Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister

George Hamilton-Gordon, the 4^th Earl of Aberdeen and Prime Minister from 1852 to 1855, was born in 1784. 

He was a member of the Cabinet under the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1828 and as Foreign Secretary from 1828 to 1830.

He served in the government of Sir Robert Peel as Secretary for War and the Colonies (1834-5) and as Foreign Secretary (1841-6). In this latter role he did much to improve relationships with France and the United States.

In 1846 he resigned, along with Peel, over the Corn Laws issue, but succeeded him as leader of the Peelite faction. 

In 1852 he formed a government consisting of Peelites and Whigs but was forced to resign in 1855 over his mismanagement of the Crimean War.

Apart from his political activities, Lord Aberdeen had scholarly interests, presiding over the Society of Antiquaries from 1812 to 1846. In 1843 he tried unsuccessfully to prevent the “Disruption” of the Church of Scotland when a large number of clergy and laity broke away to form the Free Church of Scotland.

He died in 1860.

©John Welford

Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington

Spencer Compton, 1^st Earl of Wilmington, was the second person to be recognised as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first being Sir Robert Walpole. However, Wilmington’s time in office was much shorter and less distinguished than that of his predecessor.

He was the sixth son of James Compton, 3^rd Earl of Northampton.  Strangely enough for a member of the aristocracy, his date of birth is unknown and could have been in either 1673 or 1674.

He was educated at St Paul’s School, London, began a legal career by enrolling at the Middle Temple in 1687 and entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1690.

He became a member of the House of Commons after winning a by-election at Eye, Suffolk, in 1695. Although he came from a Tory family he joined the Whig faction in the Commons, mainly due to a violent disagreement with his elder brother George. He failed to impress as a debater or speechmaker but found a talent for mastering the details of Parliamentary procedure. He also became friendly with Robert Walpole.

In 1707 Spencer Compton was given the extra-Parliamentary job of treasurer to Prince George, the husband of Queen Anne. This was a good move, because he had fallen out with the patron of his Commons seat and was not allowed to continue as MP for Eye after 1710. He had also been appointed Paymaster of Pensions while in the House of Commons and was allowed to keep this job until 1713, possibly because no-one else wanted it.

He re-entered Parliament in 1713 as a member for East Grinstead, Sussex. In 1715 he became treasurer to the Prince of Wales (who later became King George II) and Speaker of the House of Commons, a position that he held for the next 12 years.

The job of Speaker was one that suited him perfectly, given his talent for mastering detail and his general lack of flair and dynamism.

Politics during the early 18^th century depended greatly on personal favouritism and dislike, not only between politicians but between the latter and the monarch. The largest fish in the political pond was Robert Walpole, to whom Compton originally offered complete loyalty but this did not last. The problem was caused by the Prince of Wales, who made it perfectly clear to Walpole that he would not be his choice of chief minister when he became king. Spencer Compton would be the man to have this honour, given that Prince George knew all about Compton’s efficiency as a financial manager.

Walpole therefore did all he could he keep Compton out of front-line politics. He made sure that Compton retained his position as Speaker and also that he became Paymaster General, which was a post from which a greedy man like Spencer Compton could make a great deal of money. During his time as Paymaster General – from 1722 to 1730 – it is estimated that he enriched himself to the tune of £100,000.

When King George I died in May 1727 and Prince George became King George II, the latter promptly acted on his promise to dismiss Walpole and appoint Compton in his place as First Lord of the Treasury (the official name of the office of Prime Minister that had evolved under Walpole’s leadership).

However, it soon became clear that Compton was not up to the job and could not do anything without calling on Walpole for assistance. He was forced to admit this to the King, with Walpole present at the meeting, and he thereafter regarded Walpole as having humiliated him by declining to come to his defence.

Walpole therefore resumed his role as Prime Minister, but Compton was still in the King’s favour and was therefore allowed to retain the post of Paymaster General.

Walpole had ceased to be popular with many Whigs and Tories, and Compton was widely believed to be behind much of the anti-Walpole feeling. Walpole came to see Compton as his chief rival and did everything he could to remove the threat. Thus, when Compton was appointed Lord Privy Seal in 1730 – probably due to the King’s influence – Walpole immediately had him removed from the House of Commons by conferring on him the title of Earl of Wilmington, which meant that he would henceforth have to sit in the House of Lords.

Wilmington’s performance in the Lords was no more distinguished than it had been in the Commons. He subsided into the background as he performed his duties without exciting any attention although the suspicion of constant plotting against Walpole was always there.

In 1741 he became more vocal in his opposition and even suggested that there should not be a Prime Minister at all. He was of the view that the King should be allowed to rule without too much interference from Parliamentary factions, of which that led by Walpole was the most objectionable. This opinion was clearly favoured by King George, who in February 1742 removed Walpole from office and appointed Wilmington in his place.

Wilmington was by this time in his late 60s and not in the best of health. As Prime Minister he did not show much in the way of enthusiasm or energy, although he wanted to appoint ministers with a broad range of political views, including Tories as well as Whigs. However, some ministers were chosen with royal approval but without consultation with himself. Chief among these was Lord Carteret as Secretary of State – he was the real controlling force in the government of which Wilmington was little more than a figurehead.

Wilmington’s term of office was ended with his death on 2^nd July 1743. He was buried at Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire, thus joining many of his ancestors. He never married, so his estate was inherited by his nephew James Compton.

It had already been understood that Wilmington would hand over the reins of office later that year, so the political succession – to Henry Pelham – was merely brought forward by a few months.

Wilmington must therefore be regarded as one of the footnotes of history. He was not a man of any great talent; he achieved little but was not responsible for any great harm either.

© John Welford

Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee was the first British Labour Prime Minister to have an overall majority in the House of Commons. His two governments, from 1945 to 1951, saw the creation of the National Health Service and major strides forward in the creation of the welfare state.


His early life

Clement Richard Attlee was born on 3rd August 1883 in Putney, London, the seventh of eight children born to solicitor Henry Attlee and his wife Ellen. It is somewhat ironic that the future leader of Britain’s most left-wing government should have come from a prosperous middle-class family that offered no hint of deprivation, but that was indeed the case.

He was educated at Haileybury College and moved on to University College Oxford in 1901, leaving in 1904 with a second-class degree in history.

He had no firm conviction about a career, but entered a law firm and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1906. He had no real enthusiasm for the law, or indeed for anything else, and might have continued in this way had he not become involved with an East End boys’ club in October 1905.

This experience appealed to his latent militarism and he took a commission in the Territorial Army so that he could lead the boys in drilling and camping, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He was also brought into contact with people from a completely different social stratum and was thus introduced to the social and economic problems faced by huge numbers of Londoners.

The death of his father in 1908 meant that Attlee no longer felt himself to be under an obligation to pursue a legal career, and he gave up practice at the bar in 1909, turning instead to lecturing as a way of earning an income. In 1912 he was appointed to a post in the Social Services department of the London School of Economics.


A political career

He realised that the only way to make a real difference in improving the lives of deprived people was through politics and he therefore joined the Stepney branch of the Independent Labour Party. By the outbreak of World War I in 1914 he had made a name for himself in left-wing politics.

Attlee had a distinguished and action-packed career in the Army during the War, rising to the rank of major and being wounded twice. Although he hated the war and the miseries it caused, it gave him some valuable leadership insights.

After the war Attlee was co-opted as mayor of Stepney in 1919, after which he continued as an alderman for a further five years. He was elected to the House of Commons, for the Limehouse constituency, in November 1922 and he was to hold this seat until February 1950.

Attlee became parliamentary private secretary to the Labour leader, Ramsay Macdonald, and subsequently Under-Secretary of State for War during the minority Labour government of January to November 1924.

He was appointed to the cross-party Simon Commission in 1927 that travelled to India to investigate how its constitution could be reformed. This work, which lasted until 1930, kept Attlee out of front-line Labour politics and ministerial office, to which he only returned in the spring of 1930 as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

The general election of October 1931 was a disaster for Labour, whose MPs were reduced from 287 to 46. Many able MPs lost their seats, including the party leader Arthur Henderson, but Attlee clung on in Limehouse and found himself as virtual leader alongside George Lansbury and Stafford Cripps.

In opposition, Attlee set about “preaching the word” by advancing the cause of Socialism, his basic ideas being published in 1937 in his book “The Labour Party in Perspective”. At the heart of his philosophy was the need for widespread nationalization to keep the worst excesses of capitalism at bay and produce social justice.

Although George Lansbury was Labour’s official leader, he suffered from poor health and Attlee deputised for him in 1933-4. When Lansbury resigned in October 1935 Attlee was elected to replace him, his main rival being Herbert Morrison.

During the coalition government that ruled during most of World War II, Attlee served as Winston Churchill’s deputy (from 1942 to 1945) and held other important posts that supported the war effort by maintaining the civil side of things on the home front.

Attlee was never a charismatic figure, in obvious contrast to Churchill, and there were fears among senior Labour figures that his lacklustre performance in Parliament and the country would hand the post-war general election to the Conservatives on a plate.


Prime Minister

However, to the surprise of many people, himself included, the Labour Party under Attlee swept to power in the July 1945 election with a majority of 147 seats. Doubtless this was helped by Churchill’s over-reliance on believing that a grateful nation would want him to lead the peace as well as the war. However, the mood in the country was for rebuilding and reform along socialist lines.

Attlee was greatly supported, during the war and afterwards, by Ernest Bevin, who provided the dynamism that Attlee lacked, but who appreciated the value of having an utterly trustworthy figure as the party’s leader. As Foreign Secretary in the new government, Bevin was able to promote Britain’s interests far more forcefully than Attlee could. As the latter famously said, “If you’ve got a good dog, you don’t bark yourself”.

Attlee’s government was beset throughout by the aftermath of the war in terms of austerity and rationing of basic items. The country was nearly bankrupt and dependent on loans and aid from the United States to keep going. Even so, financial pressures during this period led to the pound sterling having to be devalued in 1949.

Despite these pressures, Attlee was able to lead a hard-working and talented team of ministers to introduce major changes, not least the birth of the National Health Service, guaranteeing free medical care for all at the point of delivery, in 1948. This was coupled with a scheme for national insurance (the Act was passed in 1946) to ensure that everyone could obtain a flat-rate pension and benefits to cover sickness and unemployment, in exchange for modest regular payments deducted from income. These were the two pillars of Britain’s “cradle to grave” welfare state.

The Attlee government nationalized large areas of British industry, including the mines, railways, steel, electricity and gas. About 20% of the British economy was in public hands by 1951.

A massive house-building programme was introduced, and the reforms of the 1944 Education Act were enforced, with free secondary education becoming a right for all.

However, by 1950 all this work was taking its toll on the government and many of its leading figures suffered from poor health or felt that they could no longer continue in office. At the 1950 general election Labour’s majority was reduced to five, and Attlee’s second government was greatly hampered as a result.


Defeat and retirement

Following major resignations in April 1951, notably of Aneurin Bevan and Harold Wilson, Attlee sought a fresh mandate in October 1951 but lost to the Conservatives, who would then stay in power until 1964.

Attlee continued as party leader in opposition, but a further Labour defeat in May 1955 led to him stepping down in December of that year. He accepted a peerage, as Earl Attlee, and moved to the House of Lords.

In his retirement he wrote articles and reviews, travelled extensively, and continued to support the Labour Party, by whom he was always highly respected. His wife Violet, who, despite not sharing his political views, had supported him tirelessly throughout his career, not least by acting as his driver during election campaigns, died suddenly in June 1964.

Lord Attlee died of pneumonia on 8th October 1967, at the age of 84, and his ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey.

Winston Churchill is often misquoted as having said that Clement Attlee was a modest man who had much to be modest about. Only the first part of this statement is true, as Churchill had a huge amount of respect for his wartime deputy. He was certainly a quiet man who was uncertain in company and preferred the society of close friends to that of large gatherings.

What he did have in large measure, though, was a profound sense of self-belief, based on careful introspection. Everything he did was thought out in detail and, when he knew that his proposed actions were the right ones, he would proceed to see them through with quiet determination and complete trust in his judgment. He was once asked how he coped under such a heavy workload. His reply was:

“By not worrying. Clearing off every day's job before the end of the day. You take a decision and have done with it. No good keeping on asking yourself if you've done the right thing. It gets you nowhere.”

© John Welford

Anthony Eden, British Prime Minister

Anthony Eden is generally regarded as one of the least successful British prime ministers of the 20^th century, whose poor judgment over the Suez Crisis led to a considerable lessening of British influence in Middle East affairs and caused a deep rift with the United States that took some time to repair.

Early years

Robert Anthony Eden was born on 12^th June 1897 at Windlestone Hall in County Durham. He was the third son and fourth child of Sir William Eden, a baronet who owned large tracts of land in County Durham and Northumberland.

After private tuition and preparatory school, Anthony went to Eton College in 1911 and so was at school when World War I broke out in 1914. On leaving school he enlisted with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in September 1915 and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917 for rescuing a wounded man when under fire. He was promoted to brigade major in May 1918 when still aged only 20.

After the war he entered Christ Church College Oxford to read oriental languages, particularly Persian and Arabic, and was awarded a first-class honours degree in 1922. He had a flair for languages, also being fluent in French and German. This doubtless had a strong bearing on his overwhelming interest in foreign affairs during his political career.

Early political career

He first stood for Parliament, as a Conservative in an unwinnable Labour seat, in the general election of November 1922, but had more success the following year when he won the seat of Warwick and Leamington in December 1923. He was married in November of that year to Beatrice Helen Beckett; there were to be two surviving sons from the marriage, which ended in divorce in 1950.

In July 1926 he was given the post of parliamentary private secretary to Sir Austen Chamberlain, the Foreign Secretary. Eden agreed with Chamberlain’s view that the best way to maintain peace in Europe was to support France and be very wary of Germany, although this was not the attitude taken by a large number of fellow Conservatives.

In August 1931 Eden was appointed under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, under the National Government of Ramsay Macdonald, which in effect meant that he was the parliamentary face of the Foreign Office in the Commons, given that the Foreign Secretary was a member of the House of Lords.

In December 1933 he became Lord Privy Seal, which made him virtually a roving ambassador for the Foreign Office. In this role, Eden was the first Western politician to have face-to-face- meetings with all three of Europe’s strong men, namely Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. He formed clear impressions of all three men and knew that none of them was to be trusted.

Eden acted as a mediator for the League of Nations during the Balkan crisis of late 1934 and his patient diplomacy may well have prevented war breaking out at that time. A health problem prevented him from attending the Stresa conference in April 1935 which failed to rein back Italy’s ambitions regarding a takeover of Abyssinia. Eden believed that, had he been there instead of Macdonald, he could have deflected Mussolini from his aims.

In June 1935 Eden was at last given a Cabinet post, specifically to deal with League of Nations affairs, but this was an awkward compromise that caused difficulties with the new Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare. However, Hoare resigned in December, following the outcry over the Hoare-Laval pact that allowed Mussolini to retain his new colony of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Eden therefore became Foreign Secretary in his place, although he was not Prime Minister Baldwin’s first choice.

Foreign Secretary

Anthony Eden, at 38, therefore became Britain’s youngest Foreign Secretary since 1851, but he was to be one of the longest-serving (over three periods of office).  This was a crucial time in international relations, with not only the ambitions of Hitler and Mussolini to be contended with but also the aggressive attitude of Japan and, from July 1936, a civil war in Spain. Eden took the view that it was vital to maintain solidarity with France and to develop friendly relations with as many countries as possible that were opposed to the Axis powers (as from November 1936) of Germany and Italy. This policy included the signing of an Anglo-Egyptian treaty in August 1936.

However, Stanley Baldwin resigned as Prime Minister in May 1937 and Neville Chamberlain took his place. Eden and Chamberlain took a very different line on foreign policy in that Chamberlain believed that it was possible to make binding agreements with Hitler and Mussolini whereas Eden did not.

Things came to a head when Chamberlain, in Eden’s absence, took decisions on foreign policy with which Eden disagreed profoundly. Eden therefore resigned in February 1938 and was not in office at the time of Chamberlain’s signing of the Munich Agreement with Hitler in September 1938.

Eden had not burned his bridges completely and, when war was declared in September 1939, he was invited to rejoin the government as Dominions Secretary, although this did not gain him a place in the war cabinet. This was still the case when Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister in May 1940 and Eden was made War Secretary, in which post he made his famous radio broadcast appealing for men to join what would become the Home Guard. In October he made an important visit to Egypt and Palestine.

However, in December 1940 Eden did become Foreign Secretary once again, and his advice to Churchill was invaluable concerning the conduct of the war. His many important missions included several visits to Moscow to negotiate with Stalin over an anti-German alliance. Churchill made it very clear that Eden was his preferred successor as Prime Minister.

After the war, Eden attended the San Francisco Conference in 1945 that was the inaugural meeting of the United Nations, but then found himself out of office when the Conservatives lost the general election of July 1945.

Eden had hoped that Churchill would stand down after this defeat but Churchill wanted to carry on and try to become Prime Minister once more. This he was to do at the general election of October 1951, but it was Eden who appeared during the campaign in the first ever televised election broadcast.

Eden now became Foreign Secretary for the third time. He might have succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister when the latter suffered a stroke in June 1953 but he was himself ill at the time, recovering from a botched gallstones operation in which his bile duct was accidentally cut. Churchill recovered, and it was not until 5^th April 1955 when the 80-year-old Prime Minister finally handed over the reins to Anthony Eden.

Prime Minister

Eden’s first move was to call a general election, which the Conservatives won with a majority of 60 seats. Foreign affairs were to dominate his administration, including a missed opportunity for Britain to join the movement for European economic co-operation at its outset.

However, the major crisis that was to bring his career to a shattering halt was the Suez affair, which started when the Egyptian government, under Colonel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal and Eden, together with the French, hatched a plot to win it back by encouraging the Israelis to attack Egypt, which they did on 29^th October 1956. British and French paratroopers then landed in the Canal Zone, ostensibly to separate the two warring sides. The United States opposed the move and Eden was forced to withdraw within 24 hours.

Eden was very evasive about the whole business, even pretending that he had no knowledge that Israel was going to attack Egypt. However, in the end this fooled nobody and Eden eventually had no choice but to resign, which he did on 9^th January 1957.

Retirement

A complicating factor was Eden’s state of health, which was never good after the botched operation. One problem was that the drugs he was prescribed to control his pain had side-effects that included extreme irritability and impaired judgment, which were not what Eden and the country needed at that time.

Eden’s retirement was to last for 20 years until his death, from liver cancer, on 14^th January 1977, at the age of 79. He was offered a peerage in July 1961 as the 1^st Earl of Avon, although he was not a particularly active member of the House of Lords.

History is a matter of “what ifs”. If a surgeon had been more careful during that operation in 1953, and Eden had been in a better frame of mind to deal with the Suez crisis, would his reputation have been one of conspicuous success rather than ignominious failure? Up to that point, very little had gone wrong in his public life and Anthony Eden had served his country with great distinction, not least during both world wars in very different capacities.

© John Welford