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The Formation of Lloyd George's ‘Garden Suburb’: ‘Fabian-like Milnerite Penetration’?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. A. Turner
J. A. Turner
Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge
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Extract

A little body of illuminati, whose residence is in the Prime Minister's garden, and their business to cultivate the Prime Minister's mind. These gendemen stand in no sense for a Civil Service cabinet. They are rather of the class of travelling empirics in Empire, who came in widi Lord Milner, whose spiritual home is fixed somewhere between Balliol and Heidelburg. Their function is to emerge from their huts in Downing Street, like the competitors in a Chinese examination, with answers to our thousand questions of the Sphinx.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 165 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 ‘The New Bureaucracy’ in The Nation, 24 Feb. 1917.

2 Woolf, Leonard, Downhill all the way (London, 1967), pp. 94–5.Google Scholar

3 Wilson, Trevor, The downfall of the Liberal party (London, 1967), pp. 97–176. The criticism was echoed at the time by A. G. Gardiner in the Daily News and transmitted to posterity by J. A. Spender.Google Scholar

4 See especially Hazelhurst, G. C. L., ‘The conspiracy myth’ in Gilbert, M. J. (ed.), Lloyd George (London, 1967);Google ScholarLowe, P., ‘Lloyd George's rise to the premiership’ in Taylor, A. J. P. (ed.), Lloyd George: Twelve essays (London, 1971);Google ScholarMorgan, K. O., ‘Lloyd George's stage army: The Coalition Liberals’,Google Scholaribid. and ‘Lloyd George's premiership; A study in prime ministerial government’, Historical Journal, XIII (1970).Google Scholar

5 The locus classicus for this is Massingham's article cited above, p. 1, n. 1.

6 See especially Gollin, A. M., Proconsul in politics (London, 1964), pp. 375–81.Google Scholar

7 See Roskill, S. W., Hankey, man of secrets (London, 1970), p. 653 and passim;Google ScholarNaylor, J., ‘The establishment of the War Cabinet Secretariat,’ Historical Journal, XIV, 1971.Google Scholar

8 Morgan, ‘Lloyd George's premiership’.

9 Cf. Sykes, Christopher, Nancy: the life of Lady Astor (London, 1972), p. 173;Google ScholarRoskill, , Hankey, p. 353;Google ScholarLockwood, P. A., ‘Lord Milner's entry into the War Cabinet’, Historical Journal, VII (1964).Google Scholar

10 Naylor, ‘War Cabinet Secretariat’. The idea is Lockwood's, ‘Milner's entry into the War Cabinet’.

11 C. Addison, M.D. (1869–1951). A teacher of Anatomy at Sheffield and London. Liberal M.P. 1910–22, Labour M.P. 1929–31, 1934–5. Minister of munitions 1916–17, of reconstruction 1917–18, of health 1919–21, without portfolio 1921, of agriculture 1930–1.

12 For full details of future members of the Garden Suburb, see below pp. 177–181.

13 Geoffrey Robinson (1874–1944), editor, The Times, 1912–19, 1923–41.Google Scholar

14 This account is taken from Addison's TS Diary in the Bodleian Library, MS Addison Box 97, which differs both in tone and in significant detail from the published version. Cf. Addison, Christopher, Four and a half years (2 vols. London, 1934), pp. 202ff.Google Scholar

15 Inwood, S., ‘The role of the press in politics,’ Oxford D.Phil., 1971, p. 76.Google Scholar

16 Lockwood, ‘Milner's entry into the War Cabinet’.

17 For this episode see Inwood, , Press in politics, p. 326.Google Scholar

18 Davies to Addison, 17 May 1916, MS Addison, Box 4.

19 Addison to Davies, 23 May 1916, ibid.

20 Addison to D'Abernon (chairman of the Board), 22 June 1916, MS Addison Box 68, File ‘Central Control Board’.

21 A phrase used by Thomas Jones. Jones to E. T. Jones, 10 Dec. 1916, Jones Papers, National Library of Wales.

22 Addison's TS Diary, 23 July 1916, MS Addison, Box 97.

23 Davies to Jones, 28 Aug. 1916, Middlemas, R. K. (ed.), Thomas Jones: Whitehall Diary (London, 1969), I, 1916–1925, pp. 1–2. This, die first of three volumes edited by Middlemas, is hereafter cited as Whitehall Diary.Google Scholar

24 Riddell, Lord, War Diary, 1914–1918 (London, 1933), p. 244.Google Scholar

25 Thomas Jones (1870–1955) left school at thirteen to work in an ironworks. Hoping to enter the Calvinistic Methodist ministry, he studied; went to University College, Aberystwyth, then to Glasgow University, where he became a lecturer. Joined the I.L.P. in 1895. Migrated to Belfast 1909, returned thence 1910.

26 Davies, Joseph, The prime minister's secretariat (Newport, Mon., 1952), pp. 9–11.Google ScholarCf. Whitehall Diary, p. 6.Google Scholar

27 Whitehall Diary, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

28 In the summer of 1916 Henderson had demanded more executive power in the ministry of munitions, for which department he was labour adviser, than Addison wanted him to have. When Addison published his diary in 1934 he understandably omitted these references to his recent colleague in a Labour cabinet. Addison Diary, 4 Aug. 1916, MS Addison Box 99.

29 See Davies, Joseph, Prime minister's secretariat, pp. 12–13;Google ScholarWhitehall Diary, pp. 7–10;Google ScholarAddison, , Four and a half years, pp. 270–7, for accounts of 6 December.Google Scholar

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31 Davies to Lloyd George, 10 Dec. 1916, Lloyd George Papers F/83/10/1. Cf. Owen, F., Tempestuous journey (London, 1954), p. 379.Google Scholar

32 Although Thomas had been offered no place in the War Cabinet, he had deliberately declined the ministry of labour; Wedgwood Benn was not appointed chief whip; Rhondda's personal morals were litde different from Lloyd George's, though exercised with less discretion, and his devotion to the public service was such that he died of overwork in 1918.

33 Jones to E. T. Jones, 10 Dec. 1916, Jones Papers P1/19.

34 Whitehall Diary, p. 14.Google Scholar

35 Ibid. pp. 15–16.

36 Information from Professor N. H. Gibbs.

37 Robertson to Lloyd George, 16 Dec. 1916. Lloyd George Papers F/44/3/4. Lloyd George credits Milner with the suggestion in The truth about the peace treaties (London, 1938), p. 263.Google Scholar

38 Addison, , Four and a half years, p. 278.Google Scholar

39 Astor to Garvin, 15 Dec. 1916, Garvin Papers.

40 E. A. Goulding (1862–1936), right-wing tory M.P. for Worcestershire, CT. 1st Baron Wargrave, 1922, pres. Constitutional Club.

41 Garvin probably meant the War Cabinet Secretariat.

42 Garvin to Lloyd George, 18 Dec. 1916, Lloyd George Papers, F/94/1/39.

43 Montgomery had served Asquith at 10 Downing Street before the war as a junior liaison officer with die Foreign Office.

44 John Thomas Davies (1881–1938). Once a schoolmaster in Wales, he became a civil servant and served Lloyd George for many years. He was closely in the prime minister's confidence, but his private office remained separate from the Garden Suburb.

45 William Sutherland (1880–1949) gained a bad name for his handling of the press and his alleged participation in die sale of honours. He entered parliament in 1918 and became chancellor of the Duchy in 1920.

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47 Ibid. p. 19.

48 ‘The Prime Minister's Secretariat’, unsigned and undated memorandum in Adams’ file in the Lloyd George Papers, F/74/2/2. The document is accompanied by another, signed by Kerr and Adams, which differs only in detail in the account of the division of work, and indicates that Hankey had agreed to the proposals. Adams and Kerr to Lloyd George 1 Jan. 1917, Lloyd George Papers, F/74/2/2.

49 Compare the internal memorandum of which a copy is in Jones Papers B/1/4/12–13 with ‘Note on the Composition of the Secretariat of the War Cabinet’, 13 Dec. 1916, Milner Papers 123, p. 124.

50 ‘An innovation in Downing Street’, The Times, 10 Jan. 1917.

51 Davies, Joseph, Prime minister's secretariat, pp. 51–7. The memoranda are in the Lloyd George Papers, F/74/2/9.Google Scholar

52 Ibid. pp. 58–9.

53 Jones to E. T. Jones, 11 Jan. 1917, Jones Papers, Z/1917; The Times, 11 Jan. 1917.

54 Whitehall Diary, p. 20. The testimonials are in Jones Papers, W/1/15–18.Google Scholar

55 The Times, 15 Jan. 1917.

56 Jones to E. T. Jones, 20 Mar. 1917, Jones Papers, Z/1917, p. 30.

57 The information in this paragraph is drawn from the obituary of Adams first drafted for The Times by Thomas Jones, which appeared on 1 Feb. 1966, and from conversations with Miss K. Digby of the Plunkett Foundation.

58 Kendle, J. E. ‘The Round Table Movement and "Home Rule All Round"’, Historical Journal, XI (1968), 332–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 Roskill, , Hankey, p. 184.Google Scholar

60 See Butler, J. R. M., Lord Lothian (London, 1960).Google Scholar

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71 ‘Note on die composition of die Secretariat of the War Cabinet’, by Hankey, 13 Dec. 1916. Milner Papers 123.

72 I am obliged to Mr John Stubbs, who first drew my attention to Steel-Maitland's failure to achieve promotion. The War Cabinet Secretariat incident is documented in Naylor, ‘War Cabinet Secretariat’. Correspondence with Bonar Law and Edmund Talbot in 1916 is in Bonar Law Papers, 81/1. The 1918 reference is in H. A. L. Fisher's MS diary in the Bodleian Library, entry for 23 Nov.

73 Hankey, , The Supreme Command (2 vols. London, 1961), p. 590.Google Scholar

74 Milner to Lloyd George, 14 Dec. 1916, Lloyd George Papers, F/38/2/1.

75 See p. 173 above.

76 ‘Fitz’ to Amery, 14 Jan. 1917, Milner Papers 107.

77 An undated list of potential secretaries can be found in Adams' file in the Lloyd George Papers, F/74/5/1.

78 Wilson, T. (ed.), The political diaries of C. P. Scott (London, 1970), p. 278.Google Scholar

79 Beloff, M. in Britain's Liberal Empire, 1897–1921, pp. 214–16, suggests that he was not; but most of his argument is a priori and his knowledge of the Garden Suburb is drawn from Lockwood and shares Lockwood's errors.Google Scholar