Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T02:49:38.645Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Origins of Public Secrecy in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

David Vincent
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The first modern crisis of public secrecy was set in motion in the Spring of 1844 when a little-known Italian exile began sending himself letters in which he had placed grains of sand, poppy seeds or fine hairs. The discovery that the additional contents were disappearing in transit confirmed Joseph Mazzini's suspicions that his correspondence was being opened by Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, at the request of the Austrian ambassador. There then followed what Graham's first biographer described as a ‘paroxysm of national anger’ as the extent of clandestine domestic espionage was exposed. A powerful coalition of working-class radicals and Parliamentary Liberals came together to protest at the use of ‘the spy system of foreign states’.‘The proceeding cannot be English,’ thundered The Times, ‘any more than masks, poisons, sword-sticks, secret signs and associations, and other such dark ventures. Public opinion is mighty and jealous, and does not brook to hear of public ends pursued by other than public means. It considers that treason against its public self.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 1 , December 1991 , pp. 229 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mazzini, J., Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini (new ed., 1891), vol. III, 188Google Scholar.

2 [Mazzini, J.], ‘Mazzini and the Ethics of Politicians], Westminster Review, LXXXII (09–12 1844), 242Google Scholar.

3 Torrens, T. M., The Life and Times of the Right Honourable Sir James R.G.Graham (1863), vol. II, 348Google Scholar.

4 Hansard 3rd Ser., LXXIV, June 4, 1844, col. 893.

5 Times, 26 June, 1844, 6.

6 Vincent, D., Literacy and Popular Culture (Cambridge, 1989), 32–49; 69–72; 233–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ironically, Mazzini's suspicions were alerted when, to save money, the Post Office used the Penny Post to forward to him an intercepted overseas letter.

7 Under pressure, he conceded the appointment of a select committee, but its proceedings were kept secret. See, Report from the Select Committee on the Post Office (1844), PP 1844, XIV.

8 The fullest account of the event is to be found in, Smith, F. B., ‘British Post Office Espionage 1844’, Historical Studies, 4, (1970)Google Scholar. See also, Donajgrodzki, A. P., ‘Sir James Graham at the Home Office’, Historical Journal, xx, I, (1977)Google Scholar; Porter, B., Plots and Paranoia (1989), 76–8Google Scholar; Robinson, H., Britain's Post Office (Cambridge, 1953), 47, 55, 91–2Google Scholar; Troup, E., The Home Office (2nd ed. 1926), 109–110Google Scholar; Vincent, D., ‘Communications, Community and the State’, in Emsley, C. and Walvin, J. (eds.), Artisans, Peasants and Proletarians 1760–1860 (1985), 166–86Google Scholar.

9 Andrew, C., Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (1985), 3Google Scholar; Porter, ,Plots and Paranoia, 78Google Scholar.

10 On the extent of surveillance during the final Chartist challenge, see J. Saville, 1848 (Cambridge, 1987), 125, 161–3, 185.

11 Porter, B., The Origins of the Vigilant State (1987), 1–18Google Scholar.

12 On the authorship of the article, see, Mario, J. W., The Birth of Modern Italy (1909), 81Google Scholar; Rudman, H., Italian Nationalism and English Letters (1940), 65Google Scholar.

13 ‘Mazzini and the Ethics of Politicians’, 251.

14 For a clear statement of its importance, first published a year before Mazzini's article, see, Bentham, J., ‘Of Publicity’, The Works of J. Bentham (1843), 310Google Scholar.

15 Parris, H., Constitutional Bureaucracy (1969), 106–111Google Scholar; Pellew, J., The Home Office, 1848–1914 (1982) 7Google Scholar; Chester, N., The English Administrative System 1780–1870 (Oxford, 1981), 282–3Google Scholar.

16 Chester, , The English Administrative System, 300Google Scholar. One of the few attempts to identify the technology of communication as an agent of administrative reform is to be found in, Cell, J. W., British Colonial Administration in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (New Haven, 1970), 43–6Google Scholar. Cell also draws attention to the later impact of the telegraph, which forced the involvement of junior clerks in dealing with incoming messages.

17 Northcote-Trevelyan Report (1854), republished in Public Administration XXXII (Spring, 1954), 1.

18 Report from the Select Committee on Official Salaries (1850), PP 1850, XV, 88, 204, 458; Barrow, J., An Auto-Biographical Memoir (1847), 418Google Scholar; Donajgrodzki, A. P., ‘New roles for old: the Northcote-Trevelyan Report and the clerks of the Home Office 1822–48’ in Sutherland, G.(ed.), Studies in the growth of nineteenth-century government (1972), 93Google Scholar; Chester, , The English Administrative System, 283Google Scholar; Jones, R., The nineteenth-century Foreign Office (1971), 13, 32Google Scholar; Tilley, J. A. C. and Gaselee, S., The Foreign Office (1933), 66Google Scholar.

19 PP 1850, XV, 505–6.

20 Tilley, and Gaselee, , Foreign Office, 53, 65–7Google Scholar. For the early practice of the Colonial Office, see ‘Regulation for Numbering and Docketing Despatches and Papers Sent to the Colonial Office’, Jan. 1818, reprinted as Appendix IX of Young, D. M., The Colonial Office in the Early Nineteenth Century (1961)Google Scholar.

21 Herstlet, E., Recollections of the Old Foreign Office (1901), 29Google Scholar.

22 By the 1840s, some departments were experimenting with separate grades of copying clerks. Snelling, R. C. and Brown, T. J., ‘The Colonial Office and its permanent officals 1801–1914’, in Sutherland, , Nineteenth-century government, 150Google Scholar; Blakeley, B. L., The Colonial Office 1868–1892 (Durham, N.C., 1972), 4–15Google Scholar. On the early reform of the Board of Trade see, Prouty, R., The Transformation of the Board of Trade 1830–1855 (1957), 100Google Scholar.

23 Hart, J., ‘The genesis of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report’, in Sutherland, , Nineteenth-century Government, 102Google Scholar. See also the similar behaviour of the reforming Stephen, James in Cell, British Colonial Administration, 7–11Google Scholar.

24 Northcote-Trevelyan Report, 11; O, MacDonagh, , Early Victorian Government 1830–1870 (1977), 202–8Google Scholar.

25 Taylor, H., The Statesman (New York, 1958 edn.), 109–12Google Scholar.

26 Reports of Committees of Inquiry into Public Offices (1854), PP 1854 XXVII, 82Google Scholar.

27 Papers on the Re-Organisation of the Civil Service (1855), PP 1854–5, XX, p. 116Google Scholar. For a more extensive discussion of the ‘high sense of honour’ of the permanent civil service, and the inability of formal exams to identify this quality, see Grey, Earl, Parliamentary Government (1858), 159–79Google Scholar.

28 ‘Mazzini and the Ethics of Politicians’, 228.

29 Parker, C. S., Life and Letters of Sir James Graham (1907), I, 426Google Scholar. On the Privy Councillor's Oath and cabinet secrecy, see, Todd, A., On Parliamentary Government in England (1869), 195Google Scholar; Leigh, D., The Frontiers of Secrecy (1980), 1Google Scholar.

30 Torrens, , Life and Times of Graham, II, 302Google Scholar. Also, Erickson, A. B., The Public Career of Sir James Graham (Oxford, 1952), 268–75Google Scholar; Ward, J. T., Sir James Graham (1967), 209–11, 306Google Scholar.

31 Clark, G. Kitson, ‘“Statesmen in Disguise”: Reflexions on the History of the Neutrality of the Civil Service’, Historical Journal, III (1959), 21–38Google Scholar.

32 Hughes, E., ‘Sir James Stephen and the Anonymity of the Civil Servant’, Public Administration, XXXVI (Spring, 1958), 30Google Scholar.

33 PP 1854, XXVII, 44.

34 Northcote-Trevelyan Report, 11.

35 For a concise history of the writer class, see, Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service [MacDonnell, ] (1914), PP 1914, XVI, 124–6Google Scholar.

36 Report from the Select Committee on Civil Service Writers (1873), PP 1873, XIGoogle Scholar.

37 First Report of the Civil Service Inquiry Commission [Playfair, ] (1875), PP 1875, XXIII, 6–12Google Scholar.

38 Hertslet, , Recollections, 191–2Google Scholar; Tilley, and Gaselee, , The Foreign Office, 139–40Google Scholar; Hooper, D., Official Secrets (1987), 19–21Google Scholar; Aitken, J., Officially Secret (1971), 7–15Google Scholar.

39 Marvin, C., Our Public Offices (2nd ed., 1880), 212Google Scholar.

40 Marvin, , Our Public Offices, 3Google Scholar.

41 P.R.O., FO/363/3, Tenterden Papers. Tenterden to Salisbury, June 15, 1878.

42 P.R.O., FO/363/3, Tenterden Papers. Tenterden to Salisbury, June 21, 1878.

43 ‘Premature Publication of Official Documents. Treasury Minute (13 March, 1884), PP 1884, LXII, Appendix No.1, Minute of 1873, 356. Also, Robertson, K. G., Public Secrets (1982), 52–4Google Scholar.

44 PP 1884, LXII, 356.

45 Hansard, 3rd Ser., CCLXXXV, 3 March, 1884, col. 361.

46 PP 1884, LXII, 355. Emphasis in the original.

47 PP 1873, XI, 37.

48 Second Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments of the different Offices of State at Home and Abroad [Ridley, ] (1888), PP 1888, XXVII, 36Google Scholar; Tilley, and Gaselee, , The Foreign Office, 154Google Scholar.

49 Hansard 3rd Ser., CCCXI, 10 March, 1887, col. 1745.

50 Hansard 3rd Ser., CCCXII, 11 March, 1887, col. 20.

51 Hansard 3rd Ser., CCCXIII, 5 April, 1887, col. 488.

52 Hansard 3rd Ser., CCCXIII, 5 April, 1887, col. 488.

53 Taylor, , Statesman, 89Google Scholar.

54 P.R.O., HO45/9752/A59329, ‘Production of Telegrams and Post Letters on the Warrant of the Secretary of State’. The paper is dated 19 February 1886, but contains material up to 1890. Comparison with the contemporary Home Office Minute Books confirms the accuracy of the report.

55 The first warrant for the interception of a telegram was issued in 1875. P.R.O., HO151/1.

56 P.R.O., HO151/8. Warrant of 29 Sept. 1899.

57 P.R.O., HO151/8. Warrants of 13 Jan. and 19 Jan. 1900.

58 P.R.O., HO151/9. Warrant of 15 Sept. 1911. See also Hiley, N., ‘The Failure of British Counter-Espionage against Germany, 1907–1914’, Historical Journal, XXVIII, 4 (1985), 857Google Scholar.

59 Churchill, W. S., The World Crisis 1911–1914 (2nd ed., 1923), I, 52Google Scholar; Andrew, , Secret Service, 60Google Scholar.

60 Porter, B., The Originsofthe Vigilant State (1987), 67–78Google Scholar.

61 P.R.O., H0151/9. Warrant of 23 March, 1912.

62 P.R.O., HO45/10629/199699, 41; P.R.O., CAB16/8, Proceedings of a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence Appointed by the Prime Minister to Consider the Question of Foreign Espionage in the United Kingdom (1909), 8.

63 Pace Robertson, K. G., who in Public Secrets argues that official secrecy ‘was one of the mechanisms used to enhance control of elected representatives over unelected administrators.’ (42)Google Scholar.

64 P.R.O., HO45/9752/A59329/2. The complaint from Eton College was received in 1890, and from Winchester College ‘and other places’ in 1894. The first warrants were issued in 1891.

65 P.R.O., HO45/9752/A59329/2. Memorandum from Ridley to Walpole, 28 Jan. 1898.

66 P.R.O., HO45/9752/A59329/2, Digby to Sir Spencer Walpole, Secretary of the Post Office, 29 Oct. 1897. Also, Kamm, R. M., ‘The Home Office, public order and civil liberties, 1870–1914’ Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Cambridge University, 1987, 274–5Google Scholar.

67 P.R.O., H045/9752/A59329/2. See also the observations of Sydney Buxton, the then Postmaster General, to the 1909 Imperial Defence Sub-Committee. P.R.O., CAB 16/8, 9.

68 P.R.O., H045/9752/A59329/2. Report of Law Officers, dated 5 April, 1898.

69 P.R.O., WO32/6347, papers relating to the trial of Holden, Robert; Times, II 04, 1892, 6Google Scholar.

70 P.R.O., CAB17/91; HO45/10629/199699, 3, 9.

71 For the campaign organised by the Newspaper Proprietors' Association, see Times, 27 April, 1908, 11; 4 May, 1908, 3; 7 May, 1908, p. 11. Also, Hansard, 4th Ser., CLXXXVIII, 11 May, 1908, cols. 673–4; CXC, 23 June, 1908, cols. 1476–8.

72 Seely, J. E. B., Adventure (1930), 145Google Scholar.

73 Waddington, I., The Medical Profession in the Industrial Revolution (Dublin, 1984), 96–132Google Scholar; Parry, N. and Parry, J., The Rise of the Medical Profession (1976), 124–6Google Scholar; Vincent, , Literacy and Popular Culture, 167Google Scholar.

74 Macleod, R. (ed.), Government and Expertise (Cambridge. 1988), 15–17Google Scholar.

75 On the impact of the 1844 controversy on the cause of Italian Nationalism in Britain, see Smith, , ‘British Post Office Espionage’, 202Google Scholar.

76 Times, 7 May, 1908, 11.

77 Times, 6 December, 1858.

78 P.R.O., T1/8308B/16646.

79 P.R.O., WO32/6347. MS note on drafting secrecy legislation, 24 December, 1887.

80 Hansard 5th ser., XXIX, 18 Aug., 1911, col. 2252.

81 Hansard 4th ser., CLXXXVIII, 11 May, 1908, col. 674.

82 Morning Post, 21 March, 1908.

83 P.R.O., ADM 1/8030.

84 French, D., ‘Spy Fever in Britain, 1900–1915’, Historical Journal, XXI, 2 (1978), 356–62Google Scholar.

85 The most trenchant account of the Government's manoeuvring between 1908 and 1911 is to be found in Report of the Departmental Committee on Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act of 1911 (Franks Committee), Cmnd 5104 (1972), I, 23–5.

86 Hooper, , Official Secrets, 223Google Scholar.

87 Birkinshaw, P., Freedom of Information (1988), 70Google Scholar.

88 Steiner, Z., ‘The Last Years of the Old Foreign Office, 1898–1905’, Historical Journal, VI, 1, (1963), 66Google Scholar; Gregory, J. D., On the Edge of Diplomacy (London, 1929), 265Google Scholar; Koss, S., The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britian. Vol.1: The Nineteenth Century (1981), 219–22, 412Google Scholar.

89 Stafford, D. A. T., ‘Spies and Gentlemen: the Birth of the British Spy Novel 1893–1914’, Victorian Studies, 24 (Summer, 1981), 491Google Scholar.

90 Shils, E.A., The Torment of Secrecy (1956), 27Google Scholar. Also, Bok, S., Secrets (Oxford, 1984), 191–200Google Scholar.

91 ‘Mazzini and the Ethics of Politicians’, 251. The passage is a misquotation from Revelation 17, v. 5.