liberals and the boer war...2014/10/29 · the war’s end the liberals were back in power, hav-ing...

Liberals and the Boer WarLiberals and the Boer WarLiberals and the Boer WarLiberals and the Boer WarLiberals and the Boer WarIain SharpeThe Liberal Party and the South African War 1899–1902The Liberal Party and the South African War 1899–1902The Liberal Party and the South African War 1899–1902The Liberal Party and the South African War 1899–1902The Liberal Party and the South African War 1899–1902

Dr Jacqueline BeaumontThe Liberal Press and the South African WarThe Liberal Press and the South African WarThe Liberal Press and the South African WarThe Liberal Press and the South African WarThe Liberal Press and the South African War

J. Graham JonesThe Peacemonger The Peacemonger The Peacemonger The Peacemonger The Peacemonger David Davies

Meeting reportLiberalism in North AmericaLiberalism in North AmericaLiberalism in North AmericaLiberalism in North AmericaLiberalism in North America

ReviewsD’Arcy, D’Arcy, D’Arcy, D’Arcy, D’Arcy, Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare! Susan Kramer Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, The Future of Politics The Future of Politics The Future of Politics The Future of Politics The Future of Politics Duncan Brack

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Issue 29 / Winter 2000–01 / £4.00Issue 29 / Winter 2000–01 / £4.00Issue 29 / Winter 2000–01 / £4.00Issue 29 / Winter 2000–01 / £4.00Issue 29 / Winter 2000–01 / £4.00

2 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29 Winter 2000–01

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Published by the Liberal Democrat History Group,c/o Flat 9, 6 Hopton Road, London SW16 2EQ

Printed by Kall-Kwik,426 Chiswick High Road, London W4 5TF

December 2000

Issue 29: Winter 2000–01

The Liberal Party and the SouthAfrican War 1899–1902Iain SharpeIain SharpeIain SharpeIain SharpeIain Sharpe describes the crisis in the Liberal Party provoked by the Anglo-Boer War

Hastings in 1900Graem Peters Graem Peters Graem Peters Graem Peters Graem Peters looks at a rare Liberal victory in the ‘khaki election’ of 1900

The Liberal Press and the SouthAfrican WarDr Jacqueline Beaumont Dr Jacqueline Beaumont Dr Jacqueline Beaumont Dr Jacqueline Beaumont Dr Jacqueline Beaumont analyses the role of the media in the politics of the war

Biography: David DaviesThe life and career of the first Baron Davies of Llandinam (1880 –1944), by J.J.J.J.J.Graham JonesGraham JonesGraham JonesGraham JonesGraham Jones

Report: Liberalism in North Americawith Dilys Hill, Terry McDonald and Akaash Maharaj; report by Jen TankardJen TankardJen TankardJen TankardJen Tankard

Letters to the EditorDavid Rebak; Graem Peters; Dr Michael BrockDavid Rebak; Graem Peters; Dr Michael BrockDavid Rebak; Graem Peters; Dr Michael BrockDavid Rebak; Graem Peters; Dr Michael BrockDavid Rebak; Graem Peters; Dr Michael Brock

ReviewsMark D’Arcy & Rory Maclean: Nightmare! The Race to Become London’s Mayor,reviewed by Susan KramerSusan KramerSusan KramerSusan KramerSusan Kramer

Charles Kennedy: The Future of Politics, reviewed by Duncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan Brack

Garry Tregidga: The Liberal Party in South-West Britain since 1918: PoliticalDecline, Dormancy and Rebirth, reviewed by John HoweJohn HoweJohn HoweJohn HoweJohn Howe

G. W. Keeton James: A Liberal Attorney-General, reviewed by Robert InghamRobert InghamRobert InghamRobert InghamRobert Ingham

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Front cover cartoon: ‘So Perplexing!’‘So Perplexing!’‘So Perplexing!’‘So Perplexing!’‘So Perplexing!’

Old Liberal Party: ‘Oh deary me! Which platform shall I take?’

A cartoon representation in Punch of the dilemma facing the Liberal Party during theBoer War (Punch, 1 August 1900).

Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29 Winter 2000–01 3

The South African War of –, com-monly known as the Boer War, brought to a

head long-standing divisions in the Liberal Partyover its attitude to empire and foreign policy andvery nearly led to a permanent split along the linesof the Liberal Unionist secession. The

general election saw the party reach the nadir of theits pre- electoral fortunes, when it suffered anunprecedented second successive landslide defeat.Internal feuding between supporters and opponentsof the war threatened to lead a permanent divisionin the Liberal ranks, along the lines of the LiberalUnionist secession of . Yet, within four years ofthe war’s end the Liberals were back in power, hav-ing themselves won a landslide majority. Paradoxi-cally, although the war led to the Liberal defeat in, its legacy contributed to the victory.

Empire and the Liberal PartyThe divisions in the Liberal Party that the war ac-centuated had their origins in differing views onhow the party should cope with the growing enthu-siasm for empire among the electorate during thes and s. On these issues the party dividedinto three camps. Many Liberals believed the partyshould follow in the footsteps of Cobden, Brightand Gladstone in supporting ‘peace, retrenchmentand reform’. They opposed overseas expansion andentanglements as wrong in themselves and as drainson the exchequer. Many backbench Liberal MPs feltthat it was a fundamental purpose of the party tomaintain what they saw as the ‘Liberal tradition’ of apacific foreign and imperial policy. Some leadingfigures in the party such as Sir William Harcourt

The Liberal Party andThe Liberal Party andThe Liberal Party andThe Liberal Party andThe Liberal Party andthe South African Warthe South African Warthe South African Warthe South African Warthe South African War1899–19021899–19021899–19021899–19021899–1902

Boer WarIain Sharpe Iain Sharpe Iain Sharpe Iain Sharpe Iain Sharpe describes the crisis in the Liberal Party that was

provoked by the Anglo-Boer War.

(leader in the House of Commons from to) and John Morley, Gladstone’s biographer, wereinclined to sympathise with these views. However,some Liberals (dubbed ‘Liberal Imperialists’) be-lieved that a policy of opposition to imperial expan-sion was an electoral albatross for the Liberal Party.Lord Rosebery, Gladstone’s successor as Prime Min-ister, and rising stars such as Sir Edward Grey,R. B. Haldane and H. H. Asquith felt that the partywas in danger of being portrayed as unpatriotic –willing to countenance the dismantling of empireand thus the decline of British power. Roseberywanted the party to shake off the Gladstonianlegacy and positively embrace empire. Although heresigned from the Liberal leadership in , a yearafter his government was defeated in a generalelection, he remained a ‘king over the water’ formany Liberals who sympathised with his views.

The third strand of opinion was represented bySir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal leaderfrom . Campbell-Bannerman belonged to thecentre of the party, describing himself as ‘a Liberaland an imperialist enough for any decent man’. Heand many mainstream Liberals broadly supportedthe Cobden/Gladstone tradition, but saw the needfor the party to be pragmatic. They recognised thathostility to empire was not electorally popular, butequally they rejected the views of the Liberal Impe-rialists who seemed prepared to abandon Liberalprinciples altogether in the cause of electoral expe-diency. Campbell-Bannerman’s views were sharedby a substantial section of the party but, as is oftenthe case when parties suffer debilitating splits, thoseat either extreme were unwilling to unite around acompromise policy for the sake of party unity. Given


the nature of these divisions, an impe-rial war was guaranteed to highlightand widen the faultlines within theLiberal Party.

Britain and South Africa1877–1899The war in South Africa was the culmi-nation of a quarter of a century’s effortsby British governments to establish su-premacy in the region, which was seenas a vital British strategic interest as akey point on the route to India. SouthAfrica consisted of the two Britishcolonies of the Cape and Natal and twoindependent Dutch republics, Transvaaland Orange Free State. In

Disraeli’s government annexed theTransvaal, but after an uprising byTransvaalers and the defeat of a Britisharmy at the battle of Majuba Hill in, the new Liberal government ef-fectively restored its independence un-der British suzerainty. The discovery ofgold in the Transvaal in madematters more pressing as it meant thatthe Transvaal could be in an economi-cally dominant position within SouthAfrica. Over the following decadeBritain tried to force the Transvaal intoaccepting a British-dominated SouthAfrican federation.

At the end of the Cape PrimeMinister, Cecil Rhodes, engineered the‘Jameson Raid’, an invasion of theTransvaal in support of a planned ris-ing by the Uitlanders – British citizensliving in the Transvaal who dominatedthe gold mining industry there. Therising did not take place and the raidended in fiasco with the invading forcebeing captured by Transvaal comman-dos. The embarrassment of the raid’sfailure was compounded by a wide-spread suspicion that the Unionist Co-lonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain,was complicit in its planning. How-ever, when a House of Commons com-mittee of inquiry into the raid made nocriticism of the government the Liberalleader, Sir William Harcourt, whoserved on the committee, was widelyfelt to have let Chamberlain off thehook. Yet, since the inquiry took placeat a time when delicate negotiationswere taking place with the Transvaaland in the middle of Queen Victoria’s

Diamond Jubilee year, Harcourt’s roomfor manoeuvre was constrained by theneed to avoid appearing unpatriotic.The Jameson Raid episode highlightedthe dilemma the Liberals faced in op-posing the government on matters thatappeared to involve Britain’s vital na-tional interests – a dilemma which wasto recur during the war.

To recover Britain’s position afterthe raid, the government appointed SirAlfred Milner as High Commissionerto the Cape Colony in . Milner, acommitted imperialist who describedhimself as a ‘British race patriot’, wasa highly-regarded administrator andhad close links with the Liberal Im-perialists, sharing a Balliol back-ground with Asquith and Grey. Hewas determined to bring matters to ahead and assert British supremacy inSouth Africa. After abortive negotia-tions during the summer of ,Britain despatched troops to SouthAfrica in September and in responsethe Transvaal and the Orange FreeState launched a pre-emptive inva-sion of Natal.

The outbreak of warFrom the start Campbell-Bannermanas Liberal leader tried to resolve theproblem of how to lead an oppositionparty during wartime, without appear-ing unpatriotic. His position was mademore difficult by the fact that Britishterritory had been invaded and, in theearly part of the war, was under enemyoccupation, so opposition to the warwas not a realistic political option.

Campbell-Bannerman pursued a mid-dle course, agreeing to vote suppliesfor the war, but criticising the govern-ment’s aggressive diplomacy in dealingwith the Transvaal. But while manyLiberal MPs could support this posi-tion, there were many on either wingof the party who would not rallyround it.

Splits in the party became apparentalmost immediately after the outbreakof war. An amendment to the Queen’sSpeech in October criticising the gov-ernment’s diplomacy, moved by LiberalMP Philip Stanhope, won the supportof fifty-five Liberal MPs even thoughthe leadership abstained. Liberals who

opposed the war saw it as the party’sduty to follow in the tradition ofGladstone’s – Midlothian cam-paign and defend the rights of small na-tions. However, Liberal MPs who wereinvolved in anti-war agitation weremostly obscure and eccentric back-benchers, while their sympathisers atthe higher levels of the party remainedcircumspect. Thus anti-war Liberalswere unable to impose their policy onthe party leadership. Many Liberal op-ponents of the war became involved innon-party organisations such as theSouth Africa Conciliation Committeeand the more extreme Stop-the-WarCommittee. In February some ofthem set up the League of LiberalsAgainst Militarism and Aggression as apressure group for anti-war Liberals.

Opponents of the war were dubbed‘pro-Boers’ by their opponents, andoften adopted the label themselves as abadge of defiance. In response to thecreation of the League of LiberalsAgainst Militarism and Aggression,Liberal Imperialists founded the Im-perial Liberal Council in the spring of, although the most famous Lib-eral Imperialists such as Rosebery,Asquith, Haldane and Grey held alooffrom the Council as it was inconsistentwith their previously expressed criti-cisms of the factionalism of the pro-Boers. For Liberal Imperialists the waroffered an opportunity to restore theparty’s patriotic credentials by puttingparty differences aside and supportingthe government. In June theImperial Liberal Council scored apropaganda victory when it managedto get thirty-eight Liberal MPs to votewith the government on a pro-Boermotion on the defence estimates,while only thirty Liberal MPs votedfor the motion itself.

The initial months of the war saw aseries of humiliating setbacks for theBritish forces, but from early for-tunes changed. The news of the relief ofthe siege of Mafeking arrived on

May, and led to spontaneous patrioticdemonstrations in major towns andcities and attacks on the homes ofprominent pro-Boers. In Battersea, thefuture cabinet minister John Burns hadhis windows smashed by a jingoisticmob. In June Campbell-Bannerman


gave his support to the principle of an-nexing the two republics, while callingfor a swift granting of self-govern-ment. With the war apparently won, itwas widely expected that the govern-ment would call a general election tocapitalise on the wave of patriotic feel-ing that followed British military suc-cess. On September Parliament wasdissolved and a general election called.

The ‘khaki election’Unionist victory was a foregone con-clusion. By the summer of theLiberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstoneadmitted that the party was not up to

fighting a general election and shortlybefore the dissolution he wrote to hisparty leader ‘I have had some disgustingrebuffs in my appeals for money… adisgusting number of candidates haveskied off ’. The Liberals allowed theUnionists unopposed returns – anall-time high since the ReformAct. In its manifesto, the party tried tosalvage its patriotic reputation by prais-ing the ‘genius’ of Lord Roberts, theCommander in Chief in South Africa,as well as criticising both the diplomacythat had led to the war and the govern-ment’s opportunism in trying to cash inelectorally on military success. TheUnionists attempted to tar all Liberals

with the pro-Boer brush, JosephChamberlain notoriously claiming that‘a vote for the Liberal is a vote for theBoer’. The result was a landslide de-feat for the Liberals – the first timesince before the Reform Act thatthey had lost two general elections in arow. John Auld, in his study of the Lib-eral pro-Boers, has calculated that onaverage pro-Boer candidates performedaround three per cent worse than theaverage Liberal, although mainstreamand imperialist Liberals were not im-mune from the tide flowing in favourof the Unionists.

This election has been dubbed thefirst ‘khaki election’, anticipating that of. However, the view that the elec-tion result demonstrated the elector-ate’s support for war and empire hasbeen challenged, particularly by Rich-ard Price and Henry Pelling. Price hasargued that to the working classes thewar was less important than questionsof social reform and that local issueshad a significant impact on individualresults. But while such factors may havemade a difference in some constituen-cies, it remains the case that the war wasthe dominant issue. The cases cited byPelling and Price only show that therewere a few minor deviations in someconstituencies from the broader elec-toral trend against the Liberals. Untilthe summer of the Liberals hadbeen making steady gains at by-elec-tions, to the extent that they might havehoped to win the next general electionwith a small majority. Their electoralfortunes changed with the outbreak ofwar. Every by-election fought betweenthe outbreak of war in October

and the summer of showed aswing to the Unionists as voters ralliedto the government’s patriotic call.

There can be little doubt, therefore, thatthe war was the decisive factor in theLiberal defeat.

Electoral adversity was not enough tobring the party together. The ImperialLiberal Council continued to schemeagainst the Campbell-Bannerman lead-ership. The election result seemed tojustify its analysis of the Liberal Party’sweaknesses and in October it issued amanifesto that repudiated Campbell-Bannerman and demanded that theparty:

Anti-war meetings frequently ended in violence as a result of the attentions of jingocrowds. (Punch, 4 April 1900)


… distinguish Liberals in whose policywith regard to Imperial questions patri-otic voters may justly repose confi-dence from those whose opinions natu-rally disqualify them from controllingthe action of the Imperial Parliament.

Sir Edward Grey threatened to dis-own Campbell-Bannerman’s leader-ship and even the Chief WhipHerbert Gladstone wobbled, callingon Campbell-Bannerman to supportRosebery and Milner.

However, neither the pro-Boers northe Liberal Imperialists were able toinfluence the party decisively in theirdirection. Neither group wanted tosplit from the party, but each wishedthat their opponents would eitherleave or keep quiet. The Liberal Impe-rialists wanted to see a re-launchedLiberal Party, shed of its unpopularideological baggage – a project thatbears similarities to the re-branding ofthe Labour Party as ‘New Labour’nearly a century later. However, theLiberal Imperialists lacked a Tony Blair– a leader with the determination tofight and win the internal battles thatwould have to take place before theparty could be reformed. Instead theylooked to Rosebery, who continued toremain aloof from politics while tanta-lising his supporters with speeches thathinted at a return. Lacking clear anddecisive leadership, the various LiberalImperialist attempts to win control ofthe party were indecisive andunfocused.

The pro-Boers had their problemstoo, having had their numbers depletedat the general election and experiencingthroughout the war the break-up oftheir meetings by jingoistic crowds.

Famously, in , Lloyd George spokeat an anti-war meeting at BirminghamTown Hall, the heart of Joseph Cham-berlain’s fiefdom, which ended with ariot by a jingoistic crowd. With no fac-tion able to deliver a knockout blow toits opponents, Campbell-Bannermancontinued to lead as best he could.Attacks on him by Liberal Imperial-ists consolidated his support on thecentre and left of the party, But he wascareful to keep lines of communicationopen with the Liberal Imperialists, espe-cially Asquith.

Methods of barbarismIn the summer of there was an-other outbreak of warfare within theparty. This was precipitated by the Lib-eral Imperialists’ lionising of Milnerwhen he returned home on leave inMay. For many Liberals, Milner’s in-transigence was the reason for warbreaking out and for the Boers’ refusalto surrender even when their territoryhad formally been annexed. But theparty leadership had to be sensitiveabout attacking him because Asquith,Grey and Haldane supported him.

The methods used by the BritishArmy to defeat the Boers were stronglyopposed by both pro-Boers and main-stream Liberals. In response to theguerrilla tactics used by the Boer com-mandos, the British army tried to cutoff Boer supplies by rounding up civil-ians and putting them into concentra-tion camps, and by burning Boer farms.The aim was to starve the Boers intosubmission. The death rate in the campswas very high: by the end of the wararound , Boers had died in thecamps – morethan the numberof troops on bothsides killed in thewar.

Emily Hob-house (sister ofthe writer L. T.Hobhouse) vis-ited the camps onbehalf of theSouth AfricanWomen andChildren DistressFund. On her re-turn to Englandin , she at-tempted to publicise her findings,which were very critical of the condi-tions she had witnessed. She metCampbell-Bannerman who agreed tospeak out against the concentrationcamp policies, which he did at a dinneron June, saying:

A phrase often used is that ‘war is war’,but when one comes to ask about itone is told that no war is going on, thatit is not war. When is a war not a war?When it is carried on by methods ofbarbarism in South Africa.

Although Campbell-Bannerman’s de-nunciation of ‘methods of barbarism’has been a source of pride to Liberalsof later eras, at the time it was consid-ered a blunder, even by many of hisown supporters, because it was seen asan attack on British troops. Campbell-Bannerman felt the need to clarify hisremarks, saying ‘I never said a word,which would imply cruelty… on thepart of officers or men in the BritishArmy’. The Liberal Imperialists im-mediately denounced Campbell-Bannerman as he seemed to them tohave joined the Pro-Boer camp.

H. C. G. Matthew has pointed out thatthe crisis over the ‘methods of barbarism’speech was in part based on a misunder-standing. Campbell-Bannerman in-tended to make a specific denunciation ofthe concentration camps. However, theLiberal Imperialists took it as a move todrive them out of the party. As Haldaneput it ‘The party must be rescued fromgetting wholly and uselessly out of rela-tion to the national sense’. EvenAsquith, who had until this point re-mained aloof from the internal dispute,

was highly andpublicly critical ofC a m p b e l l -B a n n e r m a n .Asquith’s LiberalImperialist sup-porters organised adinner for him (astandard methodof the time ofshowing supportfor a politician),which was widelyseen as a directchallenge toC a m p b e l l -Bannerman’s lead-

ership. The conflict in the Liberal Partywas parodied by the Parliamentarysketchwriter Henry Lucy as ‘war to theknife – and fork’.

In the event, the Asquith dinner wasa damp squib. A party meeting at theReform Club ten days earlier resultedin a vote of confidence for Campbell-Bannerman to which the Liberal Impe-rialists assented. In addition, Rosebery,having declined to preside at theAsquith dinner, upstaged his potential

Although Campbell-Bannerman’s

denunciation of ‘methodsof barbarism’ has been a

source of pride toLiberals of later eras, at

the time it wasconsidered a blunder,

because it was seen as anattack on British troops.


ally by speaking at the City LiberalClub on the same day as Asquith’s din-ner in a speech in which he famouslyannounced his intention to ‘plough myfurrow alone’ – an apparent snub toAsquith. Rosebery wanted to see adecisive split in the Liberal Party, butGrey, Asquith and Haldane were un-willing to break away without a com-mitment from Rosebery to make a po-litical comeback. Given the show ofunity at the Reform Club, Asquithcould hardly raise the standard of rebel-lion now and so played down the divi-sions over South Africa, saying ‘I havenever called myself a Liberal Imperialist.The name of Liberal is good enoughfor me’.

In September the breach widenedfurther when Campbell-Bannermanrepudiated the Liberal Imperialist can-didate selected by the local Liberal asso-ciation in the North-East Lanark by-election. He unofficially supported theIndependent Labour Party candidateand the Unionists gained the seat witha split Liberal vote. This increased theLiberal Imperialists’ sense that theywere being driven out of the party.They were losing the battle to controlthe structures of the Liberal Party – inDecember the National Liberal Fed-eration passed a resolution broadly inline with Campbell-Bannerman’s posi-tion on the concentration camps. Itwas becoming clear that the partyleader, rather than the Liberal Imperial-ists, could command the support ofparty organisations at regional and con-stituency level.

Rosebery’s speech atChesterfieldIn order to revive their flagging for-tunes, the Liberal Imperialists neededRosebery who, as an ex-prime minis-ter, had a wider public appeal thanAsquith, Haldane or Grey. Roseberyannounced his intention to address ameeting at Chesterfield on Decem-ber, and the Liberal Imperialists hopedthis would mark his political comeback.Rosebery again demonstrated his flairfor brilliant but enigmatic platformoratory. On the war he appeared con-

ciliatory to both wings of the party. Hedefended Milner and criticised the ex-pression ‘methods of barbarism’ but ac-cepted the National Liberal Federationresolution which criticised the campsand urged the government to makepeace rather than insist on uncondi-tional surrender.

The speech repudiated many of thearguments of the Liberal Imperialists,but they preferred to ignore this as theyhoped that Rosebery was now going toreturn to politics and resume his right-ful position at the head of the LiberalParty. Sir Edward Grey wrote bluntly tohis party leader that ‘… if you &Rosebery work together, I have nomore to say & no new departure tomake; if on the other hand you & hedecide that you cannot co-operate Imust say this: that I go with him’. Tomany Liberals it seemed that the Ches-terfield speech was a peace overture.Herbert Gladstone wrote to Campbell-Bannerman ‘we ought to sink differ-ences… since there is so much that isbroad, generous and wise in what hesays…’.

Campbell-Bannerman, however, hada clearer understanding of Rosebery’sintentions. He had noticed that whileRosebery’s pronouncements on thewar had struck a chord across a widesection of the party, other parts of thespeech made demands that would beless palatable to mainstream Liberals.These included abandoning IrishHome Rule and a adopting a ‘cleanslate’ in domestic policy – that is repu-diating the party’s policy programme,which Rosebery saw as ‘faddist’ andlikely to alienate floating voters.Campbell-Bannerman met Roseberyand confirmed that the latter was notenvisaging a return to Liberal politics.Campbell-Bannerman wrote toC. P. Scott, the editor of the ManchesterGuardian, which had joined in the callsfor reconciliation between Campbell-Bannerman and Rosebery:

there has been no offer of help to theParty – it was to the Country. He willnot join in: even on the war. Therenever has been… any unwillingness onour part for his return: this is absolute.The impediment is that he won’t.

Campbell-Bannerman responded pub-

licly to the Chesterfield speech at ameeting of the London Liberal Federa-tion in January and once again declaredhimself willing to see Rosebery return.In February Rosebery spoke at Liver-pool, reiterating the importance of a‘clean slate’ in domestic policy and ofabandoning Home Rule. Campbell-Bannerman brought matters to a headby pronouncing against Rosebery, say-ing he was asking Liberals to ‘spongeout every article of our creed’.

Rosebery promptly announced hiscomplete separation from Campbell-Bannerman and the Liberal Party. TheLiberal Imperialists set up a new or-ganisation, the Liberal League, withRosebery as president and Asquith andGrey among the vice-presidents. It ap-peared to herald the launch of abreakaway political movement. Butevents took a different course: thepeace of Vereeniging on Maybrought the Boer War to an end andremoved the main source of divisionwithin the Liberal Party.

The aftermath of the war saw a swiftturn of the political tide. Uncomfort-able questions were now asked aboutthe government’s conduct of a war in

The pro-war press portrayed anti-warLiberals as eccentric and unfashionable.Liberals were criticised for having con-ceded self-government to the Transvaalafter the Battle of Majuba in 1881. (Punch,19 September 1900)


which the world’s largest empire hadtaken two-and-a-half years to defeattwo tiny republics. In addition, the warhad highlighted Unionist failings in so-cial policy, with recruitment statisticsshowing a very high number of volun-teers unfit for service. This was embar-rassing to a party that had championedthe cause of empire and an imperialrace. As a recent historian of the Con-servative Party has written:

The Conservative Party’s problems asthe party of empire reached a crisispoint with the Boer War. The militaryweaknesses, administrative incompe-tence and indeed social problemswhich the war has revealed laid theConservatives open to the charge that,as the party of Empire, they had notdone a particularly good job.

The Unionist response to these prob-lems made matters worse for them andhelped to revive the Liberal Party. In, Joseph Chamberlain, attemptingto build on the imperial unity shownby the support of Britain’s dominionsfor the war effort, launched his cam-paign for tariff reform with the aim ofbinding the empire together economi-cally. The Liberal Party united behind adefence of free trade, one of its greatcauses. Asquith, working once again intandem with Campbell-Bannerman,led the campaign in the country againsttariffs. The Unionists split three ways:both free traders and tariff reformersresigned from the government whilethose in the middle tried in vain to finda workable compromise. In addition,the government’s education bill, intro-duced in , angered the Noncon-formist Churches because it proposedstate funding of church schools. LiberalNonconformists, divided over the BoerWar, now united to fight the educationbill. Within a year of the end of the warthe Liberal Party had recorded a steadystream of by-election gains. In , thegovernment’s importation of Chineseindentured labourers to work the minesin the Transvaal enabled the Liberals tomake political capital both on humani-tarian grounds and over the apparentsnub to British labour.

The restoration of unity within theLiberal Party was a remarkably easyprocess. As George L. Bernstein has ar-gued, the war exaggerated the divisions

within the party and factionalising re-inforced them. In fact the Liberal Im-perialists had more in common withtheir fellow Liberals than they did withan imperialist visionary like Milner or,for that matter, with the semi-detachedRosebery. It might be thought there-fore, that the Liberal Imperialists werewrong in their analysis of the LiberalParty’s electoral problems. Yet thiswould be an oversimplification. Despitetheir failure either to win control of theparty or to launch a successful breaka-way group, the Liberal Imperialists hada profound impact on the future of Lib-eralism. The party fought the elec-tion on a platform of not implementingIrish Home Rule during that Parlia-ment, thus avoiding accusations ofwanting to break up the empire and,with Sir Edward Grey as Foreign Secre-tary, it proclaimed support for continu-ity with the Unionists in foreign policy.During the – Liberal Govern-ment the pacifist wing of the party(who had mostly been Pro-Boers) wereable to exert little influence on overseaspolicy. By , therefore, the party hadtaken great strides towards ridding itselfof the image of being unpatriotic and itwas a very different Liberal Party thatwon the general election from theone that lost that of . The war hadtaught the party a lesson.

Iain Sharpe is a member of the LiberalDemocrat History Group and a LiberalDemocrat Councillor in Watford.

1 For an analysis of Liberal opponents of empiresee Porter, Bernard Critics of empire: BritishRadical attitudes to colonialism in Africa 1895–1914 (London, 1968), especially Chapter 3;Price, Richard An Imperial War and the BritishWorking Class (London and Toronto, 1972),Chapter 1 and Koss, Stephen The Pro-Boers:the anatomy of an antiwar movement (Chicagoand London, 1973), ‘Introduction’.

2 Matthew, H C G The Liberal Imperialists: theideas of politics of a post-Gladstonian elite (Ox-ford, 1973)

3 Porter op. cit. p.75.4 Robinson, Ronald and John Gallagher with Alice

Denny Africa and the Victorians: the officialmind of imperialism (London: 1961) p.410 ff.

5 The government was a coalition of Conserva-tives and Liberal Unionists. In accordance withcontemporary usage I have used the word ‘Un-ionist’ to describe the government throughoutthis article.

6 For a detailed study of Harcourt’s handling ofthe aftermath of the Jameson Raid see Butler, J

The Liberal Party and the Jameson Raid (Ox-ford, 1968), especially p.187 ff.

7 Gollin, A M Proconsul in politics: a study of LordMilner in opposition and power (London, 1964)p.129

8 Porter op. cit. p.77.9 Koss op. cit. p.38.10 John Auld ‘The Liberal Pro-Boers’, Journal of

British Studies 14(2) (1975) p.82.11 Koss op. cit. p.xiv.12 Matthew op. cit. p.42.13 Ibid. p.52.14 John Burns diary 19 May 1900, British Library

B.L. Add. MS 46318.15 Wilson, John C-B: a life of Sir Henry Campbell-

Bannerman (London, 1973) p.327.16 Hamer, D. A. Liberal Politics in the Age of

Gladsone and Rosebery (Oxford, 1972) p.298.17 Matthew op. cit. p.54.18 Blanche, M. D. ‘British Society and the War’ in

Peter Warwick (ed.) The South African War:The Anglo–Boer War 1899–1902 (Harlow,1980) p.223.

19 British general election manifestos, 1900-1974Compiled and edited by F. W. S. Craig (London:Macmillan, 1975) pp.4–6.

20 Marsh, Peter T. Joseph Chamberlain: entre-preneur in politics (New Haven and London,1994) p.499.

21 Auld op. cit. p.79.22 Richard Price An Imperial War and the British

Working Class (London and Toronto, 1972);Henry Pelling Popular Politics and Society inLate Victorian Britain (London and Basingstoke,1968) see particularly pp.94–96.

23 Figures taken from Craig, F. W. S. British parlia-mentary election results 1885–1918 (London,1974).

24 Quoted Porter op. cit. p.80.25 Wilson op. cit. p.338.26 Matthew op. cit. p.79ff.27 Koss The Pro-Boers pp.105–126.28 Grigg, John The Young Lloyd George (London,

1973) pp.286–287.29 Wilson op. cit. p.346–4730 Ibid. p.336.31 Spies, S. B. ‘Women and the War’ in Warwick

op. cit. p.170.32 Wilson op. cit. p.349.33 Ibid. p.351.34 Matthew op. cit. pp.64–6535 Koss, Stephen Asquith (London, 1976) pp.54–55.36 Rhodes, James, Robert Rosebery (London,

1963) p.426.37 Koss Asquith p.56.38 Matthew op. cit. pp.74–75.39 Ibid. p.77.40 Wilson op. cit. p.367.41 Matthew op. cit. p.80–81.42 Robbins, Keith Sir Edward Grey: a biography of

Lord Grey of Fallodon (London, 1971) p.98.43 Wilson op. cit. p.371.44 Ibid. p.374.45 Ibid. p.385.46 Searle, G. R. The quest for national efficiency: a

study in British politics and political thought1899–1914 (Oxford, 1973) pp.60–61.

47 Green, E. H. H. The crisis of Conservatism: thepolitics, economics and ideology of the BritishConservative Party, 1880–1914 (London, 1995)p.77

48 Bernstein, George L. Liberalism and Liberal Poli-tics in Edwardian England (Winchester, Mass,1986) pp.31–35.


In the general election of , the Liberals madea few gains across the country, recovering slightly

from the debacle of – but the recovery waslimited as the Unionist government appealed forsupport during the South African war. The fact thatthe constituency of Hastings was one of the gainswas something of a surprise.

The sitting Unionist MP in was WilliamLucas-Shadwell. He was a local man who had beenborn and raised in Fairlight, just outside the town.He was known locally for taking a stand on social is-sues, which endeared him to the working classes.However, at the last minute he chose to stand down,following concerns expressed by the local Con-servatives about his voting record (he had frequentlyvoted with the opposition), and the Unionists had tofind a new candidate. The man they chose was bar-rister and architect Edward Boyle KC, selected justeleven days before polling took place. He lived in theneighbouring constituency at Hurst Green, and thiswas his first contest.

(Boyle was to stand again in the neighbouringseat of Rye three years later, where he was also de-feated. His losses were the only two occasions in thetwentieth century before when either Rye orHastings was lost by the Conservatives. This was notjust a case of bad luck for Boyle. He was reputedlynot the best of platform speakers, and during an agewhen public meetings were a major part of an elec-tion campaign, how good an orator a candidate waswas more important that what he was saying.)

Boyle faired particularly badly in whencompared with the Liberal candidate. In theLiberals put forward thirty-four year-old FreemanFreeman-Thomas. He had played cricket for Sus-sex and Cambridge University and was a local JP.He was imposing in an aristocratic way and cameacross well at his meetings. He was the son-in-lawof Lord Brassey, who had himself been Liberal MPfor Hastings.

In , the main issue of the campaign was, ofcourse, the Boer War. The Liberal Party was knownto be split on the issue. Henry Campbell-Bannerman

and his supporters opposed the war, while LordRosebery and his Liberal Imperialist followers sup-ported the Unionists in their war efforts. Freeman-Thomas was an Imperialist and a follower ofRosebery, and was therefore well placed to appeal tothe views of wavering Unionist voters in Hastings.

Mrs Lucas-Shadwell, wife of the retiring MP,came out openly in opposition to the Conservativesand their candidate and urged voters to supportFreeman-Thomas. He could also call upon influen-tial support in the Liberal Party to help with hiscampaign in Hastings. As well as being a follower ofRosebery, he was also a personal friend. Roseberywas keen that such a friend and supporter should bereturned to the House of Commons, which wouldmake his position in the Liberal Party and the causeof Liberal Imperialism that much stronger. ThusFreeman-Thomas’ campaign was well supported bythe Roseberyites, and in due course helped him winthe seat.

Post-election excuses were made by the Tories;they claimed that the Liberals had intimated that iftheir man won, Lord Brassey would fund the com-pletion of Hastings harbour. The harbour was nevercompleted, and to this day the local fisherman haveto drag their flat-bottomed boats up the beach in-land. Freeman-Thomas sat in the Commons untilhis defeat in , one of only a handful of losses suf-fered by the Liberals in their greatest election land-slide.

Graem Peters is the Liberal Democrat prospective parlia-mentary candidate for Hastings & Rye.

1900 electionThe ‘khaki election’ of 1900 saw the Liberals performing

poorly. Graem Peters Graem Peters Graem Peters Graem Peters Graem Peters examines one seat they gained fromthe Conservatives.

Hastings in 1900Hastings in 1900Hastings in 1900Hastings in 1900Hastings in 1900

Election results, Hastings:Election results, Hastings:Election results, Hastings:Election results, Hastings:Election results, Hastings:

19001900190019001900Freeman-Thomas (Lib) 3,399 51.6%Boyle (Con) 3,191 48.4%

19061906190619061906Du Cros (Con) 4,348 52.5%Freeman-Thomas (Lib) 3,935 47.5%


It is well known that it was the Liberals whofought for and won a free press for this country

by effecting the abolition of the ‘tax on knowl-edge’, an act which was in large measure responsi-ble for the huge proliferation of cheap newspapersfrom the mid s onward. It was Liberal theoriststoo who hoped that this new press would act as aforce for educating the newly enfranchised massesinto a full appreciation of their rights and duties asvoting members within the body politic throughthe fulfilment of its role as ‘the fourth estate’. Therole of the Liberals both in theory and in practicein the development of the press in the second halfof the nineteenth century has long been recognisedas significant. Liberals were prominent in founding,financing and editing new newspapers, both na-tional and provincial.

By the time of the South African War the Brit-ish press, in whose efficacy as the bridge betweengovernors and governed the Liberals believed sofervently, had almost reached its apogee. Alan Leehas reckoned that in London alone in therewere newspapers, mainly local. Throughoutthe provinces there were ,, while Scotlandhad , Wales and Ireland . These figuresinclude all newspapers, but if one considers only theLondon-based national press, with which I shall beprimarily concerned, when war broke out therewere thirteen morning and five evening papers. In, of the thirteen morning papers, only fourclaimed to be Liberal and of the five evening papersthree were Liberal. The four morning papers com-prised The Daily Chronicle, the Daily News, theMorning Leader and, surprisingly, the Daily Tel-egraph. The evening papers were the Star, a sisterpaper to the Morning Leader, the Echo and theWestminster Gazette. I would like to consider thesepapers individually before making some generalcomments about the nature of the Liberal pressduring the war.

The Daily TelegraphThe newspaper which claimed the largest circula-tion before the appearance in of the Daily Mailwas the Daily Telegraph. Founded in , it was apaper intended to have a broader and more popularappeal than the older newspapers. Its foreign newscoverage was said to rival that of The Times and it alsooffered from its early days book reviews, special arti-cles and interviews. Appealing as it did to ‘the manon the knifeboard of the omnibus’ it always offered agood and comprehensive city page for the many citymen who bought it. The paper had been owned bythe Lawson family almost from its foundation. By, Sir Edward, who became Lord Burnham in, had been formally in control since , andinformally for much longer. Although there was aneditor, John Le Sage, Sir Edward was in practiceboth proprietor and editor; he was ‘The Guv’nor’.He vetted and approved the appointment of newstaff and he often decided which leaders were to bewritten and the line to be followed.

When J. L. Garvin became a leader writer on thepaper in the summer of , his appointment hadto be approved by Sir Edward although he owed itto the paper’s chief leader writer and literary editor,W. L. Courtney. Garvin regularly received notesfrom Sir Edward with instructions as to the subjectand line of his leaders. He did not mind this control,for he was politically in accord with Sir Edward, aLiberal Unionist, and had respect for his judgement.Indeed he came to dread the occasions when SirEdward was absent and the editor took charge, oftenaided by Lawson’s eldest son, Harry. During the general election Harry Lawson was standing asa Radical Liberal while his father was, in Garvin’swords, ‘running about to Unionist meetings in thecountry’. As a result leaders were not always as con-sistent and clear cut as Garvin would have liked, asboth members of the family had to be placated. ‘I

The Liberal Press andThe Liberal Press andThe Liberal Press andThe Liberal Press andThe Liberal Press andthe South African Warthe South African Warthe South African Warthe South African Warthe South African War

Boer WarDr Jacqueline BeaumontDr Jacqueline BeaumontDr Jacqueline BeaumontDr Jacqueline BeaumontDr Jacqueline Beaumont considers the importance of the

Liberal press in the politics of the Boer War.


was told to say’, Garvin complained onone occasion, ‘that the Governmentmust be returned by an overwhelmingmajority but that the opposition wereBritons after all’. Garvin’s annoyancewas that of a journalist with strongopinions who had joined a newspaperwhich he believed to be consistent inits views. The Daily Telegraph had alteredpolitically from a paper which sup-ported Gladstone to a Unionist news-paper. Although it billed itself in suchtrade manuals as the Willings Press Guideas a Liberal newspaper, the editorialstaff was Unionist and Conservative toa man – mainly Conservative.

Although the Daily Telegraph had noknown links with any party or govern-ment department, informal links withthe Conservative party did existthrough a member of the editorial staff,E. B. Iwan Muller, a close associate andfriend of Arthur Balfour. Muller hadother contacts both in the Hotel Ceciland in government. As one of themainstays of the Conservative CanningClub at Oxford in the early s, hehad known both Lord Curzon andLord Salisbury’s heir, Lord Cranborne.Curzon had helped to further his careerand remained a friend. In addition, andmost importantly for the paper duringthe war, he was an old friend of Sir Al-fred Milner, the High Commissioner inSouth Africa, whom he had knownsince his school days.

Before the war the paper consist-ently looked to and supported JosephChamberlain. During the war itsstance on the major issues concerningthe conduct of the war was, predict-ably, to criticise the War Office, exposestupid generals and to defend farmburning and the concentration camps,as far as possible. Indeed, as the warprogressed any pretence that thenewspaper had to be Liberal becameincreasingly stretched and by the sum-mer of it was attacking the pro-Boers for giving psychological supportto the Boers with as much vigour asany of the Conservative newspapersand dismissing the evidence about thecamps with as much evasiveness as theMinister for War, St John Brodrick.Indeed, Emily Hobhouse’s report,published on June , was not men-tioned at all.

The Daily NewsThe divisions within the Liberal Partywhich briefly annoyed Garvin duringthe general election had a far more seri-ous effect on the two leading Liberalnewspapers, the Daily News and theDaily Chronicle. The Daily News wasclaimed to be ‘the recognised organ ofthe Liberal party’ by press directories, butby it was not easy to define whatthis meant. Founded in , briefly un-der the editorship of Charles Dickens,and financed by wealthy radical Liberalsto support a programme of reform athome, events abroad in the s ex-posed the divisions within the LiberalParty over Britain’s Imperial role andhad their effect on the Daily News.

E. T. Cook, who was appointed edi-tor in , belonged to the imperialistwing of the party and spoke for it withincreasing vigour as imperial issuescame to dominate the news pages.Cook had close contacts in South Af-rica. Edmund Garrett, editor of theCape Times and a forthright supporterof the High Commissioner, was an oldfriend and colleague from days whenthey were both on the staff of the PallMall Gazette. Garrett was Cape Towncorrespondent for the Daily News untilthe summer of . Cook was also apersonal friend of Milner, whom hehad known from the days when he wasa brilliant undergraduate at New Col-lege, Oxford and Milner a newly ap-pointed fellow.

This was to influence the editorialviews of the Daily News when SouthAfrican affairs became prominent onthe news pages. Cook, like Sir EdwardLawson, followed Chamberlain’s lead inthe months before war broke out. Healso defended Milner vigorously, nota-bly after the publication of his helotdespatch. Cook’s appointment hadbeen unwelcome to many radical Lib-erals, who had always looked upon theDaily News as their voice. Eventually,early in , Lloyd George, by thenone of the Parliamentary leaders of the‘pro-Boers’, arranged for the paper tobe purchased by a syndicate headed bytwo wealthy Liberal businessmen, onthe understanding that the Daily Newswould take a neutral position on thewar and concentrate on important

home issues. Cook was forced to resignand was replaced by Rudi Lehmann,then on the staff of Punch, who himselfresigned after only seven months.

The troubles of the paper contin-ued, reflecting clashes between differ-ent styles of Liberalism and betweenLloyd George and the financial back-ers he had secured. However, al-though in theory the paper was sup-posed to ignore the war, in practice itdid not. The issue of farm burningwhich had in fact gone on ever sinceLord Roberts entered the Free State inthe spring of , was assiduously fol-lowed by the newly radicalised DailyNews and by the end of May itwas plain that the paper had decidedto take up the conduct of the war sys-tematically. No other paper had somuch information about the devasta-tion of farms and crops.

No other paper had such full cover-age of the concentration camps. It wasthe Daily News that carried the first for-mal protest against the policy in a letterfrom Joshua Rowntree and gave thefullest coverage to Emily Hobhouse’sreport. She herself had insisted on giv-ing the text to the Daily News for ex-clusive coverage. The paper printed asummary running to more than a pageand there followed during the next fewweeks many letters expressing concernand horror at the short-sightedness ofthe policy. It is difficult to escape theconclusion that there was more to thisthan moral indignation; it was part of aconcerted plan to pull the Liberal Partytogether behind Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in a radical programme, us-ing a highly emotive issue which couldonly embarrass a Government alreadyfloundering as the war dragged on un-successfully and expensively.

The Daily ChronicleThe Daily Chronicle had had a some-what chequered career in terms of itsvalue to the Liberal Party, since itstarted publication in . This was tocontinue throughout the war. In itsearly days it had little political contentor foreign news, being largely devotedto advertising. During the s it hadtaken a Unionist position on Ireland,only returning wholly to Gladstonian


Liberalism in . In HenryMassingham, who had been the assist-ant editor since , became editor. Atthe time he seemed to be a supporter ofLord Rosebery’s version of Liberalism,a position which he soon abandoned.His second-in-command, Henry Nor-man, remained a Liberal Imperialistwhile Massingham veered increasinglyto the left of the party, more particularlyon foreign issues and imperialism. Thestaff whom he engaged were like-minded. Harold Spender, his Parliamen-tary correspondent, was a Liberal radical;so too were Vaughan Nash, his labourcorrespondent, and Henry Nevinson,war correspondent, leader writer and lit-erary editor. Henry Norman resigned inMay , leaving a clear field forSpender and Nevinson as Massingham’schief assistants.

During the months before warbroke out, the paper became increas-ingly uneasy and critical of Govern-ment policy in South Africa and by thesummer of was voicing all the ar-guments against intervention in theTransvaal and acting as the most impor-tant public sounding board for ‘pro-Boer’ opinions. However, Frank Lloyd,owner of the paper since , did notlike Massingham’s policy on the Trans-vaal, which was affecting turnover, andit was rumoured that Mrs Lloyd disap-

proved of the paper’s attacks on theRev. Hugh Price Hughes, the influen-tial Imperialist editor of the MethodistTimes. Massingham was ordered not toexpress views on South African affairs.This was tantamount to dismissal, forno editor could possibly remain silenton the main issue of the day and onNovember , Massingham dulyresigned.

Thereafter the paper became impec-cably Imperialist on the war. Spenderand Nash both resigned, but Nevinsonstayed on. At the time of the change hewas locked up in Ladysmith during thesiege and it was some weeks before heheard the news. It was a blow, for, as hemourned in his diary, ‘all my influenceis gone’. When he returned to Englandhe found that this was indeed so: thenew editor, J. H. Fisher, whom he cameto detest, allowed him little leeway evenin the choice of books for review. Hetried to move to the Daily News with-out success, but, somewhat ironically,was consoled by the civilised presencein the Chronicle office of E. T. Cook,who was taken on to write leaders forthe paper after leaving the Daily News.

A new paper?The fortunes of these two newspapershorrified many radical Liberals opposedto the war at the time. It seemed tothem that a vital element in the publicdiscussion of Britain’s role in the world,the moral basis of British hegemony,was under threat of being stifled. Forthese two papers represented and wereread by the type of middle-class, edu-cated Liberal who also read The Times.

Most educated Liberals saw asthe year when their Press was totallyemasculated because it had no signifi-cant national voice. When the DailyChronicle changed sides, an attempt wasmade to raise funds for a new Liberalnewspaper to fill the perceived gap inthe market. The prime movers in thescheme, apart from Massingham him-self, were a group of radical Liberals, all‘pro-Boer’, who included VaughanNash, Frederick Mackarness, a radicallawyer prominent in the South AfricanConciliation Committee, Lady Carlisleand her son-in-law, Professor GilbertMurray.

It was hoped that Sir John Brunner,one of the founders of ICI and wellknown for his radicalism and his inter-ests in the press, would finance thescheme, but this was not to be.Massingham estimated that at least£, would be needed to start anew paper. It was never collected; byearly March £, had beenpromised, very little of which was everreceived. In the meantime, the Man-chester Guardian, which had takenMassingham on as its London editorand found space both for VaughanNash and Harold Spender in Man-chester, filled the gap. Copies of thepaper were sent to London and, ac-cording to J. L. Hammond, could bebought in Fleet Street by . in themorning. Hammond’s own weeklypaper, The Speaker, was also regarded byhis friends as to some extent a substi-tute for the Chronicle during the pe-riod between Massingham’s resigna-tion and the acquisition of the DailyNews fourteen months later for theradical cause.

The Morning LeaderBut there were always alternatives tothe Daily News and the Daily Chronicle.There were the two newspapers inwhich Sir John Brunner had a finan-cial interest, the Morning Leader andthe Star. The Morning Leader, foundedin , was by edited by ErnestParke. It is a paper which has beenlargely ignored in press histories.Where they do mention it, it is to dis-miss it as being of little political im-portance. It had, apparently, no con-tacts with the government or leadingpoliticians. H. N. Brailsford, who washappy to write leaders for it in

when the choice of newspapers towork for was severely limited for ‘pro-Boer’ Liberal intellectuals like himself,remarked somewhat patronisingly toGilbert Murray, ‘It is cheap, popularand sometimes vulgar but it is staunchand loyal, has a good circulation and ispreparing to reform itself into as gooda paper as one can expect for ½d’.

The Morning Leader was certainlydifferent from the other Liberal morn-ing papers. Its primary aim, in good tra-ditional Liberal fashion, was to educate

Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908),leader of the Liberal Party 1899–1908


its readership, but it had also adapted tothe new journalism. It was easier toread, having only five columns on apage in place of the six or seven fa-voured by most other morning dailypapers and using a larger font through-out. It was also illustrated, with a dailycartoon and other pictures of currentinterest.

Education on the issues of the daywas provided in its leaders, whichtended to review and criticise thewhole range of editorial opinion onFleet Street. This was supplemented byspecial articles on the subjects of theday, some serious, some frankly satiricaland intended to entertain. It did notaim at the highly educated intellectualelite of the party. Some idea of thosewho did read it is provided by thenewspaper itself. At the end of October, it offered to its readership a cheapnews telegram service. On November the paper reported that the first sub-scriber was ‘a London tradesman – whodesired to post the news in his shopwindow for the benefit of his custom-ers and the public generally’. Duringthe first few days, the paper subse-quently announced:

Not only did tradesmen in remotecountry towns accept the idea initiatedin London and seek to become newspurveyors to their neighbours; instancescame to hand of bands of men engagedin some common employment club-bing together to obtain the service. Inone case the clerks of a big waterworkssent an order, in another soldiers in bar-racks, in a third men working on somelarge engineering job in a remote dis-trict of Wales.

Its readership, judging from its substan-tial letter columns, also included manynonconformist clergymen mainly, butnot exclusively, from London. It seemsto have appealed to women too.

The StarIts sister paper, the Star, was slightly older.Founded in under the legendaryeditorship of T. P. O’Connor, with atalented staff, including Massingham andGeorge Bernard Shaw, it was and re-mained uncompromisingly and consist-ently radical, more so than either theDaily News or the Daily Chronicle. Itaimed to represent and unify the opin-

ions of the different radical movementswhile providing its readership with ex-cellent literary and music criticism. So itsletter pages accommodated Fabians,Trade Unionists and Marxists, while Ri-chard Le Gallienne and George BernardShaw wrote respectively of literature andmusic. It had a pungent style of presenta-tion, including headlines in languageaimed both to attract immediate atten-tion and to proclaim the paper’s stance,which by had become more famil-iar and popularised through the DailyMail than it had been a decade earlier. By O’Connor had long departed andthe editor was Ernest Parke.

The role of the Star was dismissedby Francis Williams as of little impor-tance, particularly in capturing thewidespread attention of the all-impor-tant lower middle class mass reader-ship. But reading its pages one cannotbut be struck by its sharp freshness insupport of a frankly ‘anti-jingo’ policy,or by its combination, in the space of amere four pages, of the essentials of thelatest news, comment upon it, regularcoverage of labour issues and book re-views and theatre criticisms.

Whether or not the Star and theMorning Leader had significant influ-ence, what that was and why theyfoundered are questions which mightbear re-examination. During the warneither ever wavered in their sympa-thies for the Boers; indeed they were sosympathetic that in Milner madesure that their chief apologist for Presi-dent Kruger was publicly exposed as aBoer agent in the pay of the TransvaalGovernment. This was ReginaldStatham, one time editor of a newspa-per in Natal, leader writer for the DailyNews during the first Anglo-Boer war,and the first journalist in England topopularise the theory of a capitalistconspiracy on the Rand aimed againstthe Transvaal Government, financed bythe Randlords, including Cecil Rhodesand operating through a bought Press,soon to be more widely popularised byJ. A. Hobson.

The EchoRadical Liberals were also able to lookto another evening paper, the Echo.Founded in , it was the first half-

penny evening newspaper, which fromthe start was noted for its advanced Lib-eral views. From it was owned byJ. Passmore Edwards, Liberal MP forSalisbury, and well known as thefounder of many public libraries andinstitutions. The Echo was his voice un-til the end of when he sold it, to-gether with the Morning Herald, to theLiberal MP and businessman, ThomasLough, and to John Barker, who waselected MP for Maidstone in .They appointed Sir Hugh GilzeanReid, also a Liberal MP and proprietorof several successful newspapers inScotland and the North of England, asmanager and William Crook as editor.

Crook was an Irishman, son of thefounder of the Methodist College inBelfast. He had himself been a teacherwhen he first came to England, but hadfor many years also been a journalist,writing regularly for Hugh PriceHughes’s Methodist Times under thepseudonym ‘Historicus’. As editor ofthe Echo he continued PassmoreEdwards’s radical Liberalism. When warstarted he soon fell out with PriceHughes, who disliked his ‘pro-Boer’ at-titude, and ceased to write for the Meth-odist Times. At the end of that year hewas also forced to resign as editor of theEcho. The paper was making a loss andhe and his unpopular views on SouthAfrica were blamed. Crook himselfblamed the proprietors for havingpoured too much money into theirother newspaper, the Morning Herald,which had never done well and waseventually sold on and amalgamatedinto the new Daily Express.

Like the Star, the Echo had only fourpages, but it too managed to cram in avast amount of information about newsand current affairs, trade union matters,sport and entertainment. Crook con-tinued to write for it even after heceased to be editor and, of course, laterhe took on the post of chief publicistfor the Liberal Party, but the Echo wasmore non-committal in its coverage ofthe war after Crook resigned.

The Westminster GazetteThe most significant of the eveningpapers was the Westminster Gazette.Like all evening papers it was not pri-


marily a newspaper. Indeed sometimesit hardly bothered with news at all,preferring to use its space for amplecomment combined with articles ofgeneral interest. Founded in onthe initiative of E. T. Cook to replacethe Pall Mall Gazette as an evening pa-per in the Liberal interest (after the lat-ter had been purchased by John JacobAstor and changed its politics), it hadbeen edited by J. A. Spender sinceCook’s departure to edit the DailyNews in . It was owned by SirGeorge Newnes who accepted con-sistent losses during his period ofownership because, under Cook andSpender, it became the most prestig-ious national evening paper of the day.

Spender used his editorial pulpit topreach sweet reason. He approachedany question with a open mind and hewas more prepared to examine it fromseveral angles than any other editor onFleet Street. His leaders were requiredreading for cabinet ministers and mem-bers of the opposition alike even ifthose with strong partisan views, suchas Leonard Courtney’s wife Janet, com-plained that he was a ‘wobbler’. Politi-cally his links were with the LiberalParty and he was in the confidence ofthe party leadership. His links withAsquith at a later date are well known,but he was equally close to Sir Henry

Campbell-Bannerman, elected leaderof the party at the start of , a rela-tionship which developed during theSouth African war.

Campbell-Bannerman seems tohave become acquainted with Spenderthrough his friend and fellow ScottishMP James Bryce. Sir Henry foundSpender an intelligent and sympatheticsupporter to whom he could send ad-vance copies of speeches delivered inScotland, secure in the knowledge thatthey would be properly reported in theWestminster Gazette. The Press Associa-tion, which in Scotland was dominatedby representatives of the Scotsman andthe Glasgow Herald, both papers hostileto Campbell-Bannerman, and the na-tional London-based papers thereforereceived mangled and inadequate re-ports of his Scottish speeches.

During the khaki election of

Spender also provided the Liberalleader with an aide to help him to writespeeches and present himself to thepublic. But despite these close linkswith the Liberal leadership Spendernever provided the uncompromisingsupport which one finds in the DailyChronicle under Massingham or RudiLehmann’s Daily News. Spender did notwant war; he saw no necessity for it.Like his friend Bryce he blamed thenew diplomacy of Chamberlain for anunnecessary war, but once war cameSpender, like many Liberals, saw no op-tion but to bend before the storm, hopeit would all be over soon and preparefor a generous, liberal settlement.

Even after hopes of achieving thiswere dashed, Spender was still tempera-mentally incapable of taking a hard line.For instance, he condemned the con-centration camps but, typically, arguedthat their shortcomings must be the re-sult of mismanagement and not delib-erate policy.

ConclusionsSuch was the national Liberal press atthe time of the South African war. Cer-tain features are striking.

First, it was not a press dominated bygroups and cartels motivated primarilyby profits and circulation figures. Most ofthese papers were small businesses, some

were family businesses. Consequently allwere undercapitalised and had plant andequipment badly in need of modernisa-tion. None of them could hope to com-pete with a new paper like the DailyMail which had invested in the latestequipment which allowed it to reachunprecedented circulation figures.

Secondly it was not a press which putnews first and foremost, like the Ameri-can press of the time, upon which thenew tabloid newspapers, the Daily Mailand the Daily Express, modelled them-selves. Debate and comment in leadersand articles was still regarded as beingof equal importance and, in the case ofevening papers, perhaps even greaterimportance. These two factors wereboth disadvantageous to the wide dis-semination of a Liberal view of the war.

But even more disadvantageous wasthe third point; the lack of any uniformpattern or homogeneity in the Liberalpress, any more than there was in theLiberal Party at that time. At the out-break of war the Liberal section of thenational press had been profoundly af-fected by the various arguments withinthe party and was divided, not over so-cial aims, but over the question of un-ion and, increasingly, over the problemsarising from the existence of the BritishEmpire. From , with the electionof Lord Salisbury’s coalition Govern-ment of Conservatives and Unionistsand the appointment of the formerLiberal, Joseph Chamberlain to the postof Colonial Secretary this latter ques-tion became ever more dominant anddivisive within both party and press.This is reflected in the very variable ap-proach which the different papers tookto the issues raised by the war. The lackof unanimity in the party on most ofthe major issues, remained throughoutthe war a weakness constantly on showin the Liberal press and constantly ex-ploited by its opponents.

Dr Jacqueline Beaumont is a Research Fel-low at Oxford Brookes University. This pa-per is based on her talk to the Liberal Demo-crat History Group meeting on July ,‘Liberalism and the Boer War’.

1 Alan Lee, ‘The Structure, Ownership and Con-trol of the Press, 1855–1914’ in Ed Boyce,

J. A. Spender (1862–1942), editor of theWestminster Gazette 1896–1921


The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. Thedevelopment of political agency as a profession, the role of theelection agent in managing election campaigns during this period,and the changing nature of elections, as increased use was made ofthe press and the platform. Kathryn Rix, Christ's College,Cambridge, CB2 2BU; [email protected].

Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. AndrewGardner, 22 Birdbrook House, Popham Road, Islington, London N18TA; [email protected].

The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). Anyinformation welcome, particularly on his political views (he stood asa Radical). Tim Beaumont, 40 Elms Road, London SW4 9EX.

Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Anyinformation on his election and period as MP; wanted for biographyof his daughter, Winfred Lamb. Dr David Gill,[email protected].

Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Any information welcome, particularly on his links with the Unionof Democratic Control and other opponents of the war (includinghis friend George Raffalovich). Colin Houlding;[email protected]

The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. Study of thepolitical life of this radical MP, hoping to shed light on the questionof why the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the primarypopular representatives of radicalism in the 1920s.Paul Mulvey, 112 Richmond Avenue, London N1 0LS;[email protected].

Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Aims to suggest reasons for defections of individuals and developan understanding of changes in electoral alignment. Sourcesinclude personal papers and newspapers; suggestions about howto get hold of the papers of more obscure Liberal defectorswelcome. Cllr Nick Cott, 1a Henry Street, Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE3 1DQ; [email protected].

Research in ProgressIf 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 2) for inclusion here.

Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Chris Fox,173 Worplesdon Road, Guildford GU2 6XD;[email protected].

Crouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in theCrouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in theCrouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in theCrouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in theCrouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in the1920s and 1930s;1920s and 1930s;1920s and 1930s;1920s and 1930s;1920s and 1930s; especially any details of James Gleeson or PatrickMoir, who are believed to have been Chairmen. Tony Marriott, FlatA, 13 Coleridge Road, Crouch End, London N8 8EH.

The Liberal Party and foreign and defence policy, 1922–88; The Liberal Party and foreign and defence policy, 1922–88; The Liberal Party and foreign and defence policy, 1922–88; The Liberal Party and foreign and defence policy, 1922–88; The Liberal Party and foreign and defence policy, 1922–88; ofparticular interest are the 1920s and 30s, and the possibility ofinterviewing anyone involved in formulating party foreign anddefence policies. Dr R. S. Grayson, 8 Cheltenham Avenue,Twickenham TW1 3HD.

Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Focussing particularly on Liberalanti-appeasers. Michael Kelly, 12 Collinbridge Road, Whitewell,Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim BT36 7SN

The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. Sources,particularly on Sinclair as Air Minister, and on Harcourt Johnstone,Dingle Foot, Lord Sherwood and Sir Geoffrey Maunder (Sinclair'sPPS) particularly welcome. Ian Hunter, 9 Defoe Avenue, Kew,Richmond TW9 4DL; [email protected].

The grassroots organisation of the Liberal Party 1945–64The grassroots organisation of the Liberal Party 1945–64The grassroots organisation of the Liberal Party 1945–64The grassroots organisation of the Liberal Party 1945–64The grassroots organisation of the Liberal Party 1945–64; the roleof local activists in the late 1950s revival of the Liberal Party. MarkEgan, 42 Richmond Road, Gillingham, Kent ME7 1LN.

The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. Dr Peter Barberis, 24Lime Avenue, Flixton, Manchester M41 5DE.

The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; including in particularrelations with the leadership, and between NLYL and ULS. CarriePark, 89 Coombe Lane, Bristol BS9 2AR;[email protected].

The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.Individual constituency papers, and contact with members of theParty’s policy committees and/or the Party Council, particularlywelcome. Ruth Fox, 7 Mulberry Court, Bishop’s Stortford, HertsCM23 3JW.

Curran and Wingate Newspaper History fromthe Seventeenth Century to the Present Day(London 1978), p. 121. See too Alan J. Lee, TheOrigins of the Popular Press 1855–1914 London1980 pp. 274–80 for more detailed tables.

2 For the Daily Telegraph see Lord Burnham ‘Pe-terborough Court: The Story of the Daily Tel-egraph’ (1955).

3 For Garvin and the Daily Telegraph see DavidAyerst ‘Garvin of the Observer’, especiallychapter 2. The quotation is taken from Garvin’sletter to his wife Christina dated 3 Oct 1900. Theletters are owned by Garvin’s grandson, Profes-sor John Ledingham, to whom I am grateful forpermission to quote from them.

4 Stephen Koss, The Rise and Fall of the PoliticalPress in Britain vol 1, London 1981 pp. 362–66for Cook, pp. 397–404 for changes during the

war. Koss’s volume is the chief source of infor-mation for many of the newspapers referred toin this paper. For an account of the Daily Newsduring this period, which may not be entirely re-liable see Archibald Marshall Out and About .Random Reminiscences pp. 85–89. Marshall,who was a friend and admirer of Lehmann, sug-gests that Lehmann was forced out of theeditorship. Gerald Shaw The Garrett Papers,Van Riebeck Society, Second Series, No 15,Cape Town 1984 pp. 1–39.

5 For the Daily Chronicle see Koss op. cit., A.Havighurst, H. W. Massingham, Bodleian Li-brary Ms Eng Misc e 610/6 Journal of H. W.Nevinson Feb 1899 – March 1900.

6 Bodleian Library: Ms Harcourt 32 3.12.1899Letter from John Morley to Harcourt withMassingham’s comment as to cost of a new pa-

per. Bodleian Library: Ms Murray 7 £7 for sub-scribers and figures in the attempt to float a newpaper.

7 See for instance Francis Williams, DangerousEstate London 1957 pp. 134–5.

8 Bodleian Library, Ms Murray 124 11.1.1900 Let-ter from H. N. Brailsford to Gilbert Murray

9 R. F. Statham My Life’s Record: A Fight for Jus-tice. London 1901. Statham regularly wrote let-ters to the Star expressing views sympathetictowards the Transvaal and the Kruger regime inthe months before war broke out.

10 This paragraph is based upon information in let-ters in the Crook papers; Bodleian Library: MsEng Lett d 380. See too Stephen Koss, op. cit.

11 F Wilson Harris, J. A. Spender, London 1946,Koss op. cit. for the Westminster Gazette.


Lord Davies was one who stood for great ideals,for which he was ready to spend his health and

his fortune. He had the imagination of a poet; he sawgreat visions. His deep sincerity, his great generosity,his burning faith made him one of those rare beingswho overcome obstacles and change the course ofhistory.

Viscount Cecil of Chelwood

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, breaths;In feelings, not in figures on a dial.We should count time by heart-throbs. He mostlivesWho thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Tribute of the King Edward VII WelshNational Memorial Association

David Davies, the first Baron Davies of Llandinam,was born on May at Llwynderw, Llandinam,Montgomeryshire, the first child (and only son) ofEdward Davies who three years earlier had marriedhis cousin Mary Jones, the daughter of the Revd.Evan Jones of Trewythen. There were also to be twodaughters of the marriage, Gwendoline Elizabeth(–) and Margaret Sidney (‘Daisy’) (–), who were eventually to become the two fa-mous Davies sisters of Gregynog Hall, Newtown.

Edward had been the only son of the first DavidDavies (–), popularly known as ‘Top Sawyer’,an enormously successful capitalist and philanthro-pist who had amassed a huge personal fortune fromthe collieries, railways and docks of south Wales, andwho had himself served as the Liberal MP for Cardi-gan Boroughs from to . ‘Top Sawyer’ hadbeen highly regarded as the epitome of all that wasbest in the Welsh, nonconformist way of life, and wasdeeply revered in his native Montgomeryshire. MaryDavies had died in , leaving the three infantchildren to be brought up by their maternal auntElizabeth Jones who four years later married herbrother-in-law, thus becoming the second MrsEdward Davies. Edward, who had himself sufferedfrom indifferent health for a number of years, died in, leaving David Davies II, at just eighteen yearsof age, and his two younger sisters as the joint ben-

eficiaries of a cash estate exceeding £,,,more than , acres of land, a substantial share-holding in the Cambrian railways and a controllinginterest in the renowned Ocean Coal Companyand Barry Docks. The young David thus found anarray of industrial responsibilities thrust upon him,but he also enjoyed the unwavering support of hisstepmother who possessed exceptional intelligenceand ability. He also shared the energy, enterpriseand determination of his grandfather.

David Davies was educated at Merchiston Castle,a public school in Edinburgh, where rugby footballwas regarded as vital and where he was dubbed‘% man’, and at King’s College, Cambridge from to , where he graduated in history. AtCambridge he was viewed as an avid nonconformistand teetotaller, and was described as ‘an impetuousWelshman with a great sense of humour and an in-fectious laugh’. Upon graduation Davies went onbig game expeditions to Alaska, Vancouver andWashington, and he owned a ranch in Edmonton,Canada from until . During he alsospent a considerable period in Japan, and was one ofthe few westerners to be a long-term eye-witness ofthe Russo-Japanese conflict.

Upon his return home to Wales, Davies devotedhis energies to improving agricultural practices onthe Llandinam estate, and became one of the mostavid of the founders of the Welsh National Agricul-tural Society. Welsh native breeds of cattle were con-scientiously nurtured at Llandinam, and Davies ishimself credited with saving the Welsh pig from ex-tinction. He also developed a keen interest in foxhunting, diligently building up his own pack of fox-hounds, and acquiring, too, his own pack of beagles.Other pursuits included shooting, rearing pheasantsand entertaining his wide range of friends and ac-quaintances to good sport. In he became chair-man of the Ocean Colliery group, one of the largestemployers of labour in south Wales, with coal minescentred on the Rhondda and Taff Vale area.

In the landslide Liberal victory of the same yearDavid Davies began his active political career whenhe succeeded A. C. Humphreys-Owen, Glansevern,as the Liberal MP for his native Montgomeryshire.

BiographyJ. Graham JonesJ. Graham JonesJ. Graham JonesJ. Graham JonesJ. Graham Jones analyses the life and career of David

Davies, the first Baron Davies of Llandinam (1880 – 1944)

The PeacemongerThe PeacemongerThe PeacemongerThe PeacemongerThe Peacemonger


In many ways he was a very strangechoice. Both his grandfather ‘Top Saw-yer’ and his father Edward had turnedLiberal Unionist back in , and hehimself conspicuously diverged fromthe party line on most political issues:he was flatly opposed to Irish homerule, he tended to favour tariff reformon the lines advocated by JosephChamberlain (perhaps endorsing thetaxation of imported food), he was nota supporter of church disendowment,and had even come out in oppositionto Lloyd George’s campaign against theprovisions of Balfour’s EducationAct. He adhered to the party line onlyover temperance (he remained a teeto-taller), and he was a fervent CalvinisticMethodist. Some MontgomeryshireTories hoped that he might well be ca-joled into joining their ranks.

Indeed in Davies entered parlia-ment unopposed, standing on a highlypersonal, ambivalent political platformwhich combined policies taken fromboth the Liberal and Conservative elec-tion manifestos, apparently having wonover both local parties. He thus enteredthe Commons like some eighteenth-century landowner, at once voicing hisheartfelt distaste for the cut-and-thrustof parliamentary life. Very rarely did heparticipate in Commons debates, and hecould never shed a consciousness of feel-ing ill at ease when speaking in public.Neither did he feel closely bound byparty ties. Generally he preferred to relyon the services of the huge personalstaff which he built up, and he was anx-ious to discourage the formation of alocal party organisation within Mont-gomeryshire. Parliamentary procedureand niceties repelled him.

Within his constituency, however,Davies’ position was totally secure. Onthe eve of the First World War the localConservative press could write of thecounty’s agricultural communities: ‘Inrecent years they have given them-selves over to, not Radicalism by anymeans, but the cult of David Davies-ism. They have nothing in commonwith the Radical-Socialism whichnowadays masquerades under thename of Liberalism’. During his earlyyears in the Commons Davies had cer-tainly gone his own way; he had votedagainst the land clauses of Lloyd

George’s ‘People’s Budget’ of , andin he pronounced publiclyagainst Irish home rule.

The impact of warDavid Davies’ life, like that of so manyof his contemporaries, was transformedby the outbreak of war in September. He served in the South WalesBorderers and the Royal Welsh Fusi-liers, and by November he had attainedthe rank of lieutenant-colonel and waschannelling his prodigious energiesinto the raising of a new battalion – theth RWF Caernarvon and Anglesey.Although military life was completelynew to him, his fertile imagination wastotally captured by the necessity for rig-orous military training, and he readilyexpended his own personal resources inpurchasing field telephones, a supply ofbicycles and other equipment, whilealso making available his own huntersfor use as chargers.

His own unit, subjected to anuniquely vigorous training in Snow-donia, reached the western front in De-cember , and spent the first fivemonths in the trenches around Laventie,Festubert and Givenchy. Davies’ im-petuosity as a commanding officer soonbecame proverbial, as did his propensityfor experiments with unconventionalweapons and for schemes to lure theenemy troops out of their trenches. Buthe developed a profound distaste forthe squalor and filth of trench warfareand the massive loss of life which hadalready taken place. While on leavefrom his battalion during January

he spoke freely in the House of Com-mons, pleading for changes in recruit-ing methods and in the production ofmunitions.

In June he was suddenly recalled toEngland and was appointed parlia-mentary private secretary to DavidLloyd George on his becoming Sec-retary of State for War. One of the fu-ture prime minister’s biographers hasdescribed Davies as ‘a talkative,wealthy and light-hearted youngWelshman in whose friendship andgossip he [Lloyd George] took muchdelight at this time’.

During the successive criticalmonths Davies played a key role in

keeping Lloyd George informed of themood of the rank and file of the Parlia-mentary Liberal Party by keeping hisear to the ground in the smokingrooms and lobbies of the House ofCommons and the clubs of Westmin-ster. At this point the personal rapportbetween the two men was evidentlyvery close; in November Davies was re-sponsible for purchasing and furnishinga flat in St James’s Court for his ally. Healso made persistent overtures concern-ing the purchase of the Westminster Ga-zette ‘in the Government interest’.

During these fateful months, too, hemade soundings of his Liberal parlia-mentary colleagues to discover theirfeelings towards a possible LloydGeorge premiership, and during thecrucial first week of December it wasDavies, together with Dr ChristopherAddison and F. G. Kellaway, who wasprimarily responsible for motivatingsupport for Lloyd George. When hisally duly became prime minister andformed his renowned ‘Garden Suburb’,Davies received his reward, becomingone of his inner circle of trusted advis-ers and given a special responsibility forthe drink trade and its possible statepurchase. He was also responsible for li-aison between the War Office and the‘Garden Suburb’, and he visitedPetrograd as a member of Lord Milner’sdelegation for the only Allied confer-ence to be convened in Russia. Sensingat first hand the imminent collapse ofthe Czarist regime, he hastened to keepLloyd George informed of develop-ments in Russia.

Thereafter, however, the warm rap-port between the two men rapidlycrumbled. Davies’ self-image as a ‘self-appointed candid friend’ soon antago-nised both the prime minister andsome of his closest associates. He wassoon reduced to self-parody as ‘a harm-less sort of lunatic – always grousingand criticising’. In his lengthy epistlesto Lloyd George, Davies engaged invirulent criticism of many of their par-liamentary colleagues, the general con-duct of the allied war effort, the failureof the allies to render greater assistanceto Serbia, and finally the government’sdecision to permit a . per cent in-crease in the brewing of beer. Thecrunch came in June when it was


announced that Lord Northcliffe ratherthan Balfour had been appointed thehead of a high-powered mission to theUnited States to precipitate Americanentry into the war. Davies was unre-strained in his criticism:

..My dear Chief,

I have seen various people of all coloursthis week and the impression left on mymind is that the Govnt. stock and yoursin particular, is tumbling down. TheReform [Club] is seething with discon-tent, and even the Tories are beginningto ask questions. …

It’s no good, my dear Chief, you can’tgo on fooling the people indefinitely.They take you at your word – if youplay them false they will send you toCoventry with Winston. They thoughtyou were a man of his word, who wouldnot tolerate delay, who would make aclean sweep of incompetents – minis-ters or soldiers. They thought you wereout to win the war for the vindicationof the principles we are fighting for.Making the fullest allowances for all thetremendous difficulties which have be-set your path, have you employed thebest means of fulfilling these expecta-tions – have you run the straightcourse? Have you set your teeth anddone what was obviously the rightthing – regardless of other considera-tions? This was the one course whichcould bring you success and victory inthe long run. The moral factor is theonly one which counts in the end, andthat is why so many brilliant peoplecome to grief. …

You can call me anything you like mydear Chief – it’s damned unpleasant –but it is the truth.

Yrs.Dafydd bob man

By return of post came Lloyd George’sdevastating response:

June, My dear Davies,

I regret having to tell you that there isa concerted attack to be made uponme for what is called ‘sheltering’ in asoft job a young officer of military ageand fitness. I am told that the attack isassociated with the efforts made to re-inforce the Army by re-examining therejects. It is urged that it is a scandal toforce men of doubtful fitness into thefighting line when others whosephysical efficiency is beyond questionare shirking under powerful protec-tion. I hear that Welsh parents – Northand South – are highly indignant and

do not scruple to suggest that yourwealth is your shield. I know that youare not responsible, but they blame me,and as I know that you are anxious notto add to my difficulties in the terribletask entrusted to me, I am sure youwill agree that I am taking the straightcourse intimating to the Committeeset up to re-examine men in the pub-lic service that in my judgement youcan render better service to yourcountry as a soldier than in yourpresent capacity.

I have put this quite bluntly to you, as Ihave always found you preferred plainspeaking, however disagreeable. Myonly apology is for having withheldfrom you so long rumours which weredetrimental to your patriotism andcourage, both of which I know to bebeyond reproach.

Ever sincerely, DLlG

The attack was blatantly unfair, forDavies had commanded his battalion ofthe Royal Welsh Fusiliers in Francewith bravery and distinction. His dis-missal from the Cabinet Secretariat atthis point heralded a permanent riftwith the Prime Minister, an irrevocableparting of the ways. It was Davies’ sub-sequent ambition to return to com-mand a battalion in France, but he soonfound his ambitions thwarted, probablyby Lloyd George.

The cause of world peaceIt was then his lot to make use of hisparliamentary platform to press for animproved conduct of the Allied war ef-fort and for some consideration of thepressing issues which would inevitablyaccompany the peace. He became al-most totally divorced from party poli-tics and began to interest himself in theidea of a League of Nations to excludethe possibility of a similar world con-flict in future. As he mulled over in hismind his terrible experiences on thewestern front, he became convincedthat another world war must be out-lawed. Thereafter he spoke regularly inthe Commons on the necessity to es-tablish a League of Free Nations.

Davies was one of those who pro-moted a national conference held atLlandrindod in June to discuss ameasure of devolution for Wales. Inevi-tably perhaps, it soon became a notably

damp squib. In , together with histwo sisters, he endowed the WilsonChair of International Politics at theUniversity College of Wales, Aberyst-wyth (the first chair of its kind at anyBritish university), dedicated to thememory of those students who hadperished in the conflict, to foster thestudy of the inter-related problems oflaw and politics, ethics and economics,raised by the project of the League ofNations. The first holder of the newchair was the eminent political scientistSir Alfred Zimmern who soon distin-guished himself in the position. Hiseventual successors included prominenthistorian Charles Webster and E. H.Carr, an outstanding authority on in-ternational relations, notably on the af-fairs of Soviet Russia.

The League of Nations Union dulycame into being on October

shortly before the signing of the Armi-stice with a founder membership of,. Sir Edward Grey was its firstpresident, distinguished Oxford classi-cist Gilbert Murray was chairman, andDavies was vice-chairman. All threewere prominent and respected Liberals.In David Davies was one of theprimary instigators of the formation ofthe International Federation of theLeague of Nations Societies, and in he was one of the founders of theWelsh National Council of the Leagueof Nations Union to which he donatedthe princely sum of £, to estab-lish an endowment fund. It soonproved a most flourishing body inWelsh life. Thereafter Davies journeyedto the USA in pursuit of co-operationwith American peace societies.

This impassioned quest for interna-tional peace extended to a number ofambitious initiatives. It was even pro-posed, following the death of LordNorthcliffe in , that David Daviesmight purchase The Times newspaperfor £,,. He responded charac-teristically positively, calculating that acontrolling interest might be pur-chased for £,; he himself was toput up £,, and his two sistersthe residue. The venture was to bewholly philanthropic with all profitsdonated to charity. It was even sug-gested that former prime ministerDavid Lloyd George, recently ousted


from power, might serve as editor (ascenario unique in the history ofBritish journalism). But the bizarreproposal soon became a damp squib.Another ultimately abortive proposalwas that a national ‘Temple of Peace’might be built on the site of Devon-shire House, Piccadilly.

Throughout the s David Daviesdevoted himself above all else to thecause of world peace, making use of theWelsh Council of the League of Na-tions Union to exert pressure on theLeague of Nations to adopt a more ag-gressive policy. He spared no effort tosecure the return of the USA to theLeague. A succession of conferences oninternational education was held atGregynog Hall and was attended bymany distinguished foreign education-alists. In Davies regarded as a per-sonal coup the admission of Germanyas a Council Member of the League ofNations at the AGM of the Federationof League of Nations Societies whichhe insisted should be held at Aberyst-wyth rather than Dresden. It was he

who personally paid the expenses ofmore than delegates from twenty-two countries.

For the common goodAn array of other interests and activitiesfilled his every waking hour. Davies andhis two sisters were the primary found-ers in September of the KingEdward VII Welsh National MemorialAssociation (the ‘WNMA’) set up tocombat the scourge of the ‘white peril’– tuberculosis – which was so rampantin Wales at the beginning of the twenti-eth century. He himself became the As-sociation’s first chairman, and he alsochaired its finance committee. Of the£, collected during the first yearof its existence, the Davies family per-sonally donated no less than £,.By the eve of the first world war the As-sociation owned eighty-seven hospitalbeds, sanatorium beds, while almost, patients had been examined dur-ing the course of alone. Its activi-ties expanded rapidly throughout the

war years so that by , when ,

patients were examined, there were

hospital beds and sanatorium beds.Upon discovering that the WNMA wasinadequately equipped for research,Davies and his two sisters shoulderedsingle-handed for many years the totalcost of maintaining a laboratory andpaying the salary of a specialist bacteri-ologist.

They, too, in were responsiblefor endowing a Chair of TuberculosisResearch at the Welsh National SchoolMedicine to which they donated£,. When Davies died in hiswork in establishing the WNMA wasrightly applauded as ‘the most out-standing of his manifold activities onbehalf of the people of Wales’. At thesame time journalist David Raymondpointed to the ‘unsolved paradox’ ofDavies’ life and career: ‘He was a richcoal owner. It was a position he inher-ited. Most of his life-work was devotedto curing the ills partly created by thevery industry from which he drew hisincome’.

David Davies was well aware that theappalling death rate from tuberculosisin many Welsh counties, his nativeMontgomeryshire included, was largelythe consequence of poverty, poor hous-ing and living conditions, malnutritionand an ignorance of basic dietary andhygiene requirements. Consequentlyhe set about devising schemes to im-prove housing conditions, initiallywithin the Montgomeryshire towns ofLlanidloes, Machynlleth and Newtown.In he and his sisters had set up theWelsh Town Planning and HousingTrust charged to design model townsand villages where housing would bemonitored, and facilities for amenityand recreation made available. This pro-gressive scheme, following swift uponthe heels of the passage of the

Town Planning Act, first came to frui-tion at Wrexham where a housing es-tate of houses was built between and . Similar enterprises fol-lowed at Barry (with a family holidaycentre attached) and at Rhiwbina nearCardiff. Davies was also instrumental indevising a scheme whereby the GreatWestern Railway Company assumedresponsibility for building and lettinghouses to its employees.

David Davies, first baron Davies of Llandinam (1880–1944)


Parallel with David Davies’ work onbehalf of health care and housing inWales must be considered the enor-mous contribution which he made tothe educational development of theprincipality. His grandfather, ‘Top Saw-yer’, had generously supported thefoundation and early development (to) of the University College ofWales at Aberystwyth. His fatherEdward had served as the college’s in-defatigable joint treasurer from

until his death in .Shortly after his graduation from

Cambridge in , Davies, his step-mother and his two sisters all began totake an avid interest in the fortunes of‘the college by the sea’. In that year allfour donated £, to build theEdward Davies Chemical Laboratoryin the town. In he endowed thecollege’s Chair of Colonial History, inthe same year accepting the vice-presi-dency of the college together with SirJohn Williams Bart, the distinguishedroyal physician. From until hisdeath he served as the President of theCollege, urging the beginning of abuilding programme on the Penglaissite overlooking the town, launchingan appeal fund for £,, and in agreeing to contribute up to£, on a £ for £ basis to a fundestablished by the college’s Old Stu-dents’ Association. This objective wasindeed achieved before Davies’ deathin . Back in he had alsobeen instrumental in ensuring the ap-pointment of the distinguished com-poser (Sir) Walford Davies as Professorof Music at Aberystwyth.

Davies was also a fervent supporterof the National Library of Wales eversince its foundation in , donatingmaterials, pressing for reasonable con-ditions in connection with the grant ofa royal charter, and serving as one of thefirst members of the Library’s Council.In May he was elected its presi-dent, and was re-elected three times tothe same position, personally welcom-ing the King and Queen to the formalopening of the completed librarybuildings in July . His regular con-tributions to the institution’s buildingfund were unfailingly lavish, and he en-sured that the substantial archive of col-liery, railway, shipping and dock records

accumulated by his grandfather ‘TopSawyer’ should be deposited at the Li-brary’s Department of Manuscripts andRecords. In May an impressiveportrait of Davies in oils, the work ofS. Morse Brown, was donated by hisfriends to the Library.

David Davies’ munificence to thesenational institutions was made possibleby the massive income which he con-tinued to receive as chairman of theOcean Coal Company. Yet his concernand generosity extended, too, to thecoalminers employed by the company.He was instrumental during the waryears in persuading his fellow-directorsto inaugurate a voluntary pensionscheme for the staff of the Ocean CoalCompany, and he arranged for theDeep Navigation coalmine to con-struct the first pithead baths in thewhole of Wales (the second in Britain).During a company welfare officerwas appointed and an Ocean Area Rec-reation Union formed which soon ledto local associations in each of the Un-ion’s seven districts. An impressive arrayof initiatives and facilities followed.

Davies’ other business commitments,which he invariably took seriously, in-cluded directorships of the MidlandBank and of the Great Western RailwayCompany. His chairmanship of OceanCoal and of Ocean Coal and Wilsonsvexed him particularly as the severeeconomic depression of the s be-gan to bite. As the mounting crisis inthe coal industry reached crisis pointduring –, Davies was generallyout of action, laid low by major surgerynecessitated by the removal of a duode-nal ulcer. Yet from his sickbed he pro-tested vehemently against the unrelent-ing stand of the representatives of theMining Association of Great Britain intheir evidence before the SamuelCommission set up by Baldwin’s gov-ernment in to investigate thepressing problems facing the Britishcoal industry.

His own outlook in this connectionwas clearly influenced by his campaignfor international peace. Finally com-pelled to make his own representationsdirectly to Sir Herbert Samuel as thecommission’s chairman, he voiced hisheartfelt distaste for the ‘evil spiritwhich appeared to vitiate and befog

every utterance of the coal-owners’.

Appalled by the total lack of concilia-tion apparent in the evidence of thecolliery owners, and convinced that the‘Triple Alliance’ of colliers, railwaymenand transport workers would be calledinto play, Davies urged conciliation. Hewas adamant that the views of the coalowners in relation to the seven-hourworking day in the mines were whollymistaken, and urged recourse to the In-ternational Labour Office to solve thedispute. He believed passionately thatan independent tribunal should be es-tablished to arbitrate the disputes whicharose in the coal trade, but his advancedviews were disregarded as events movedinexorably towards the general strike ofMay and the subsequent longlock-out in the coal industry.

Out of politicsIt was the very same sequence ofevents which led to David Davies’ finalseverance with Lloyd George and hisresignation as the Liberal MP forMontgomeryshire. As already noted,the two men had parted companyback in . In the ‘Coupon’ generalelection of December Davies wasyet again returned unopposed to West-minster, having, it would seem, beenoffered the infamous ‘coupon’ as anindication of favour from the coali-tion government machine and havingpublicly repudiated it, dismissing thegesture as ‘an unsolicited testimonial, Iassure you. I never asked for it… Agreat many people are beginning toprotest against the kind of labellingwhich is going on at present’.

During the lifetime of the post-warcoalition government he rarely ap-peared at Westminster, and, when hedid surface, was generally to be foundin the opposition lobby: ‘I support theCoalition when it proposes measuresbased on Liberal principles’, he wrote.

Describing the coalition as ‘this neworder of shameless opportunists,’ he wasnotably venomous in his personal at-tacks on Lloyd George who, he as-serted, was fully prepared to ‘sacrificenearly all our principles in order thatcertain statesmen might remain in of-fice’. A fervent advocate of reunionbetween the two Liberal camps


(Asquithian and Lloyd Georgeite),Davies was vehemently opposed to thesuggestion that the Coalition Liberalsmight consider ‘fusion’ with BonarLaw’s Conservatives. Parliament, hethundered, had become ‘simply a regis-tering machine for the decrees of theCabinet’, ‘practical government’ havingbecome the preserve ‘of the chosenfew’. Indeed, in his view, the PrimeMinister had ‘well-nigh become an ab-solute dictator’.

He railed consistently against whathe regarded as the government’s exces-sive public expenditure, and was one ofonly three Liberal MPs from Wales tovote against the Temporalities Bill todisendow the Welsh Church. Only overthe Irish settlement of did Daviesapplaud Lloyd George’s achievement –‘He has gone off the rails in the past,but he is on the right track now andhis greatest war achievements havebeen entirely eclipsed in this latest tri-umph’. This sense of admiration andrespect, however, proved notablyshort-lived as Davies returned to as-sailing the Prime Minister as the termof office of the coalition governmentdrew to its close.

In both the general elections of No-vember and December

David Davies was returned to parlia-ment unopposed. Within Mont-gomeryshire, such was his personalpopularity and prestige that he wasconsidered ‘unassailable’, ‘the premierof Wales when the time comes’, andlocal interest focused simply on ‘thebrand of Liberalism Col. Davies willadopt’.

At times he himself doubted whetherhe should continue to sit at Westminster.Fully absorbed by his abiding commit-ment to the work of the League of Na-tions and by an array of philanthropicinitiatives to improve the lot of his fellowWelshmen, on more than one occasionhe asked pointedly, ‘Is it right that Ishould endeavour to represent theCounty in parliament when obviouslyso much of my time has to be devoted toother work?’ His appearances at West-minster were few and fleeting, while hisconstituency engagements had dwin-dled to almost nothing.

No contested parliamentary electionhad taken place in Montgomeryshire

since . Yet the circumstances of the poll – a superficial reunion of thetwo wings of the Liberal Party in de-fence of free trade – appealed greatly toDavies when he addressed electionmeetings in support of a number ofLiberal candidates in Wales. In heeasily repelled the challenge of a pio-neering Socialist aspirant, ArthurDavies. At this juncture it seemed thatDavid Davies might well feel predis-posed to continue as Liberal MP forMontgomeryshire, but events soontook a dramatically different turn.

Davies had always looked askance atLloyd George’s accumulation of a pri-vate ‘Political Fund’, which he hadbuilt up between and , alleg-edly by selling political honours anddistinctions. From the spring of

onwards the former Prime Ministerhad made lavish use of his ‘Fund’ to fi-nance a number of autonomous policycommittees to investigate the eco-nomic ills of the nation and attempt toevolve radical policies for their rem-edy. Their findings were then pub-

lished in a succession of detailed re-ports, among them Coal and Power(), The Land and the Nation (the‘Green Book’) () and Towns andthe Land (the ‘Brown Book’) ().

Of these by far the most contentiouswere the proposals of The Land and theNation which proposed that British ag-riculture might be developed throughthe adoption of a scheme for the statepurchase of agricultural land whichwould then be leased to working farm-ers under strict supervision at fixedrentals. These proposals came close toadvocating the nationalisation of ruralland and immediately enraged manyprominent Liberals. Among them wasDavid Davies who became even moreincensed at the renewed fissure in theranks of the Liberal Party caused by itsreactions to the general strike in May, and who intimated his intentionto resign as MP for Montgomeryshire.Although the original ‘Green Book’proposals were soon substantially modi-fied, and repeated pleas were made toDavies to reconsider, he reiterated his

David Davies and his son, Mike, about 1922


intention to stand down as, in his view,the Liberals had become ‘a party whosepolicy is no longer based on Liberalprinciples, whose Parliamentary leaderis no longer to be trusted, and whoseorganisation is no longer inspired bythe true spirit of Liberalism’.

Again local Liberals begged Daviesto review his position. ‘Personally Idon’t want to stand again as I am sick ofpolitics’, he confided to Sir DonaldMaclean, ‘If the party is going to bebribed by Lloyd George we may as wellshut up shop, at any rate for thepresent’. Richard Jones, the chairmanof the Montgomeryshire Liberals,genuinely feared that the seat might belost to the Conservatives at the nextgeneral election if another Liberal can-didate stood:

I would not like to be a party to the re-jection of so admirable a man. With agreat name – famous traditions – richpersonal qualities – and a good Liberalto boot, he would prove a tower ofstrength in the keen fight that is facingus. The Liberal Party in the countyshould make everything subservient tothe prime consideration of retainingthe seat.

Davies was adamant, and local Liberalswere compelled to choose a new par-liamentary candidate, a process inwhich Davies intervened by attempt-ing to ensure that the nominationwent to his own personal nominee W.Alford Jehu of Llanfair Caereinion. Inthis unworthy objective his ambitionwas thwarted as the choice fell on E.Clement Davies, ‘by an overwhelmingmajority’, and it was he who was dulyelected to parliament on May .David Davies, although chosen presi-dent of the Montgomeryshire Liberals,generally remained conspicuouslyaloof from his successor’s first electioncampaign.

International affairsPredictably, following his retirement asan MP, David Davies devoted much ofhis time to international affairs. Con-vinced that the Covenant of the Leagueof Nations was incapable of preventingthe recurrence of war, he came to advo-cate the setting up of both an impartialtribunal to settle international disputesand an international police force to en-

force its decisions. His proposals, how-ever, were widely rejected out-of-handas visionary and impracticable. Davies’response was to write and publish themassive tome The Problem of the Twenti-eth Century (), an attractive workwith an array of appendices which wasgenerally well received by the critics.Sales, however, were sluggish; mostcopies were despatched as gifts by theauthor. Throughout the domesticeconomy and international relationsrapidly deteriorated, provoking Daviesto declare, ‘We are prepared to die forour country, but God forbid we shouldever be willing to think for it’.

Somewhat dejected by the conductof the League of Nations Union, in David Davies turned to a newbody, the New Commonwealth Soci-ety. Now created the first Baron Daviesof Llandinam by Ramsay MacDonald,he looked askance at Japanese aggres-sion in Manchuria and at what he re-garded as the spineless acquiesence ofthe British foreign secretary Sir JohnSimon. June saw the publicationof a second important work from hispen, Force, which virulently attackedthe relative impotence of the League ofNations and again pressed for an Inter-national Tribunal and Police Force.During the same year he donated thesum of £, to finance the buildingof the Temple of Peace which stilladorns Cathays Park, Cardiff to this day.

Lord Davies’ energy and enthusiasmfor the causes in which he believed sopassionately knew no bounds. Hecampaigned tirelessly to increase themembership of the New Common-wealth Society (year after year hewrote off its debts) and he addressedhis fellow peers regularly on the needfor an international tribunal and po-lice force. When in June theLeague of Nations Union organisedthe National Peace Ballot, the extentof Lord Davies’ influence in Wales be-came immediately apparent as thetwelve highest returns in the whole ofthe United Kingdom were recorded inWelsh counties. Montgomeryshire,with a turnout of . per cent, wasthe highest of them all.

The same year saw the Italian inva-sion of Abyssinia. Lord Davies andWinston Churchill were generally lone

voices protesting against the failure toimpose sanctions against Italy. Duringthe years leading up to the outbreak ofthe second world war, Lord Davies wasan imposing voice, notably in the col-umns of the Manchester Guardian, theletters page of The Times, and the Houseof Lords, as German rearmament gath-ered momentum and Czecho-Slovakiawas invaded. A public speech in Lon-don in May summed up the ker-nel of his philosophy: ‘Our purpose isto make force the servant of right’.

It was noted in the press that he hadlent support to Labour candidates in re-cent by-elections, and, amidst avidspeculation that a general electionmight well be imminent, it was ru-moured in the Welsh press that LordDavies’ son, the Hon. Michael Davies,was likely to stand as an independentLiberal in Montgomeryshire againstClement Davies. Although LordDavies at once dismissed the press con-jecture as ‘pure gossip and invention’,he implored Clement Davies, a mem-ber of the Simonite Liberal group inthe Commons ever since , to re-turn to the mainstream party fold:

We shall never emerge from this torporuntil the Liberal and Progressive flag isonce more unfurled … So will you al-low me once more, as a Hen Liberal[‘old Liberal’], to plead with you mostearnestly and sincerely to join the ranksof the Independent Liberals in theHouse of Commons?

By this time Lord Davies had becometotally convinced of the need to form a‘United Front’ of all progressive forcesin British political life as a base to fightagainst the appeasement policies of theChamberlain government. In Novem-ber he had appealed to Sir AnthonyEden, the Foreign Secretary, to con-demn appeasement as ‘the very antith-esis of any policy based on Leagueprinciples and the system of collectivesecurity’, imploring him, ‘Why not de-clare war openly against the existing re-gime, and join with others in creating aUnited Front of all the progressive par-ties in our country?’ During hehad twice travelled to the USA in thecause of peace.

When war followed in September, Lord Davies occupied himselffully with drafting lengthy memorandaon national policy for the war effort.


He began to formulate plans for a fed-eration of free countries in Europe afterthe end of hostilities. He was moved toaction above all by the Russian assaulton Finland in November and began toset in motion a Finnish Aid Committeeand Bureau, even visiting Helsinki. Theultimate defeat of Finland vexed himenormously.

Later campaigns involved the evacu-ation of children, a defence of the reser-voirs serving the great cities, and amovement to reform the procedures ofthe House of Lords. Subsequently LordDavies began to campaign for a Su-preme War Council. The war years sawthe publication of a number of volumespenned by him, among them FederatedEurope (), The Foundations of Victory() and The Seven Pillars of Peace(). By this time he had himselffallen victim to cancer of the spine andhe died at Llandinam on June .Three months later his eldest son Mikewas killed in action with the SixthRoyal Welch Fusiliers on the borders ofHolland.

In David Davies had marriedAmy, the fourth daughter of L. T. Pen-man of Broadwood Park, Lanchester.There were two children of the mar-riage, a son David (always known asMike), who briefly became the secondLord Davies in , and Margarite,who died at school at the age of eight-een. The honeymoon had beenspent big game hunting in Africawhere it is thought that Amy con-tracted a rare tropical disease fromwhich she eventually died in fol-lowing years of ill-health.

In Davies married HenriettaMargaret (Rita) (died ), daughterof James Grant Fergusson ofBaledmund, Pitlochry, Perthshire. Ritaproved to be an extraordinarily devotedpartner, fully in tune with her husband’sphilanthropic impulses, notably thoserelated to health. There were to be fourchildren of the second marriage –Mary, Edward, Islwyn and Jean. Thepresent (third) Lord Davies, born in, is the son of the second baron,and still resides at Plas Dinam,Llandinam, Montgomeryshire.

The National Library of Wales has abust by Sir W. Goscombe John and theportrait by Murray Urquhart, while the

famous portrait by S. Morse Brown isby now in the custody of the NationalMuseum. A further portrait byAugustus John is at Berthddu,Llandinam. A large archive of LordDavies’ papers, many relating to the or-ganisation of the New CommonwealthSociety, has been deposited at the Na-tional Library. His biography remainsunwritten.

David, Lord Davies, was undoubt-edly the public-spirited Welshman of hisage, blessed with an exceptionally re-tentive memory and an ability to take adistant view of events. But he did tendto rely on his wealth to achieve results,and he was reluctant to concede thatshort cuts were not always available toachieve his cherished goals. Conse-quently he could be imperious and im-patient at times, described by Sir WynnWheldon as ‘notable for kindness andterribleness’ (a phrase originally used byElizabeth Barrett Browning to describean acquaintance).

In his most important book TheProblem of the Twentieth Century (),he summed up the crux of his belief ininternational co-operation:

We shall never get real prosperity and se-curity until we get peace; we shall neverget peace until we get justice, and weshall get none of these things until wesucceed in establishing the rule of law bymeans of the creation of a really effectiveinternational authority equipped withthose two vital institutions, an equity tri-bunal and an international peace force.

J. Graham Jones is Assistant Archivist at theNational Library of Wales, currently respon-sible for the Welsh Political Archive. He isthe author of A Pocket Guide: the His-tory of Wales () and several articleson late nineteenth and twentieth centuryWelsh politics.

1 Cited in Peter Lewis, Biographical Sketch ofDavid Davies (Topsawyer), 1818–1890, and hisgrandson David Davies (1st Baron Davies),1880–1944 (n.d.), p. 17.

2 N(ational) L(ibrary of) W(ales), Welsh NationalMemorial Association Records, file 11, tributeof the WNMA to Lord Davies, 27 June 1944.

3 Lewis, op. cit., p. 21.4 Kenneth O Morgan, ‘Montgomeryshire’s Lib-

eral century: Rendel to Hooson, 1880–1979’,Welsh History Review XVI (1992–93), 99–100.

5 South Wales Daily News, 5 and 15 December1905; Montgomeryshire Express, 5 January1906; Montgomery County Times, 9 January1906.

6 Montgomery County Times, 18 March 1913.7 See Davies’ election addresses in the general

elections of January and December 1910.8 Peter Rowland, Lloyd George (London, 1975),

p. 335.9 See the correspondence published in Frank

Owen, Tempestuous Journey: Lloyd GeorgeHis Life and Times (London, 1954), pp. 379–82.

10 Joseph Davies, The Prime Minister’s Secre-tariat, 1916–1920 (Newport, 1951), p. 56.

11 House of Lords Record Office, Lloyd GeorgePapers F/83/10/5, Davies to Lloyd George, 27May 1917.

12 Ibid. F/83/10/7, Davies to Lloyd George, 23June 1917.

13 Ibid. F/83/10/8, Lloyd George to Davies, 24June 1917.

14 Davies’ work in this connection is noted inGoronwy J. Jones, Wales and the Quest forPeace (Cardiff, 1969).

15 The Times, 17 June 1944, p. 6, cols. f–g.16 Reynolds News, 18 June 1944.17 Western Mail and South Wales News, 23 April

1935.18 The Times, 17 June 1944.19 NLW, Llandinam Papers.20 See the fulsome tribute by the NLW Librarian Sir

William Llewellyn Davies published in theWestern Mail and South Wales News, 20 June1944.

21 Cited in Lewis, op. cit., pp. 34–35.22 Davies argued that the coal owners should have

concentrated their efforts on proving that theBritish coal industry was the victim of unfaircompetition from the continental coalfieldswhere eight- or even nine-hour working dayswere the norm. See David Davies, ‘The coal po-sition in South Wales’, Welsh Outlook, October1929, pp. 38ff, where Davies argues powerfullythat the Italian market had been lost to Welshmines mainly because of the demand for Ger-man ‘reparations’ which would be paid in coalas imposed by the victorious allies from 1920onwards. Germany supplied the bulk of the rawmaterials which fuelled the dramatic rise in Ital-ian industrial production after the war.

23 Montgomeryshire Express, 3 December 1918.24 Ibid., 3 February 1920.25 The Times, 26 March 1920.26 Montgomeryshire Express, 30 September

1919.27 NLW, Lord Davies of Llandinam Papers

(uncatalogued), Davies to Thomas Jones, 7 De-cember 1921.

28 Liverpool Post and Mercury, 23 October 1922;South Wales News, 1 November 1922.

29 Montgomery County Times, 28 October 1922.30 Montgomeryshire Express, 23 October 1923.31 NLW, Lord Davies of Llandinam Papers, Davies

to Richard Jones, 15 November 1926 (copy).32 Ibid., Davies to Maclean, 7 December 1926

(copy).33 Ibid., Jones to T. Hughes Jones, 27 February

1927.34 Cited in Lewis, op. cit., p 38.35 Montgomeryshire Express, 29 May 1937.36 Western Mail, 3 December 1938.37 Ibid., 17 December 1938.38 NLW, Clement Davies Papers I1/3, Lord Davies

to Clement Davies, 19 December 1938.39 NLW, Lord Davies of Llandinam Papers, Lord

Davies to Eden, 9 November 1938 (copy).40 Dictionary of National Biography, 1941–1950

(London, 1959), p. 200.


Yet again at a Liberal DemocratHistory Group fringe meeting

there was standing room only. Thechosen topic for this meeting (borrow-ing a phrase from Tom Paine), ‘“TheFruits of the Liberty Tree”: Liberalismin North America’, was timed tohighlight the role of liberalism innorthern America in the run up to theUS presidential elections. Chaired byLord Wallace of Saltaire, the speakerswere Professor Dilys Hill from theUniversity of Southampton, TerryMcDonald from the SouthamptonInstitute and Akaash Maharaj, NationalPolicy Chair of the Liberal Party ofCanada.

Dilys Hill focused on the traditionof liberty in the USA, starting with areminder of the Jeffersonian concept ofliberty and how it combined withelements of classical liberalism. Thisresulted in an interpretation of liberal-ism, from the eighteenth centuryonwards, which placed equal emphasison the importance of the marketplaceand that of representative government.

Hill also briefly mentioned the needto understand US liberalism in thecontext of achieving a balance be-tween libertarianism and liberation.This balancing act is essentially be-tween the wish to achieve libertarian,minimalist government while liberat-ing citizens from ethnic and genderdiscrimination and finding structuresto tackle inequality.

The ascendancy of capitalism in thenineteenth century, which coincidedwith urbanisation and industrialisation,was countered by reform liberalismtowards the end of the nineteenth and

early twentieth century. According toHill, ‘Reform liberalism brings to-gether ideas from populism, progressiv-ism and even socialism. It was andremains the synthesis of many strandsin American politics.’

Hill saw reform liberalism reachingits apogee in FDR’s ‘New Deal’ andLyndon Johnson’s ‘Great Society’programmes of the s. Theseprogrammes promoted positive libertythrough social reform programmesimplemented by the government. Atthe same time, America became theconscious leader of the free world, andHill commented that ‘America is anation obsessed with liberty… the ideaof liberty is central to Americanculture’.

However, Hill acknowledged theshortcomings of American liberalismbut believed that ‘while it can beclaimed that American liberty has apositive existence, it also takes a certainfixed form. Newcomers pass freely intothe mainstream, but at the same timethere are demands that they conformto an orthodoxy that restricts theirfreedom to a set of social expectations.Nevertheless, in spite of imperfections,the ideal is still promoted as America’spublic philosophy and America’sintentions and objectives remaindedicated to the preservation andenlargement of freedom. Libertycontinues to be the ideal by whichAmerica characterises itself andprojects itself to the outside world’.

Hill explained how this dominanceof ideology came under attack fromthe s onwards. This was partly as aresponse to the failure of Nixon’s

Family Assisted Plan and then in thes because of economic downturn,a new conservatism and a backlashagainst the s. This resulted in aconservative renaissance that success-fully labelled liberalism as a dirty word.Her conclusion was that despite theClinton years, liberalism has yet torecover its position in influencingAmerican politics and philosophy.

Terry McDonald had a cheerierstory to tell. The Liberals in Canadahave dominated the political scene forthe last hundred years and, by thes, had come to be regarded as thenatural party of government. Given thesimilarities of the political systems inCanada and the UK, it is not surprisingthat, in both countries, national politicshas been dominated by two parties.

McDonald noted that: ‘UnlikeBritain, where the Tories have survivedand (usually) flourished, and theLiberals have found themselves chal-lenged and replaced as the party ofgovernment by Labour, in Canada it isthe Liberal Party that has not onlysurvived into the st century but hasundoubtedly become the “naturalparty of government”’. Interestingly, inCanada, while the Conservatives arereferred to as Tories, the Liberals arereferred to as Grits, derived from theterm ‘men of clear grit, or determina-tion, and whose commitment todemocracy was uncompromising’.

So why have the Canadian Liberalsbeen so successful? McDonald put itdown to two key factors. The Liberalshave always managed to remain at thecentre of national politics, adjustingtheir ideology to match prevailingviews. The party has swung fromKeynesianism in the s and sto ‘business liberalism’ in the s.

McDonald also commented thatLiberals have also been the party that‘most clearly articulated the ways inwhich national unity could be main-tained. They were… the party that sawprovincial rights as an essential elementin maintaining this unity.’ In factMcDonald believed that ‘If there is oneconsistent strand to the attitudes andactions of Liberal governments it istheir belief that Canada is indeed aconfederation, a pact between two

ReportsReportsReportsReportsReportsLiberalism in North AmericaFringe meeting, September 2000, with Dilys Hill,

Terry McDonald and Akaash MaharajReport by Jen TankardJen TankardJen TankardJen TankardJen Tankard


founding nations’. McDonald con-cluded that the real threat to the ruleof the Canadian Liberal Party wascomplacency from within rather thanstrong opposition from without. Butshould the party be defeated at thenext national election, McDonald feltsure that the Liberals would once morebe able to rally round and bounce backinto power.

The LDHG was very lucky to have,as the final speaker, Akaash Maharajfrom Canada. Over to observe ourconference on his party’s behalf, hespoke about contemporary liberalismin Canada. Maharaj believed that ‘thenext twelve months will inevitablycome to be seen as the decisive mo-ment for Canadian liberalism and forthe very destiny of national enterprise’.

Maharaj is rightly proud of theLiberal record of success in office. Ontaking office in , the Liberalsfaced high unemployment, accumu-lated debt levels, spending deficits anda reputation as ‘a snowy third worldstate’. Over seven years, the Liberalshad turned a deficit into surplus, cuttaxes, reduced unemployment, heldinflation levels down and been ratedin the United Nations HumanDevelopment Index as the best placein the world to live. Yet despite thistrack record, Maharaj believed theLiberals faced a real threat at the nextnational election.

Unlike McDonald, he did not seethe threat to liberalism as comingfrom internal strains. Rather that, asthe traditional main opposition party– the Progressive Conservatives –collapses into disarray it is beingreplaced by the Bloc Québecois,which would destroy Canada throughseparatism, and the Reform Party,which would herald a new era ofright-wing bigotry for Canada.

It was hoped that the Liberal Partywould see off this threat – not onlybecause of its track record in deliveringeconomic prosperity and unity to thecountry but also because, as Maharajbelieved, ‘Our success has flowedentirely out of the fact that Canadiansare, on the whole, an enlightened andtherefore liberal people. As long as we[the Liberals] have stayed true to liberal

values, and have served as a mirror inwhich Canadians could see reflectedback their better natures, victory hasbeen Canada’s’.

All three speakers raised interest-ing parallels between the history ofliberalism in the UK and in North-ern America. What students ofhistory should consider is whetherthere are lessons to learn from theCanadian experience which couldhelp to consolidate and boost theUK Liberal Democrats’ current rise

in representation at national, regionaland local levels.

Note: as readers of the Journal will nodoubt be aware, the Canadian federalelection took place on November.Liberal leader Jean Chretien became thefirst Canadian prime minister since

to win a third successive election victory.The full result was: Liberals ; Cana-dian Alliance (previously Reform) ;Bloc Québecois : NDP : ProgressiveConservatives .

David RebakI have just read with great interest issue of the Journal of Liberal DemocratHistory, and in particular JohnMeadowcroft’s article on ‘The Originsof Community Politics’.

I don’t wish to lessen the credit dueto Young Liberals and the Union ofLiberal Students, nor to minimise inany way the tremendous importanceand value of the job they did. However,the article doesn’t acknowledge theabsolutely critical work and examplegiven by a number of leading Liberalsof the s.

In May I stood as a Liberalcouncil candidate for the first time. Iwas naive, innocent and willing to allowthe election to be run by ‘those whowere supposed to know it all’ becausethey had been doing it for years. Ipersonally canvassed per cent of theward and I doubled the Liberal vote andcame second. Nevertheless I consideredthe election campaign a fiasco and wassure there was a better way.

In the autumn of I attended myfirst Liberal assembly at Scarboroughand had the opportunity to meet

Letters to theLetters to theLetters to theLetters to theLetters to theEditorEditorEditorEditorEditor

Southend Cllr David Evans, LiverpoolCllr Cyril Carr and Richmond Cllr DrStanley Rundle. Incidentally, it wasRundle who, at that conference, firstcoined the phrase later to be made evenmore famous by David Penhaligon: ‘Ifyou’ve got something to say to theelectorate, stick it on a piece of paperand shove it through their letterboxes’.

In the early s, David Evans,Stanley Rundle and Cyril Carr hadbeen elected by carrying out a policyof ‘community politics’ long beforethe term had been coined. If I remem-ber correctly, it was at that conferencethat the first moves were made to setup the Association of Liberal Council-lors, which I was glad to join. Someshort time later our first whole day ofseminars was at Leamington Spa.

At the Assembly, RussellJohnston, who had just been elected tothe House of Commons, gave a fringemeeting talk advising aspiring council-lors and MPs how it was done. It wascommon sense and electrifying. I, andmany others, was inspired to go outand practice what was later to be calledcommunity politics.


Graem PetersI enjoyed reading Peter Joyce’s articleon the Popular Front of the late s(Journal , Autumn ) and itsfailure to see Liberals and Labournation-wide working together, politi-cally and electorally. His analysis doesnot adequately explain why thePopular Front amounted to nothing.

The PF was always intended to be,first and foremost, an electoral chal-lenge to the National Government.For the PF to be treated seriously byeither Liberals or Labour, it needed tobe seen to be successful in winningvotes and seats in by-elections. Therelative weakness of the Liberal Partyat the time meant that it had very fewcandidates to withdraw to assist Labourin winning seats. What candidates itcould muster were unlikely to gathermany votes regardless of where theycame from.

The Liberal Party was, frankly, anelectoral joke in the Parliament. Atotal of eight Liberal vacancies oc-curred between and (whenelectoral hostilities ceased). In six ofthese constituencies, the local LiberalAssociation failed to select a Liberalcandidate. Only in two, North Corn-wall () and St Ives () did thelocal Liberals choose a Liberal candi-date. Even then, with Labour choosingnot to field a candidate in St Ives, theLiberals still failed to win.

Labour also stood down to allowthe Liberals a straight fight with theTories in Bewdley, Chertsey, NorthDorset and Aberdeenshire West. Ineach case, the Liberals failed to capital-ise. Over the same period, Labour wasmanaging to gain twelve seats and tohold all its own seats in the bargain.

Peter Joyce criticises Labour’sattitude to supporting PF candidates.He misleads, however, with regard toChertsey, where the ‘progressive’candidate, E. R. Haylor, had stood as aLiberal candidate at the precedingthree general elections.

The whole situation is best summedup by the plight of the highly ratedArthur Irvine, the Liberal candidate inthe Aberdeenshire West by-election.Having come close to winning the seatin and , he gave up on the

Liberals and went off and joinedLabour, who managed to get him intoParliament in .

It is hard to criticise Labour fornot taking the PF seriously whenthe Liberals as a party were incapa-ble of bringing anything of realvalue to its cause.

Dr Michael BrockMay I ask for the freedom of yourcolumns to dispute some statementsabout Grey and Asquith in PeterTruesdale’s review of John Charmley,Splendid Isolation (Journal , Autumn)?

Did ‘Asquith and Grey… outma-noeuvre the peace party within thecabinet’ in July–August ? It wasagreed, at the first cabinet meeting onSunday August, to tell the Frenchthat the German fleet would not beallowed to enter the Channel andbombard their coast. At the secondthere was a decision ‘to take action’ incase of ‘a substantial violation’ ofBelgian neutrality (no attempts beingmade ‘to state a formula’ by definingeither ‘substantial’ or the nature of theintended ‘action’). Grey recorded afterthe war that the Channel pledge was‘suggested originally by an anti-warmember of the cabinet’ (BritishLibrary Add. MSS , , fos. –;see also fos. , , ; Twenty-Five Years,ii. ). It had no war-like effect: theGermans’ plans did not include usingtheir fleet in this way (nor would itgave been feasible to do so, since it wasa short-range fleet).

As to the pledge on Belgium,maintaining the neutrality of thatcountry had long been a great objec-tive for Little Englander Liberals. In Grey was criticised in the Nationfor regarding the Treaty as lessimportant that the balance of power.‘We could not imagine’, H. W.Massingham wrote, ‘Sir Edward Greyfollowing Lord Granville in riskingwar in defence of the integrity ofBelgium against a Franco-Prussianencroachment’ (Nation, June ).

‘A substantial violation’ of Belgianneutrality meant, in substance, aviolation which would cause theBelgian government to call on the

guarantor powers for more thandiplomatic help. The second cabinetbroke up before news of the Germanultimatum to Belgium reachedLondon. The pledge on Belgium wasthus given when the German incur-sion into Belgium was expected (inLondon, as in Brussels) to be con-fined to the Ardennes, south and eastof the Sambre–Meuse line. Theevidence that, if it had been soconfined, the guarantors would nothave been asked for military aid isvery strong (J. E. Helmreich, Journalof Modern History (), ). Thecabinet, Asquith wrote to Bonar Lawon August, ‘do not contemplate …and are satisfied that no good objectwould be served by the immediatedespatch of an expeditionary force’to the Continent.

By August, with the Germanultimatum to Brussels, the Belgianappeal for help, and the prospect of anassault on Liège, everything hadchanged. Harold Begbie wrote in

that it was mistaken to talk of Asquithhaving ‘brought England into the war.England carried Mr Asquith into thewar … A House of Commons that hadhesitated an hour after the invasion ofBelgium would have been swept out ofexistence by the wrath and indignationof the people’ (The Mirrors of DowningStreet, popular edition, , –).

The most articulate spokesman forthe peace party did not behave assomeone who had been ‘outmanoeu-vred’. Massingham wrote to MargotAsquith on August: the Govern-ment’s White Paper ‘completelychanged my views. Sir Edward Grey’scase seems to me unbreakable at everypoint’. R. C. K. Ensor, the chief leader-writer in for the Liberal DailyChronicle, wrote years later about theGerman invasion of Belgium: ‘Foryears past the Liberals … had beenmaking it an article of party faith thatmilitarist Germany was not as black asit was painted. Now in a flash itseemed to them self-revealed as muchblacker’. Can Grey be said to have‘painted Britain into a corner’ whenthe treaty guaranteeing Belgianneutrality had been signed twenty-three years before he was born?


Nightmare, the story of the Londonmayoral election, had no sooner

been published than kind friendsbegan to send me copies in the post. Itried to share one with Flick Rea,keeper of my campaign diary, protectorof my time and raiser of my spirits onthe inevitable days when everything inthe campaign went wrong. ‘I don’tneed a copy’, she said ‘I was there’.

Flick has a point and it is veryrelevant to this book. Nightmare is ablow-by-blow account, gripping in arather breathless way, of one of thestrangest elections in British history.But it is not a work of political analysis.The characters – and what a collectionthey were, from Archer to Livingstone– charge on and off the page. The realquestion that I want answered though,is how Labour, who by rights shouldeasily romp home in any election inthe capital, managed to let a prize likeMayor of London slip through theirfingers? How did the Labour leader-ship become so arrogant? What fuelledits control-freak tendencies and itsresistance to the spirit of devolution?How did Millbank so badly misunder-stand the Livingstone appeal? Withthose questions unanswered, the storyof the Mayoral election remains aseries of chaotic, almost random events,which is how it often felt to me whenI was in the middle of it.

Many days on the campaign trailwere simply surreal. I have vividmemories of sitting in Hammersmithbus station, late on a Saturday, doinginterviews on the mobile phone as theNews of the World collapsed JeffreyArcher’s candidacy. I wondered then –

and I still do – if the timing of his fall,so early in the campaign, was triggeredby a surge of conscience in Ted Franciswho had allegedly lied for him, or bythe Tory hierarchy deciding that hewas too great a risk and had togo. Tory crises always seemed to comejust when we thought the day wasover. When Norris was ‘in’ then ‘out’then ‘in’ again in the second Toryselection, I did the interviews on acramped phone on the back counter ofa dimly lit cafe near Elstree.

Labour’s crises were a little morepredictable. But none of us anticipatedthe Labour short-listing whenLivingstone was ‘off ’ one day and ‘on’the next. The tensions between theLabour candidates were palpable athusting after husting during their pre-selection period. It seemed to me thatonly Glenda Jackson came out of itwith real dignity. My admiration forher grew as she resisted pressures and Iam sure all kinds of advantageous offersto leave the mayoral race. On the daywhen the press rumours flew that shewas dropping out, we crossed pathsclose to the Millbank studios. Whenshe said ‘See you tomorrow’, I knewthat she was going to stick it out.Glenda always said that on principleshe felt there must be a woman in theLabour mayoral line-up.

As a Liberal Democrat candidate,and one that started the campaign as anunknown, you make your chanceswhen you can. The definitive momentcame for me on Question Time afterDobson had been selected by Labourand when Livingstone was ditheringover running as an independent. We

knew there would be a huge audienceonce both agreed to appear and theBBC trailed it heavily. The moodbeforehand was vile, with my supportteam (my husband and son) andNorris’ minders finding themselves ina virtual demilitarised zone betweenthe Dobson and Livingstone camps.Dobson, I am convinced, had abso-lutely believed Livingstone when hesaid that he would support the decisionof the Labour selection process andcould not conceive of a man of honourgoing back on his word. I knew that Iwas with them on the Question Timepanel on sufferance. But that also gaveme the advantage of surprise. I cameout fighting with strikes against allthree opponents, Livingstone, Dobsonand Norris. From that point on wefinally began to get serious treatmentfrom the press and no-one ever askedagain ‘are you tough enough?’ whichhad always been the refrain fromMichael White of the Guardian.

The question remains: could I havebeaten Dobson and Norris to end upin the final two with Livingstone,where we might have dislodged himon the basis of second preferences andwon? Certainly I could have beatenDobson; we were only some twentythousand votes short. The reason thatwe did not was simply the Romsey by-election. In early March we receivedword that central resources andmanpower that might have come tothe London campaign would go toRomsey. Key activists, including manyfrom London, switched their efforts toSandra Gidley’s campaign. It wasabsolutely the right thing to do and myteam resoundingly cheered her successon election night.

Beating Norris would have takenmuch more although until the closingdays we were never more than a fewpercentage points behind. The difficul-ties began with the delays in the Toryand especially the Labour selection.Instead of a full line-up of candidatesby mid-December, which would havegiven us a five-month crack at gettingdecent press coverage, we did notseriously get press until Livingstoneannounced as an independent inFebruary. As always in Liberal Demo-crat campaigns, we lacked the financial

ReviewsReviewsReviewsReviewsReviews250 High Streets later…Mark D’Arcy & Rory Maclean: Nightmare! The Race

to Become London’s Mayor(Politico’s Publishing, 2000; 287pp.)

Reviewed by Susan KramerSusan KramerSusan KramerSusan KramerSusan Kramer


resources to advertise and get aroundthe press focus on the other parties andtheir scandals. At the end of thecampaign, the May Day riots, with noeffort on the Tories’ part, had the effectof pushing anti-Livingstone votes intothe Norris camp on an implied ‘lawand order’ association. I believe thatthose events finally settled the out-come of the election.

If there was one surprise aboveothers in the mayoral campaign, it wasthe emergence of a London politicalidentity. When I began on the cam-paign trail in August, the hustingsshowed candidates to be all over theplace, both in defining the problemsand the solutions. Candidates behavedpretty true to party. By May, the coremanifestos looked amazingly similarand indeed quite clearly recognisableto anyone following the policies of theLondon Region Liberal Democrats asfar back as . The pressure of thehustings, sometimes three or four a day,had forced common sense and conver-gence and in terms of the policydebate it was a clear Liberal Democratwin. A strange bonding also developedamong the candidates, with thepossible exception of Dobson. No-onewas naive, but it must have been closeto the sense of shared suffering experi-enced by hostages. Certainly we couldgive each other’s set speeches andNorris to this day claims that he oncegave mine and I his.

I loved every minute of the ninemonths of the mayoral campaign. Iwas blessed with a small but amazingteam, from Ashley Lumsden, who wasborn to be a campaign manager, toCharlotte Barraclough, who hadnever done media until she aban-doned a round-the-world trip to runmy press operation. My son Jonathandropped out of university (temporar-ily) to be my minder, and studentinterns became the backbone of ouroperations. Brian Orrell and theLondon Region Liberal Democrats,MPs and peers led by Ed Davey andConrad Russell, were stalwarts. TheAssembly candidates were dedicatedand we owe a lot to those whoflogged their guts out knowing thatthey themselves would not win. Weused the campaign to build a London-wide awareness of Liberal Democratsand our policies. Local parties turnedout across the capital and we didindeed cover every one of its highstreets. Many Londoners used their

vote, even if a second preference, tosupport a Liberal Democrat for thefirst time. We won four seats in theGreater London Assembly andbecause of the calibre of our candi-dates they are influencing events wellbeyond their numbers, effectivelyholding the balance of power.

There will never be an election likethis again. Next time it will be a shortcampaign with limited appearances,more conventional and, I suspect, lessfilled with surprises. Livingstone willtry to remain Mayor until he is carriedout feet first. Norris and I will almostcertainly both run again. I doubt thatnext time anyone will bother to writea book about the campaign.

But as the events of last year fade inthe memory, I confess I am gladNightmare was written, to remind methat it really did happen and was notjust a dream.

Susan Kramer was the Liberal Democratcandidate in the first London mayoral race.

How times change. PaddyAshdown had to struggle to find

a publisher for his first book as leader,Citizen’s Britain. Twelve years later,Charles Kennedy’s first book isproduced by a mainstream publisherin glossy hardback – tribute, of course,to the strength and relevance of theparty that Ashdown built andKennedy inherited.

Ye the purpose of these two bookswas and is rather different. Citizen’sBritain was a (reasonably successful)attempt to put the third party, at thetime disappearing in the opinion pollsto within the statistical margin of errorof zero, and its leader, on the policymap – to reassert the Liberal strength asa party of imagination and invention. It

was full of ideas, some half-baked,many sensible, some already partypolicy, some not. In policy terms(though not in strategy), it describedan agenda which Ashdown stuck to,pretty much, for the following tenyears of his leadership.

The Future of Politics does not need toestablish the party in the public mind. Itis aimed instead to define Kennedy as aman with a policy prospectus, some-thing which neither his own back-ground as TV light entertainment’sfavourite politician, nor his uninspiringleadership campaign, managed to do.Does it succeed? Yes and no.

Unlike Citizen’s Britain, it containsalmost no new ideas. It is an explana-tion, mostly coherent and lucid, of the

New leader, new bookCharles Kennedy: The Future of Politics

(HarperCollins, 2000; 255pp.)Reviewed by Duncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan Brack


party’s existing policy position; indeed,those of us more familiar than wewould like to be with party policypapers will recognise many proposalsand even, on occasion, entire para-graphs lifted verbatim from othersources. There’s nothing necessarilywrong with this – after all, it would berather alarming to find that your newleader didn’t go along with the vastbulk of party policy – but it would benice to find the occasional new idea.The only one I could spot in theentire book was a commitment to all-women shortlists and ‘zipping’ forparliamentary selections, a positionwhich I was certainly not awareKennedy held, and one that it wouldbe quite nice seeing him do some-thing about. There are also, unfortu-nately, too many mistakes – carbonmonoxide, for example, is not themain global greenhouse gas (it’scarbon dioxide, an entirely differentsubstance), and the UK’s target underthe Kyoto Protocol is a .% reduc-tion in greenhouse emissions, not.%. The logic is not always coherent,for example over fuel taxes, a pointpicked up when the launch of thebook coincided with the first wave offuel tax protests; and overall the bookhas not been well edited.

But on the other hand… no-oneexpected Kennedy to be an ideas man,and there are other qualities whichparty leaders can display. Kennedy’sgreat strength lies in his ability to

communicate a message, and what thisbook does is to put over the LiberalDemocrat agenda in a well-written andaccessible way. The policy proposals areinterspersed with personal anecdotesand reminiscences which make themenjoyable to read, and Kennedy’s turn ofphrase is occasionally brilliant (as in ‘thepolitical map is like a water bed – applypressure in one area and you will get areaction somewhere else’). Somesections – particularly the case for theEuro – are excellent.

My favourite part of all is theopening paragraphs of the conclusion,where Kennedy lists the four things hehas got most seriously wrong sinceentering parliament in (for yourinformation: not opposing the estab-lishment of the Child Support Agency;trying to minimise attention to theconference vote in favour of a RoyalCommission on the reform of drugs

law in (not , as the booksays); not paying enough attention tothe environment as a major campaign-ing issue for the Alliance; and notprotesting enough at the Britishpolice’s suppression of demonstrationsagainst Chinese President JiangZemin’s visit in ). What otherparty leader would approach his taskwith such humility?

Charles Kennedy, of course, still hasmuch to prove. Next year’s anticipatedelection campaign, and particularly theTV debates between the leaders, willput to the test the extent to which hereally believes and understands every-thing that’s in this book, as well as hisability to communicate it. But TheFuture of Politics is not a bad start at all.

Duncan Brack was Policy Director of theLiberal Democrats –, and is Editor ofthe Journal of Liberal Democrat History.

More mirage than visionGarry Tregidga: The Liberal Party in South-West

Britain since 1918: Political Decline, Dormancy andRebirth (University of Exeter Press, 2000; 281pp.)

Reviewed by John HoweJohn HoweJohn HoweJohn HoweJohn Howe

To those who joined the LiberalParty in the s or s, the

West Country was the promised land,or rather the land of promise. Fadingmemories of triumphs in the twentieswere reinforced by the contemporaryview of the Liberals as the party of theCeltic fringe; then Torrington in

and North Devon in created thevision of a Liberal heartland from whichthe party might expand. But the visionproved a mirage, and even in fewerthan half of the West Country seats fellto the Liberal Democrats.

Garry Tregidga’s book examines thebackground to these events with foursuccessive questions. Why did theLiberal Party achieve a triumph in thesouth-west in almost equalling the landslide? Why was it wiped outonly ten months later yet then made a

limited – but only a limited – recoveryin ? Why did the party decline fortwo decades thereafter but not die? Andwhy did the series of revivals from

onwards achieve no significant parlia-mentary success until ?

To answer these questionsTregidga has amassed impressiveevidence. He has read extensively inthe local press, which continued toprovide good reports of meetings,speeches and party events witheditorial comment reflecting localopinions. The personal papers of theregional party leaders, notably theAclands and the Foots, have beenthoroughly reviewed, and the rel-evant national collections are cited –for example Sir Archibald Sinclair’spapers seem particularly useful forthe years just before when


Tregidga sees signs of a Liberalrevival aborted by the war.

The list of party records consultedshows the lamentable lack of survivingLiberal records – only three local partiesare listed, compared to seven Conserva-tive and even two Labour. Morealarming, while six of the Conservativeparties have wisely deposited theirarchives in the county record offices,two out of the three Liberal collectionsremain in the vulnerable location oftheir local party offices.

Several participants in the eventshave been interviewed and theirtestimony has been effectively de-ployed to supplement documentaryevidence. One wonders why other keyplayers were not; Jeremy Thorpe isonly the most obvious omission,although his splendid agent appears inthe select list. The vast amount ofpublished material on the periodmeans that the bibliography is likewiseselective; nevertheless the omission ofR. C. Whiting’s study of Oxfordpolitics is unfortunate and ChrisCook’s useful article on local electionsbetween the wars might also have beenconsidered.

The book opens by discussing thegrowth of interest in regional politicalhistory, justifying the selection ofperiod and topic. Drawing on Euro-pean, and particularly Scandinavian,writers, Tregidga suggests a theoreticalanalytical framework in which ‘mod-ern’ factors – class and its related

socialist/anti- socialist ideologies –interact with ‘old’ divisions based onreligion, rural/urban and centre/periphery tensions. The ‘petite bour-geoisie’ had a key role – small farmers,shop-keepers, small businessmen andothers were historically stronglyilliberal and non-conformist butdeeply anti-socialist: for example,alarmed by the Labour govern-ment, they voted ‘modern’ but by

traditional issues had revived and somereturned to the Liberals.

The core of the book is the sixchronological chapters covering theyears from to . In eachTregidga has to strike a balancebetween explaining the nationalcontext, describing local events,assessing the strength of party activitylocally and nationally, and relating allthis to his theoretical framework. Thisis an extensive agenda, more successfulwhen national developments are fairlystraightforward, for example in –, but less so for the crisis-packedyears or –, when it isdifficult to disentangle national andlocal factors.

Tregidga’s book draws manyinteresting conclusions. For instance hechallenges the standard interpretationof the success of the Yellow Book andLloyd George’s pledge to conquerunemployment in . He points outthat unemployment was an urbanindustrial issue, irrelevant in the south-west where a rural and agriculturalprogramme was necessary to win seats.Interventionist policies were unlikelyto attract ‘petite bourgeoisie’ anti-socialists who had defected to theConservatives in . Hence, perhaps,the limited recovery of .

Tregidga is frequently scathingabout the party’s national leadership –or lack of it. The shambles of the earlythirties, an ill-founded zeal for a broadfront in and , failure toperceive the opportunity for recoveryin the south-west are all castigated.This is not merely with the benefit ofhindsight, for examples are quoted ofcontemporary proponents of analternative narrow front, includingSinclair himself in .

The s revival is attributed tovaried national events – Jo Grimond’s

success in dragging the party back to theprogressive side, aiming to replaceLabour as the party of the left, a drive tofight council seats, and – at last – effortsto target resources on winnable seats. Inthe south-west this meant that ‘petitebourgeoisie’ dissatisfaction with theConservatives was translated into victoryat Torrington in and North Devonin , but a key role was played byindividual candidates which may explainwhy the victories were not repeatedelsewhere in the region.

Garry Tregidga’s final chaptersweeps from to . This isclearly attempting too much. Interest-ing points are made, for example onthe revolutionary effects of winningcouncil seats, but it is simply notpossible to develop the discussionproperly. The debilitating and demoral-ising debates in seat allocations be-tween the Liberals and the SDP in themid-s are ignored.

A more basic problem for the book isthe definition of the region. Bristol(which some might argue is the regionalcapital) is ignored. Somerset and Devonare included, but the main focus is onDevon and Cornwall. A more tightlydrawn regional boundary might haveprovided a more logical and manageableregion. The problem was well illustratedat a recent Liberal Democrat HistoryGroup meeting, when Michael Steedsuggested an extended south-west, up toa line from the Isle of Wight to Oxford,while Malcolm Brown selected theTamar as frontier.

Overall Garry Tregidga has pro-duced an interesting study. The theo-retical material is not always effectivelyintegrated into the narrative and thedetail is at times daunting but the endresult is a thoughtful and persuasiveaccount of a significant part of twenti-eth century Liberal history.

John Howe lectures in the School of Historyand Local Studies of the Cheltenham &Gloucester College of Higher Education

1 R. C. Whiting, The View from Cowley (Oxford,1973); C. Cook, ‘Liberals, Labour and LocalElections’ in G. Peele & C. Cook, The Politics ofReappraisal 1918–39 (London, 1974).

2 Report on ‘Liberalism in the West’ fringemeeting, Plymouth, March 2000 (Journal ofLiberal Democrat History 28, Autumn 2000).


Who remembers the govern-ment’s law officers? The post-

war lists of Attorneys-General andSolicitors-General are dominated bydistinguished but little-known lawmen (no women, yet). There are a fewhighlights. Sir Hartley Shawcross, oneof the last surviving members ofAttlee’s governments, is famous for hiscomment ‘We are the masters now’;Geoffrey Howe and Patrick Mayhewserved as law officers before establish-ing their reputations in other, morepolitically sensitive, positions; SirNicholas Lyell is famous for his role inthe Matrix Churchill affair; formerLiberal MP Sir Dingle Foot becameSolicitor-General in the Wilsonadministration before resigning overBritish policy in Southern Rhodesia;and Sir Harry Hylton Foster served forfive years as Solicitor-General beforebecoming Speaker of the House ofCommons. But who remembers SirLionel Heald, Sir ReginaldManningham-Buller or Sir PeterRawlinson? And who can name thecurrent law officers, one of whom isthe first peer ever to hold the office ofAttorney-General?

Despite their obscurity, the lawofficers play a vital role in advisingministers on the legal complexities oflegislative proposals and on themyriad legal problems which govern-ment departments encounter fromday to day. In the present era this roleis performed behind the scenes, but indecades past the law officers weremore prominent parliamentarians,required to provide advice on thedetailed wording of bills and proposedamendments on the floor of theHouse of Commons. The pre-

list of law officers reflects this differ-

Unremembered – but not forgottenG. W. Keeton James: A Liberal Attorney-General;

Being the Life of Lord Robson of Jesmond, 1852–1918, with an Account of the Office of Attorney-General, etc. (Nisbet & Co, 1949)

Reviewed by Robert InghamRobert InghamRobert InghamRobert InghamRobert Ingham

ence, including parliamentarians ofthe stature of F. E. Smith, EdwardCarson, John Simon, Rufus Isaacs andDouglas Hogg. Among this distin-guished list is the name of Sir WilliamRobson, Solicitor-General from

to and Attorney-General from to .

Robson was born in , the son ofa prosperous Newcastle-upon-Tynebusinessman. After Cambridge heentered the legal profession, becoming abarrister in , a Queen’s Counsel in, and sitting as Recorder of New-castle from to. Aside from thelaw, his passion was politics. Deeplyaffected by the slums of his native city,he was for his time an ‘advanced’Liberal, a key proponent of sociallegislation to ensure that economicfreedom complemented political liberty,and an active seeker of a constituency inthe north-east of England.

While based in London he was brieflythe Member for Bow & Bromley in the parliament, but he disliked carpet-bagging and in stood for Middles-brough. The constituency was one of theearliest in which Labour candidates tookon the Liberal establishment and after abitter battle Robson lost to the seamen’sleader J. Havelock Wilson. One of themost interesting aspects of Keeton’s bookis the insights it gives into the develop-ment of the Labour movement in north-east England and its attitude to theLiberal Party.

Robson was elected Member forSouth Shields in , but even in thisstaunchly Liberal constituency he faced acontinual battle to prevent independentLabour candidates from opposing him,and he was deeply pessimistic about theLiberal Party’s long-term prospects in theface of an organised Labour challenge.

Robson marked himself out as arising star in the Liberal Party during the Parliament by his speeches on legalquestions and by piloting the Children’sAct, a private member’s bill, on to thestatute book. When Campbell-Bannerman became Prime Minister in he was disappointed not to bemade Attorney-General, but as Solicitor-General he embarked on an exhaustingfive-year career as a law officer, beingpromoted to Attorney-General byAsquith in . Keeton brings out wellthe pivotal role played in the House bylaw officers at that time. It would nothave done for ministers to promise towrite to members who raised difficultquestions about legislative proposals.Robson served long hours on theTreasury bench providing accurate off-the-cuff responses to complex queries.

He was also responsible for severalminor but technical pieces of legislationand represented the Government innumerous legal cases. These are reportedrather too prominently by Keeton. Awhole chapter is devoted to an intricatecase concerning fishing rights in theNorth Atlantic which, although impor-tant in its day and a great triumph forRobson, is only of limited interest now.A general criticism of Keeton’s book isthat it dwells rather too much onRobson’s legal career and the historyof the position of Attorney-General atthe expense of information aboutRobson’s personal and political lives.The result is a volume which, althoughinformative and entertaining, issomewhat unsatisfying.

Robson’s life reached a sad conclu-sion. He was junior spokesman toLloyd George during the long passagethrough Parliament of the

Finance Act. While Lloyd George dealtwith the broad outline of the conten-tious bill, Robson was responsible forthe mass of detail it contained. Hisconstitution, never robust, was brokenby the long hours he spent in theHouse of Commons. Forced to retirefrom politics, he was created LordRobson of Jesmond in and madea Lord of Appeal. Unable to recover hishealth fully, he retired in and diedsix years later.

Robert Ingham is a political researcher.

A Liberal Democrat History Group Evening Meeting

The Limehouse Declaration and the birth ofthe SDPOn 25 January 1981, four former Labour cabinetministers – Roy Jenkins, David Owen, William Rodgersand Shirley Williams – published the LimehouseDeclaration, publicly signalling their intention to quitthe leftward path that the Labour Party had taken. TheDeclaration advocated a classless society and called forthe realignment of British politics. After anoverwhelming public response, the SDP came intobeing two months later.

Twenty years on, the Liberal Democrat History Grouplooks at the origins and importance of the Limehouse Declaration. Did it signal the end of both Old Labourand Liberal Party irrelevance? Or did it back the progressive forces in British politics into a cul-de-sac?

Was the SDP a mistake? Or was the party essential for both the reform of Labour and a rebirth of Liberalism?

7.00pm, Monday 29 January 2001(following the AGM of the Liberal Democrat History Group, at 6.30pm)Lady Violet Bonham Carter Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1

Enquiry serviceThe Liberal Democrat History Group receivesmany queries about various aspects ofLiberal, SDP and Liberal Democrat history –from questions about past election results inparticular constituencies to requests for helpin tracking down details of Liberal ancestorsto queries about the location of archives.Often these are referred to us from partyheadquarters. Particularly interesting queriesand their answers are occasionally reprintedin the Journal.

The History Group executive does its best toprovide answers, but we know that readersof the Journal possess a very wide range ofknowledge and relevant backgrounds. So wewould like to ask you to help us deal withthese enquiries.

Will anyone willing to help please send anemail to [email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]? Wewill add your email address to an emailcirculation list, and send everyone on itdetails of enquiries as they are received. Any

answers you are able to give will be collectedand sent back to the enquirer.

Thanks in advance for your help!

New emailaddressesThe Liberal Democrat History Group isgradually developing its new website, atwww.liberalhistory.org.ukwww.liberalhistory.org.ukwww.liberalhistory.org.ukwww.liberalhistory.org.ukwww.liberalhistory.org.uk.

As part of this process, new email addresseswill replace all earlier ones, from 1 January2001:

• Any correspondence about subscriptionsto the Journal and membership of theGroup:[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]

• Any correspondence about any otheraspect of the Journal, including letters to

History Group News

the editor, articles and reviews:[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]

• Any general queries about any aspect ofLiberal, SDP and Liberal Democrathistory:[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]

Ordinary communication by post, however, isstill possible! – see addresses on page 2.

CorrectionJournal of Liberal Democrat History 28,Autumn 2000

In David Steel’s review of Bill Rodgers’Fourth Among Equals, we wrongly assignedLord Steel MSP to the South of Scotlandregion. In fact, he is MSP for the Lothianregion. Our apologies.

liberals and the boer war...2014/10/29 · the war’s end the liberals were back in power, hav-ing...

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