Liberal MP for Hereford 1880–85 and Dumfries Burghs 1886–1905. In the Liberal governments of the 1890s Reid served as Attorney General 1894 and Solicitor General 1894–95. Firmly on the radical wing of the party, Reid supported Campbell-Bannerman in his difficulties with Lord Rosebery and the Liberal Imperialists. When Campbell-Bannerman became Prime Minister he appointed Reid as Lord Chancellor and he continued to serve in that post under Asquith until ill-health forced his resignation in 1912.

May 9 May 1976: Jeremy Thorpe resigns as Liberal leader. Thorpe’s career had been damaged by claims that he had had a love affair with Norman Scott, an acquaintance, in the early 1960s. At that time homosexuality was illegal. Thorpe was charged with conspiracy to murder Scott; he was acquitted in 1979 but not before losing his seat in the general election of that year. Following the hung parliament in the February 1974 election Thorpe declined to enter a coalition with the Conservatives, led by Edward Heath, as he felt Heath would not be able to deliver progress on electoral reform and failing to do so would split the Liberal Party, which had approached 30 per cent in the polls in the lead-up to the election..

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