Politicians versus Historians: Lord Avon's 'Appeasement Battle' against 'Lamentably, Appeasement-Minded' Historians

In retirement, Sir Anthony Eden, seeking to safeguard the anti-appeaserimage cultivated following his resignation as Neville Chamberlain'sForeign Secretary in 1938, proved extremely sensitive to theway in which his political career was presented in memoirs,biographies, and histories. Eden, who accepted the earldom ofAvon in 1961, saw himself as refighting old politcal battles,except that by the 1960s his attack was directed increasinglyagainst what he described as ‘lament-ably, appeasement-minded’history professors rather than former politicians. During 1966–7objections to Frederick Northedge's The Troubled Giant evenled him at one stage to consider legal action for defamationof character. The ensuing dispute, highlighting Lord Avon'spreoccupation with the verdict of history, illuminated alsothe varying, often conflicting, perspectives adopted towardsthe past by historians and politicians. ^*Earlier versions of this paper were presented to the BISA BritishInternational History Group Conference at the University ofExeter, September 1996, and the Millennium after 25 Years Conferenceat the LSE, October 1996. I am grateful to the Countess of Avon,the Marquess of Salisbury, the Borthwick Institute of HistoricalResearch at the University of York, the Master and Fellows ofChurchill College at Cambridge, and the Archivist of CarmarthenshireRecords Service at Carmarthen, for permission to quote fromthe papers of the first Earl of Avon, The Marquess of Salisbury,the Earls of Halifax, Lord Strang, and Viscount Cilcennin respectively.I am particularly indebted to Muriel Grieve, Professor Northedge'swidow, for assistance in my research and permission to quotefrom her husband's correspondence and publications, as wellas to Sir Bryan Cartledge, who helped Lord Avon with his memoirs.     

Party Politics and the Provincial Press in Early Twentieth Century England: The Case of the South West

Based on the evidence of Devon and Cornwall, politicians continuedto regard the provincial press as highly influential in determiningtheir readers' party political affiliations well into the twentiethcentury. Until at least 1914, many of the leading local andregional newspapers were owned by prominent local politicians.After 1918, especially following the amalgamation of the twomain Conservative and Liberal papers, local politicians feltkeenly their lack of a reliable source of press support. Thecost of funding a party political newspaper became too highfor all but the richest politicians. Moreover, the status ofthe provincial press was increasingly undermined by improvedrail communications, allowing the national press to competeeven in farthest Cornwall. The wireless also reduced the importanceof the provincial press from the late 1920s. The real political influence of the provincial press is impossibleto assess with any certainty. Newspapermen believed that, despitethe often substantial expenditure by politicians, a stronglyparty political paper was more likely to alienate non-partisanreaders, leading to neither political nor commerical success.Modern research also suggests that partisan newspapers are probablyonly partially successful, doing more to reinforce their readers'existing opinions than to convert non-believers. ^*I am grateful to the University of Reading Library for permissionto quote from the Lord and Lady Astory papers, and to the WesternMorning News for permission to quote from their records, whichare deposited at the West Devon County Record Office.     

George V and Repulicanism, 1917-1919

This article is a study of the British monarchy's reaction towhat it saw as a republican threat at the end of the First WorldWar. It challenges the widely received view that the most importantrepublican moment in modern British history was in the early1870s. Written from previously unused material in the RoyalArchives, it chronicles the emergence of Palace worries aboutthe rise of militant socialism, which the royal family equatedwith republicanism; and it illuminates the tactics designedby the King and his advisers to take the republican edge offthe labour movement and to deal with the immediate social andeconomic crisis. Lord Esher summed up Palace policy in the phrase‘the "democratization" of the monarchy’. In practice,this meant expanding the royal family's social and charitablepurposes to ensure the Crown's survival. The policy would havean enduring influence on royal thinking and behaviour. ¹ This article was written for the Visiting Fellows' Colloquium,All Souls College, Oxford. It expands a line of argument thatwas put more tentatively and with far less documentation inChapter 6 of my book Royal Bounty: The Making of a Welfare Monarchy(London, 1995). By gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen,I have been able to make use of material from the Royal Archivesat Windsor.     

Three's a Crowd?: Government, Owners, and Workers during the Nationalization of the British Coalmining Industry 1945-47

The passing of the coalmining industry into public ownershipon 1 January 1947 should have been an occasion for rejoicingby the Labour Party and its supporters, yet celebrations weremuted by the looming shadow of critical coal shortages Despitethis concurrence of nationalization and coal crisis, littleattention has been focused on possible linkages between thetwo events. More generally, scant consideration has been givento the question of what happened to the industry when facedwith nationalization. This article's principal argument is thatthe fuel crisis was rooted not (as other historians have argued)in the atrocious weather, but in the very process of nationalization—or,rather in the combination of a lack of preparation for publicownership and (even more importantly) in the preoccupation withnationalization at the expense of the ‘stabilization’of the industry before entering the uncharted waters of publicownership. The chief conclusion is that during the run-up toVesting Day neither miners nor owners had any substantial incentiveto improve industrial productivity and output The period wasat best a standstill, and in many ways—as the crisis indicated—wastedmonths that a fuel-starved Britain could ill afford ^*This article is based on my MA thesis, ‘Fresh Start orFalse Dawn⁷ the coalmining Industry and Nationalisation, 1945–7'I would like to thank my supervisors, Ranald Midne and PhilipWilliamson for their continued support, and also David Howelland the referees of Twentieth Century British History for theirvaluable comments on earlier drafts of this work.     

The Tax Threshold: Policy, Principles, and Poverty

In the absence of an independent poverty standard, postwar Britishgovernments have tended to use current, politically determinedsocial security scales (from Unemployment Assistance in the1930s to Income Support today) as their definition of minimallyadequate income levels, commonly known as an ‘officialpoverty line’. A basic principle of taxation since thedays of Adam Smith, however, has been that incomes below theminimum income required for socially defined necessities shouldbe free of tax. The personal tax allowance which determinesthe income tax-paying threshold thus also provides a practicaldefinition of such an official poverty line. Royal Commissionsand official committees since the nineteenth century have endorsedSmith's principle, but it only acquired major political significanceafter the Second World War when income tax began to affect lowearners, particularly after the 1960s when poverty was ‘rediscovered’in the UK. In spite of this potential coincidence of purpose,a review of evidence and interviews with officials shows thatthere has been no co-ordination of policy between the Treasuryand Inland Revenue responsible for determining the level ofthe tax allowances, and the Social Security ministries responsiblefor the minimum benefit scales. The tax threshold has consequentlycontinued to be determined by considerations of political economyand administration and not by the alleviation of poverty. ^* This paper is part of a larger project on concepts of povertyand need in British income maintenance systems, chiefly the‘Assistance’ schemes which ran from 1934 to 1966.I am grateful to the many people who have helped with the project,regrettably too numerous to name here. I am particularly indebtedto Sir Norman Price and Sir Kenneth Stowe, James Meade, DellaNevitt, and). Leonard Nicholson for information on the tax issues,and want to record my thanks to them and to Fran Bennett, JohnHills, Chris Pond, and Adrian Sinfield, and especially RodneyLowe, as well as participants in seminars at the Universitiesof Edinburgh and Essex, and in Budapest, for their advice onthis paper.     

Social Democracy as a Way of Life: Fellowship and the Socialist Union, 1951-9

This articles considers the political cultural of the SocialistUnion (1951–9), and influential ethical socialist groupin the 1950s' Labour Party. Specifically, it discusses its uniqueintellectual influences and the legacy of its (somewhat different)previous manifestation as the Socialist Vanguard Group (1929–50).Emphasis is placed on the importance of the notion of fellowshipto the politics of this tradition and how this shaped a distinctpolitical and moral identity. Whilst it has been largely overlookedby historians, the Union had a considerable impact on Britishsocialism in the 1950s, through its journal, Socialist Commentary,and through leading members like Allan Flanders and Rita Hinden. ^* Special thanks are due to those former Unionists who sharedtheir experiences with me: Jay Blumler, Annemarie Flanders,and especially, Rene Saran. Thanks also to Peter Alexander,Nina Fishman, John Kelly, Peter Mandler, Mark Minion, Nick Tiratsoo,Hugh Wilford, and Leo Zeilig who read previous drafts of thispiece and to those participants in seminars at the Instituteof Historical Research who have commented on it. I am gratefulto George Bain for allowing me access to his papers at Warwick.     

'Stop the Flapper Vote Folly': Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail, and the Equalization of the Franchise 1927-28

This essay re-examines the Daily Mail's campaign in 1927–8against the Baldwin government's decision to equalize the franchiseby lowering the female voting age to 21. It argues that theMail's hostility to the ‘flapper vote’ was largelya product of the passionate anti-socialism of its proprietor,Lord Rothermere, and not, as has been suggested, the culminationof a decade of anti-feminism. Rothermere was convinced thatyoung women would vote overwhelmingly for the Labour Party andentrench it in government for a generation. But attacks on the‘flapper’ in 1927–8 were generally confinedto the paper's editorial and political columns, and contrastedwith the much more positive portrayal of young women that hadbeen typical of the Mail's output since 1918. The example ofthe Daily Express, which supported franchise equalization, isused to demonstrate that it was Rothermere's idiosyncratic politicalpinions, rather than the ‘typical’ anti-feminismof the Conservative press, that explained the Mail's stance.The article concludes that the gender discourse of interwarnewspapers has been unfairly stereotyped by historians, andthat media hostility to young, unmarried women in these yearshas been exaggerated.     

‘A Tiny Little Footnote in History’: Conservative Centre Forward

In May 1985, two years after he had returned to the back benches, Francis Pym launched the first organised display of dissent within the parliamentary Conservative Party against Margaret Thatcher's leadership: Conservative Centre Forward. Those Conservative MPs who joined the group were very much believers in One Nation Conservatism. Conservative Centre Forward survived for barely a week after going public; it rapidly collapsed amid accusations of disloyalty and inept leadership. The group proved to be a short-lived experiment which achieved little of note and exposed those who were involved to widespread ridicule. Yet, it was precisely because Conservative Centre Forward collapsed so quickly and achieved so little that it was significant. In its own way, the short life of the group provided a revealing commentary upon the character of the mid-1980s Conservative Party. It was a party which, on the one hand, was moving inexorably to the right and therefore ever further away from the values of One Nation Conservatism which Conservative Centre Forward espoused. On the other hand, it was a party which was still traditional enough to view open displays of dissent, of whatever magnitude, as a threat to the unity upon which its continued electoral success depended.     

The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction in 1940s Britain

German air-raids during the early days of the Second World Wardestroyed a number of cities in Britain. At the same time, somecontemporaries regarded such destruction as an opportunity notonly for the reconstruction of the built environment but alsofor the creation of a fairer society. The replanning of theblitzed areas became a symbol of the aspiration to build a NewJerusalem. This article examines the fate of radical town planning ideasin the 1940s and the early 1950s with particular reference tothe rebuilding of heavily bombed cities. It analyses the visionswhich inspired reconstruction plans, examines their conceptionand studies the visionaries, both ordinary citizens and thepolitical elite. The process of postwar reconstruction in general has becomea much-debated subject in political, economic and social historyin recent years, but there has been a serious lack of detailedexamination of postwar urban replanning and redevelopment. Thisarticle, therefore, also considers how the rebuilding of war-damagedcities should be evaluated in the light of the contemporarypolitical, economic, and social realities and issues duringthe period of postwar reconstruction. ^* I am most grateful to Dr. Nick Tiratsoo and Ms Hannah Pandianfor their comments and encouragements during the preparationof this article. I am also thankful to the editors and the refereefor their comments and suggestions. References starting CABand HLG relate to files in the Public Record Office, London.     

An Unequal Apportionment: The Conflict over Space Between Protestants and Catholics at the Beginning of the Wars of Religion

Although theological and political aspects of the Wars of Religionhave been extensively studied, their spatial dimension has oftenbeen neglected. Despite the plethora of urban monographs, spacehas been considered as the setting rather than the object ofconflict. On account of its scarcity, space brought a varietyof benefits and accordingly generated strategies of appropriationand exclusion for which the two confessions were unequally prepared.If Charles IX was the first to ‘tolerate’ Protestants,he almost always confined them to domestic space or excludedthem from the centre of towns. Employing a sociology of dominationdrawn from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this article seeks toexamine the unequal situation of the two confessions from aspatial perspective, refusing to explain this difference solelyby recourse to theological concepts. On the contrary, it attemptsto show how, in a manner that requires explanation, socioconfessionalinequalities were transformed into spatial ones.

The space which before any other seems to me to raise the problemand manifest just that strong social and historical differentiationbetween societies is the space of exclusion—of exclusionand imprisonment. Michel Foucault, La scène de la philosophie(1978)¹

     

Science and Politics: The Blackett Memorial Lecture

Abstract

Tribute is paid to Lord Blackett - who, like the Author, was President of the Royal Society - as a scientist, as a research leader during World War II and in his capacity as an adviser on science in India. Next, the distinctions amI analogies between science and politics are discussed; pure, applied and strategic research are defined; and the ambivalence between scientists and politicians is pointed out. Science for the Third World is touched on, and the difficulty of offering scientific advice to government is illustrated with the examples of nuclear war and acid rain; to render such advice valuable and relevant, financial independence is essential.     

Relegating Nazism to the Past: Expressions of German Guilt in 1945 and Beyond

This article builds on a research thesis that confronting moralfeelings is essential to an understanding of the catastrophicpolitical success of Nazism in Germany and the way Germany developedafter its defeat in 1945. This research into a ‘moralhistory’ of Nazi Germany and its postwar echoes is carriedout through an interdisciplinary approach that, in essence,combines historical with philosophical analysis. In the immediatepostwar period, Germany continued to be stamped by discussionscentred on moral guilt arising from its Nazi past and from theHolocaust in particular. The article analyses the differentways this guilt was discussed in 1945 and how these discussionsechoed what can be described as a form of Nazi morality. Thearticle uses three main sources to explore these issues: first,the writings and interrogations with the Nazi lawyer and Governor-Generalof Nazi-occupied Poland, Hans Frank; second, the memoirs ofHitler's secretary Traudl Junge; and third, the essay The Questionof German Guilt by Karl Jaspers.     

History, Memory, and Identity in Modern Singapore: Testimonies from the Urban Margins

In 2006–2007, I interviewed elderly Singaporeans on theirexperiences of resettlement from an urban kampong (village)to emergency public housing after a great fire in 1961. I learnedmuch about the lives of semiautonomous dwellers in an unauthorizedsettlement and the individual and social transformation followingtheir rehousing. My informants also highlighted what the experiencesmeant to them and their identity in a modern city-state. Thispaper treats the testimonies as both source and social memoryand seeks to avoid the essentialism into which many social historians,oral history practitioners, and memory scholars have fallenin their approach toward the craft. As a source of social history,when used in conjunction with other historical sources, thereminiscences are patently useful for understanding the roleof public housing in transforming a marginal population intoan integrated citizenry. This enables the writing of a new socialhistory of postwar Singapore that departs from the discursiveofficial accounts of urban kampong life and of the 1961 inferno.At the same time, the oral history also underlines powerfulsocial and political influences on individual memory, beingmarked by nostalgia for the kampong and ambivalence toward theimagined character of younger Singaporeans. Statements on therumors of government-inspired arson in the 1961 calamity, however,constitute a significant countermyth in contemporary society,revealing a more critical side to the social memory.     

Faith and Community Threatened? Roman Catholic Responses to the Welfare State, Materialism and Social Mobility, 1945-62

The Beveridge Report and the election of a Labour governmentin 1945 both reflected and created a new climate for Catholics,no less than for other groups. A debate raged about how Catholicteaching, with its emphasis on limiting state encroachment,squared with the Welfare State, with respect to the way in whichpeople should make provision for the basic needs of themselvesand their families. The battle lines were drawn between thosewho rejected the notion that the state should provide socialservices, believing instead that individuals should be freeto make their own arrangements, and those who felt at ease withthe new system of state-prescribed benefits. While the vastmajority of Catholics fell into the later camp, others, notablythe eminent economist Colin Clark and his Jesuit champion FrPaul Crane, were firmly in the former. They drew upon ideasfrom a well-established tradition of native Catholic thought(typified by the Distributist movement) to argue against a Britainbased on Beveridge, and that society should be organized soas to provide each individual with the opportunity to fulfiltheir godly destiny. ¹Thanks are due to Tony Carew and Peter Thompson and the refereesfor Twentieth Century British History for their comments onearlier drafts of this piece     

A preliminary statement on the dialogue established between the reform magazine al‐Manar and the Malayo‐Indonesian world

During the period of its publication (1898 to 1936), al‐Manar, under the editorship of Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida, received correspondence sent from the Malayo‐Indonesian world for publication in its volumes. This correspondence consists of some 134 requests for legal opinions and 26 articles in the form of: announcements; letters commenting on various matters related to the homeland; letters commenting on previous articles published in al‐Manar; and letters requesting and furnishing advice and information on specific questions.

This correspondence throws light on the dialogue established between the Egyptian reform movement, whose mouthpiece was the magazine al‐Manar, and the reform movement of the Malayo‐Indonesian world in the early decades of this century.     

'Very Peculiar Circumstances': Walter Runciman and the National Government, 1931-3

Walter Runciman's role in the crisis of 1931 and its aftermathis not as well known as those of his Liberal contemporaries,Samuel and Simon. It was, however, at least as important indetermining the outcome. Runciman was not a member of the firstNational Cabinet of August 1931, but he reluctantly acceptedthe Board of Trade, on flattering terms, in November. Highlyregarded by MacDonald, he developed an effective working andpersonal relationship with Neville Chamberlain, and togetherthey shaped the government's tariff policy. It was a compromisethat ensured the long-term survival of the National Governmentand defined the fiscal policy that would replace free trade.Runciman remained convinced throughout his years in office thathe was remaining true to Liberal principles—using tariffbargaining to reduce the general level of tariffs—andthat the national crisis and the changing economic climate justifiedhis compromise with the Conservatives. ¹ I am grateful to my colleagues, Professor Bill Luckin andDr Gaynor Johnson, and to Dr David Dutton, for their commentswhile this article was being written. The quotation in the titleis from Lord Shuttleworth to Runciman, 18 November 1935, RuncimanPapers, Robinson Library, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.WR221     

'You Cannot Hate the Bastard Who is Trying to Kill You...'Combat and Ideology in the British Army in the War Against Germany, 1939-45

During the Second World War the British Army faced a difficulttask when it tried to transform recruits who were mostly peace-lovingcivilians, into men prepared to kill. This article examineshow it went about doing so and how front-line soldiers respondedto the demand that they kill their German (and Italian) oppositenumbers. It also analyses the extent to which front-line soldiersin the British Army retained a sense of a shared common humanitywith their enemies that transended the political divisions ofthe war. It does so by analysing the ways in which they treatedtheir enemies when they were completely at their mercy, eitheras prisoners of war or as civilians in occupied territory. ¹N.McCallum, Journey with a Pistol (London,1959), 105.     

The Weight of the Moment: J. G. A. Pocock's Politics of History

One of the great intellectual productions of the postwar period, J. G. A. Pocock's The Machiavellian Moment was also an intervention in the American polity of the 1970s. The book's content, its rhetorical style, its methodology, and even its physical printed form were all designed to effectuate a political gesture. The crises of 1968 to 1973 invalidated the optimistic liberalism of Pocock's academic circle. The history of political language offered a refuge and a programmatic foundation for Pocock's pragmatic conservatism. The Machiavellian Moment was designed to reinforce the weight of tradition in contemporary political debate.     

Announcements

This article considers some of the late-Victorian and Edwardian influences on the popular historian, Sir Arthur Bryant (1899–1985) in the 20th century. It emphasises Bryant's role in strengthening patriotism and English national identity in the unpropitious circumstances of interwar and postwar Britain. The article examines his conservative cast of mind, one he communicated through best-selling histories and prolific journalism. It emphasises his increasing distance from organised Conservatism after the Second World War and the sympathy he attracted in some quarters of the Labour movement at the end of his life, as well as earlier on. However, it concludes that Bryant is a vital link between the late-19th century ‘moment’ of Englishness and its recent revival among Conservative thinkers, publicists and politicians.     

The particular kindness of friends: ex-Fascists,clientage and the transition to democracy in Italy, 1945–1960

This article examines some of the social implications of Italy’s limited purge of the bureaucracy and Fascist political class following the Second World War. Using the postwar personal correspondence of former Fascist government ministers Giuseppe Bottai (1895–1959) and Dino Alfieri (1886–1966), the article analyses the informal networks that promoted the continued influence of these ex-Fascists with high-ranking bureaucrats and other prominent individuals (such as Pope Paul VI and Aldo Moro). Thanks to the long-standing social practice of the raccomandazione, Bottai and Alfieri maintained their Fascist-era connections well into the postwar period, often serving as intermediaries between ‘ordinary Italians’ and governmental, political and cultural elites. Although they no longer held political power, these ex-Fascists represented a class of ‘alternative elites’ unassociated with the democratic values of the new Republic.