Journal of Issue 24 / Autumn 1999 / £4.00 Liberal DemocratHISTORY Clement Davies as Leader Emlyn Hooson Clement Davies An Underestimated Welshman and Politician Geoffrey Sell ‘A Sad Business’ — The Resignation of Clement Davies Harriet Smith The 1988 Leadership Campaign Duncan Brack and Robert Ingham The Dictionary of Liberal Quotations New History Group publication Liberal Democrat History Group Issue 24: Autumn1999 The Journal of 3 Clement Davies Liberal Democrat An Underestimated Welshman and Politician History Emlyn Hooson reviews his life and career. The Journal of Liberal Democrat 14 ‘A Sad Business’ History is published quarterly by the The Resignation of Clement Davies Liberal Democrat History Group. Geoffrey Sell examines the end of Clement Davies’ leadership in 1956. ISSN 1463-6557 18 The 1988 Leadership Campaign Editorial/Correspondence Harriet Smith looks back to the party’s first election. 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Democrat History and other occasional publications. For more information, including details of publications, back issues of the Printed by Kall-Kwik, Journal, tape records of meetings, Mediawatch, Thesiswatch and Research 426 Chiswick High Road, in Progress services, see our web site: www.dbrack.dircon.co.uk/ldhg. London W4 5TF. Hon President: Earl Russell. Chair: Graham Lippiatt. September 1999 2 journal of liberal democrat history 24: autumn 1999 Clement Davies An Underestimated Welshman and Politician Clement Davies led the Liberal Party from 1945 to 1956. Emlyn Hooson reviews his life and career. As I am not an historian, I cannot claim to have view certainly needs modification. In my view, he had always been powerfully identified with investigated the life of the subject-matter of my talk those ‘harmonies and historic continuities’. Also, this evening with that thoroughness which is the whilst it is hard to think of any worthwhile hallmark of the true historian’s skill. However, MP who has not, occasionally, appeared to be erratic, I hope to be able to provide some in- speaking as a politician, lawyer and businessman from sight into why Clement Davies appeared to be a rural Welsh background who was to follow so at times. Clement Davies as the Member of Parliament for The second catalyst came from Lady Byers, the widow of the late Lord Byers, who as Frank Montgomeryshire, and, as someone who happened Byers had been the Liberal Chief Whip from to know him reasonably well from my early twenties to . She wrote to me to say that she until the time of his death in , I feel able to was totally incensed by a sentence in the Daily Telegraph obituary to the late Lord Bonham contribute to the process of reassessing the life and Carter (Mark Bonham Carter). It read: career of this underestimated Welshman. I have also ‘Grimond took over the leadership from the ineffectual Clement Davies’. She was rightly had the advantage of knowing many of his old incensed, for, without Clement Davies, I am friends, both supporters and critics. Indeed, he and convinced that the Liberal Party would not my late father-in-law, Sir George Hamer, despite have survived the latter part of this century. In the course of my lecture, I hope to show some disagreements, were close friends. I was also that Clement Davies was anything but inef- privy to some of the praises and criticisms of him fectual and to point to certain signposts, which by some of his contemporaries and some of his I believe will lead to his being seen in a differ- ent perspective as his life and work are further closest political associates. reviewed in the future. Much light has already been shed on his career by, in particular, the The need for a reappraisal research work of Mr J. Graham Jones of the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, where For me to embark upon a new venture of this the Clement Davies Papers are kept, and of kind required some provocation. The first oc- Mr D. M. Roberts of the University of Wales, curred in a lecture delivered to this very Soci- Bangor. However, a full and considered biog- ety by our distinguished member, Professor raphy of this very remarkable man is long over- Kenneth O. Morgan. During a lecture on a due. There is quite a story to tell. I am not the century of Montgomeryshire Liberalism, he de- man to tell it, but I hope to provide the apéritif. scribed Clement Davies as ‘an erratic Member of Parliament’. He added: ‘Yet, it is a paradox that someone who was for so long a political His career in outline maverick became so powerfully identified with Let me begin by briefly summarising his ca- the harmonies and historic continuities of reer, aspects of which I shall consider in greater Montgomeryshire Liberalism.’ I believed then, detail later. He was born on February and do so even more powerfully now, that this journal of liberal democrat history 24: autumn 1999 3 stant and constructive critic of the war effort. He is particularly famed for his part in the replacement as Prime Minister of Chamberlain by Winston Churchill. From on- wards, he was a Liberal without suf- fix or prefix after he officially re- joined the Liberal Party. I thought I would never quote with approval any saying of the late Sir Henry Morris-Jones, the Liberal National Conservative. However, when Clem had rejoined the Liberal Party, he said ‘Clem decided to rejoin his old love, which of course he had in principle never deserted.’ I believe that to be true and that during his so-called maverick period, he was much less of a political maverick in reality than at first appears. At heart, Clement Davies was always a radical Welsh Lib- eral and he admired Lloyd George enormously as the most effective of and died on March at the became Lord Justice Greer before radical politicians. In he was age of seventy-eight. He came from being elevated as Lord Fairfield, one elected leader of the Liberal Party and the Llanfyllin area of Montgomery- of the Law Lords. Clem, as we all remained so until , when Jo shire, where his father, Alderman knew him, briefly joined the North Grimond succeeded him. Moses Davies, was a small farmer, ag- Wales and Chester Circuit before On the Welsh front, he is particu- ricultural seedsman, valuer, and lo- transferring to the Northern Circuit. larly remembered for a devastating cal auctioneer. Clement was one of However, the area in which he en- report, which he produced just be- the first pupils at the then new local joyed a meteoric rise was in his com- fore the war, on the incidence of tu- County School. From there, he mercial law and admiralty law work berculosis in Wales and its causes. He won an open exhibition to Trinity in London. This was interrupted was also very active in the interna- Hall, Cambridge where he shone as only when he was drafted into the tional sphere — in particular, in the a law student, taking firsts in every- Civil Service for strategic work on movement for world government — thing and he became the top stu- shipping during the war. for which work he was nominated dent of his year. He was pressed to Clement Davies became a KC in and warmly recommended for the take a fellowship — an invitation he , but, in , he left the Bar and Nobel Peace Prize in . declined after he had definitely cho- joined the Board of Lever Brothers sen a practising career at the Bar, as an Executive Director. He re- rather than an academic one. Through mained in that capacity until his res- The Bar other scholarships and exhibitions he ignation in when he was ap- Historians should, I think, look more joined Lincoln’s Inn. In his Bar Fi- pointed as a legal advisor to Unilever closely at his work at the Bar. Its nals in , he took a first in every in a non-executive capacity.