Preface

Summary

Josiah Clement Wedgwood – ‘Josh’ to both friends and enemies – though largely forgotten now, was one of the best known politicians of his day. During the thirty-seven years between 1906 and 1943 that saw more change to Britain's political and international position than in many decades before or since, he was one of the most active and outspoken members of parliament – at Westminster, around the country and in the media. He knew everyone who was anyone in British politics, and seemed to argue with just about all of them at one time or another. In conventional terms his career was not very successful: he did not rise to high ministerial rank, nor did he lead a party or introduce legislation that changed the face of Britain. Instead of pursuing executive power, he chose to campaign on a series of policy issues – for land taxation, for individual freedom, for a new-model British empire, for a History of Parliament and for Zionism, although here again his successes were few and his failures were many. Among the reasons for Wedgwood's failure to achieve much more than self-publicity were his own idiosyncrasies – his obstreperousness, his inability to manage people and his casual attitude to facts and figures – and yet there was a deeper reason for his disappointments, a reason of which he was aware at the time and which makes the history of his career not merely the tale of a sociable if disputatious eccentric, but also one that marks the decline and fall of a particular view of British politics and society. For Wedgwood's campaigns, though seemingly disparate, all grew from the same strong ideological (and sociological) root. For Wedgwood the individual was what mattered, not ‘class’ or ‘society’, which were simply crude shorthand for agglomerations of individuals and had no corporeal existence in their own right. He firmly followed in the Individualist traditions of Adam Smith, J. S. Mill and especially the Victorian philosopher Herbert Spencer in holding that self-interest was not only the best guide to the physical well-being of the individual, but to his moral well-being and to the greater good of society as a whole.