Samuel Hoare: A Political Biography

214 Pages·1977·17.687 MB·English

by  John Cross

Sir Samuel Hoare,
a Political Biography
with a foreword by
The Rt Hon. Lord Butler, K.G., C.H.
J.
A. Cross
JONATHAN CAPE
THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE LO_NDON
FIRST PUBLISHED I 977
©J· A. CROSS 1977
JONATHAN CAPE LTD, 30 BEDFORD SQ.UARE
LONDON WCI
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Contents
Cross, John Arthur
Sir Samuel Hoare, a Political Biography.
Bihl. - Index.
ISBN 0-224-01350-5
941.083'092'4 DA566.9.H/
Hoare, Samuel John Gurney, Viscount Templewood
Foreword by The Rt Hon. Lord Butler, K.G., C.H.
IX
Preface
Xlll
Acknowledgements xv
Early Career
1 I
2 Wartime Missions and Post-war Politics 38
3 Air Ministry and Shadow Cabinet 83
4 India 125
5 Foreign Secretary
180
• 6 The Hoare-Laval 'Pact'V
225
7 Return to High Office 266
\l D1~'1~
8 From War Cabinet to Madrid Embassy
301
Epilogue: The Last Years 346
Bibliographical Note 356
Notes 358
Index
4°3
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY W & J MACKAY LIMITED, CHATHAM
Illustrations
between pages and
112 113
1 Hoare's parents: Samuel and Katharin Hoare
2 Hoare as a boy
3 The young Hoare in levee dress
4 The aeroplane which flew the Hoares to India in December
1926
5 At the 1927 R.A.F. Display at Hendon with King George
V and Queen Mary
between pages 44 and 45
l l
6 Hoare with Lady Maud and his sister Christabel's son
Richard at Cromer, 1929 (Sport & General Press Agency)
7 Hoare, as Secretary of State for Air, presenting the Esher
Trophy, 1929 (The Times)
8 Hoare and Lady Maud with the R101 construction team
at Cardington, c. 1928
9 Under skating instruction at St Moritz, c. 1928
10 Hoare and Neville Chamberlain soon after the formation
of the National Government
between pages 304 and 305
11 The National Government, August 1931 (Associated Press
Ltd)
12 The Second Indian Round Table Conference September
December 1931 (Associated Press Ltd)
13 Hoare being greeted by Anthony Eden on his arrival in
Geneva, 9th September, 1935 (Associated Press Ltd)
14 Hoare addressing the Assembly of the League of Nations,
11th September, 1935 (Associated Press Ltd)
Vlll ILLUSTRATIONS
between pages 336 and 337
15 Departure of the Royal Family for Canada, May 1939
(Associated Press Ltd)
6 Hoare with Sir Robert Vansittart, August 1939 (The
1
Times)
17 Hoare and Lady Maud leaving for Spain, May 1940 Foreword
(Keystone Press Agency)
18 Lady Templewood
19 Lord Templewood, 1958 THE RT HoN. LoRD BUTLER, K.G., C.H.
20 Hoare's Norfolk home: Templewood, Northrepps, near
Cromer
Sam Hoare gave me my start in political life making me first
Parliamentary Private Secretary and then, on the retirement of
Lord Lothian~ Under-Secretary for India for nearly five years.
I succeeded as Parliamentary Private Secretary my uncle, Sir
Geoffrey Butler, Senior Burgess for the University of Cam
bridge. He was a great admirer and friend of Hoare's and
advised him from an early age to press for the Foreign Office.
Sam's wife Maud was even more ambitious and advised him to
press for the Prime Ministership. When I got to know Sam I
was not in favour of either of these pieces of advice for the reason
that we had had such a gruelling time together during the India
Bill that I knew his physique could not stand an immediate
transference to the Foreign Office and this proved alas too true,
ending in the trauma of the Hoare-Laval Pact. Sam Hoare's
health, although maintained by skating, was never very robust
and he ought certainly to have taken three months' holiday after
working from sixteen to eighteen hours a day on the India Bill
and being opposed by the cunning and ruthlessness of Winston
Churchill.
To show how high' Sam Hoare should rank in a series of
British ministers of his generation, I refer to a phrase in this
book which says, 'The weary months and years of trial and
tribulation before the Government of India Bill could be pre
sented to the Commons in 1935 were a triumph for Hoare's
courage, persistence and sheer ability to master complex issues
and constitute a personal ministerial achievement without pre
vious parallel in modem British history.' This is tribute enough
for any man and in my opinion was more than justified in the
X FOREWORD FOREWORD Xl
eve nt. I have had a lifetime experience of politics · and p·o litlicdal Hoare's career, namely the Hoare-Laval Pact. The chapter in
offices and do not know any man in my long experience, me u - this book on the Foreign Office does build up the Abyssinian
ing Churchill, who was m~re effici~nt at handling pap~rs and picture in a very particular way and shows that the action of
di. spa t ch es . He was exceedmgly qmck and. retudr"n ed sh·i s Fo"v edr - Sam Hoare, aided by Vansittart, in signing an agreement with
night boxes ready for his fait~ul officials, mclu mg ir m - Laval was not all that a departure from developed policy. What
later Stewart early next mormng. was really wrong about the affair was that only a few weeks
Another f:ature of Sam Hoare's character was what I wrote before Sam Hoare had made a magnificent speech in support
· M 59 'In my experience of serving many chiefs over all of the League of Nations and the Covenant. Hence the great
m ay 19 ' hi . h 1
these years, Sam Hoare was distinguished for s anxiety to e p upset when the British public read of the Hoare-Laval Pact
his subordinates.' which seemed Realpolitik rather than collective security. I re
Perhaps Hoare's greatest achievemen~ during the ~assage of member as an M.P. having more letters about the Hoare-Laval
the India Bill was his answering of questions on the Jomt Select Pact than on any other subject when I was in Parliament. Here
Committee. Lord Salisbury, one orhis great. oppo?ents, wrote !o we come up against one of the most interesting features of
him to admire 'his intellectual achievement m sitt~ng for ho~rs i~ Hoare's character and life. He was of Quaker descent and as
that chair and answering questions on eve~ c?ncei:ra?le subject. Home Secretary he embraced both liberal and radical reforms.
The author of this book is very percepb.ve m pomtmg out that He had what may be described as a Quaker conscience and he
the team at the India Office suited Hoare b~tter than ~he team had a high sense of morality in public affairs. Nevertheless he
at the Foreign Office. Hoare himself describes the differei:ice did not seem able to distinguish between the speech on the
or
between the two rooms, the small one, now.a par~ the Foreign Covenant and the occasion in Paris and this I put down to his
Office, with Mogul paintings, in the India bmldmg, ai:id the inveterate habit of working exceedingly quickly and being able
huge draughty chamber in which I have sat myself m the not only to move from one subject to another but from one job to
Foreign Office. another. He was in fact, like George Canning, invested with
It would be interesting to compare Sam Hoar.e to George vaulting ambition. However, I think a human view must be
Canning. They were both obliged to take an Iberian E.mbassy taken of the Hoare-Laval Pact. He wrote to Clive Wigram to
due to discomfort in home political life. Of cours.e, Cani:img was ask for royal permission to take his Permanent Secretary with
an infinitely greater orator than Hoare ever claimed himself to him to Paris. He writes, 'As you know I have had no proper
be and Canning had infinitely more time and more scope at the holiday for several years. My doctor has been insistent upon my
Foreign Office. The Madrid Embassy ~as the only way o~t for getting off as soon as possible, particularly as I have recently had
Hoare when his great enemy, Churchill, _became the nab.anal a series offainting fits, one of which took place last night.'
Prime Minister in wartime. There was a difference betw~en the This all goes back to what I said at the opening of this intro
tenancy of Canning and Hoare since the former held it for a duction, that Hoare should have had a proper holiday after the
very short time and the latter for the majority of the war. Sam terrible strains of the India Bill. It is rather extraordinary that
Hoare was two or three times tempted to ~eek and a~cept ~e Vansittart, who played an important part in the Hoare-Laval
viceroyalty oflndia but on the second occasion ~hurc?ill wa:' m discussions, should have remained even in my time 1938-41, as
no mood to give it to him and o~ the. first occ_asion his apphca principal adviser at the Foreign Office, while Sam Hoare's
tion was really too late. His services m 1'!adnd are well rec?g career should have had such a forced interruption. Of course he
nised by the author in this book and the importance of keepmg made good again at the Admiralty and the Home Office and has
Spain out of the war could not then and cannot now be exagger- left a name as a first-class diplomat.
s The biographer does not miss any of the more curious acts of
ated. . · ·
I now come to the central disaster or turmng pomt m am Sam's life, such as the peculiar letter from Maud to Beaver-
FOREWORD
xii
brook asking for money or his own ill-chosen explanation to his
Chelsea constituents of the Hoare-Laval proceedings, or his
unwise declaration just before March 1939, when Hitler invaded
Czechoslovakia, about a prospect of peace ahead. These lapses
make all the more remarkable the tributes which I have already
paid and the solid achievements ofa life's work. His achievements
Preface
fell short of the hopes he had himself entertained by the high
point of his career inJune 1935, but not below his own statement
on leaving the House of Commons after a speech as Secret~ry of
State for Air, following upon the Norwegian fiasco and prior to
the big change of government which led him into the overseas
post at Madrid. He told his wi~e .on leaving t~e House that that
might be his last speech as Minister, and this show~ a sens~ of The political career of Samuel Hoare, first and only Viscount
reality which redeems many of the rather cold impressions Templewood, spanned most of the first half of the twentieth
which he left on his colleagues. Perhaps his own statement that century and took in some of the highest ministerial offices. As
he was a Liberal amongst Conservatives and a Conservative Secretary of State for Air in the 192os he successfully defe nded
amongst Liberals is a true one. He was certainly a Liberal as the R.A.F. from take-over bids by the older services. As Secre
Home Secretary and later when working on the Abolition of the tary of State for India in the early 1930s he presided over the
Death Penalty in the House of Lords. He states about himself enactment of the greatest measure of Indian constitutional re
that he preferred committee discussion in Parliament to heated form before the post-war granting of independence. His short
tenure of the Foreign Office, during the international crisis pro
scenes of partisan fury.
It is very timely that a book dedicated to his career should be voked by the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, ended in the
written so fairly. Considering the vital part he played in many failure of a diplomatic initiative (the so-called 'Hoare-Laval
crises of our national life, tributes paid to his tenacity and Pact') which continues to arouse controversy over forty years
forward-looking policy are long overdue. There has in fact been later. Restored to office after a brief period in the political wilder
too much ignorant criticism of Sam Hoare and too little ness Hoare became a member of the inner group of four in the
Chamberlain Cabinet most closely associated with the policy of
admiration for his oustanding qualities.
'appeasement', in addition to being that still fairly rare minis
terial phenomenon, a reforming Home Secretary. Discarded
from the War Cabinet by Churchill in 1940 he emerged in a new
guise as an unorthodox but highly effective wartime Ambassador
to Spain.
There has as yet been no comprehensive study of Hoare's
career. The present work is an attempt to fill this gap. The need
to keep it to a length which is publishable in present economic
conditions has compelled the use of a broad brush to delineate
most of what was a long and eventful record of public service.
The central episode - Hoare's six months as Foreign Secretary
-was, however, so crucial to his career and to our under
standing of it that it has deliberately been treated here at more
XlV PREFACE
than proportionate length. The aim throughout has been to
reveal Hoare as what he undoubtedly was - one of the most
important figures in pre-war British politics. ·
I am grateful to the staffs of the libraries and repositories
which house the sources used for this book; to several former
political and official colleagues of Hoare who gave me their
impressions of the man and his work; to the Leverhulme Trust Acknowledgements
for financially assisting my research; and to the staff ofJ onathan
Cape, above all David Machin and Belinda Foster-Melliar. I am
honoured that Lord Butler so readily agreed to contribute a
foreword which he is uniquely qualified to write. My particular
thanks are due to my Cardiff colleague, Paul Wilkinson, who
first drew my attention to the need for a study of Hoare and who
I am grateful to the following for permission to quote from
throughout its compilation has been an unfailing source of
material of which they hold the copyright: Her Majesty the
stimulation and informed criticism.
Queen, The Rt Hon. Julian Amery, M.P., The Beaverbrook
My chief debt is to Lord Templewood's nephew and heir,
Foundation, Lord Brabazon of Tara, Major-General Viscount
Paul Paget, who allowed me complete freedom to use as I saw
Bridgeman, K.B.E., C.B., D.S.O., M.C., R. H. W. Bullock,
fit the extensive collection of Templewood papers of which he
Esq., C.B., The Rt Hon. Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, K.G.,
holds the copyright. He also gave me the benefit of his special
C.H., Mrs Stephen Lloyd, Sir John Lomax, K.B.E., C.M.G.,
knowledge of his uncle's life and career: a knowledge derived
M.C., The Marquess of Lothian, Sir Godfrey Nicholson, Bt,
not only from the close family bond (in some ways he took the
P. E. Paget, Esq., C.V.O., F.R.l.B.A., F.S.A., Sir Folliott
place of the son Templewood never had) but from acting on Sandford, K.B.E., C.M.G., R. J. Stopford, Esq., C.M.G., Lord
occasion as one of his uncle's private secretaries (as at the Air Trenchard, M.C., and Lady Vansittart.
Ministry in the early 1920s) and as designer, with his archi
tectural partner John Seely, of the Norfolk house from which
Hoare took his title on his elevation to the peerage and which
Mr Paget eventually inherited.
The final work, including any undetected errors, is, of course,
the entire responsibility of the author.
J. A. CROSS
Cardiff
I
Early Career
Although the Hoares are an old-established English family, trac
ing their lineage back at least to the fifteenth century, the
branch from which the future Lord Templewood descended had
its origins in Ireland, in Cork, where Edward Hoare had been
given land as a reward for his services to the Cromwellian cause
in the Civil War. When, towards the middle of the eighteenth
century, the first of six generations of Hoares to bear the name
Samuel (Lord Templewood being the last) moved from Cork to
London, he took with him two firmly established family tradi
tions: a vocational commitment to banking and a religious
commitment to the Society of Friends. With the Quaker
persuasion went an active interest in questions of social reform,
and at various times Hoares played leading parts in the
campaigns for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and
in the improvement of conditions in British prisons. The third
Samuel Hoare (1783-1847), for example, was brother-in-law
to both Elizabeth Fry and Sir Fowell Buxton and with them
founded in 1816 the Society for the Reformation of Prison
Discipline, the progenitor of the Howard League for Penal Re
form. It was a family inheritance which was to have considerable
influence on the subject of this biography, the sixth Samuel
Hoare.
Quakerism (but not the interest in social reform which
accompanied it) was abandoned well before the mid<;lle of the
nineteenth century, to be succeeded by evangelical Anglicanism,
and, later still, by the Anglo-Catholicism of which the sixth
Samuel Hoare was a devoted adherent. The family fortunes
prospered. A base in London was always retained but from the
2 SIR SAMUEL HOARE, A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY EARLY CAREER 3
beginning of the nineteenth century substantial family property the. nomination, but not the seat, in the January 1910 election,
was being acquired in Norfolk, in Cromer and its vicinity, and, which returned his eldest son to Parliament for the first time.
with it, a marked enthusiasm for the traditional field sports of For that son he had long been maturing plans for the political
East Anglia. The inheritance which the fifth Samuel Hoare advancement he had never himself pursued.
(Lord Templewood's father) entered into in 1875, at the age of The eldest son was the fifth of seven children born to Samuel
34, represented something between £150,000 and £200,000, and Katharin Hoare in the nineteen-year period from 1867 to
even after ample provision had been made for other members 188~. The first four - all girls - were Muriel (born in 1867), ·
of the family. Anme (1868), Elma (1871) and Marjorie (1876). It was not
Samuel Hoare, who married Katharin Hart Davis in 1866, until 24th February, 1880, that their first son, christened
was the first member of the family to forsake the primary voca Samuel John Gurney, was born, at the Hoares' London home
tion of banking for a parliamentary career. In 1884 the Birming in Park Lane. Two years later came another son, Oliver
ham banking firm of Lloyds offered to buy the Lombard Street Vaughan Gurney, and then in 1886 the Hoares' last child, an
firm ofBarnetts, Hoare and Co., in which Samuel Hoare was a other daughter, Christabel.
partner (and which until then had been acting as Lloyds' There seems no doubt that although Samuel and Katharin
London agents). The offe r was accepted and, thus released from Hoare were exemplary parents to all their children, it was on
his London business responsibilities, Hoare felt able to respond their eldest son that their chief devotion was lavished. Nothing
to the local Conservative association's invitation to stand as was denied him and in so far as a spoilt child was possible in a
candidate for the newly formed constituency of North Norfolk large family, young Samuel was such a child. He returned the
in the election of November 1885. This first electoral foray was affection with due respect but there is no evidence that he was
unsuccessful but there was not long to wait for a more favourable. attached to his parents with any great warmth. His father, a
opportunity. In April 1886 the invalidation of the election of bluff, extrovert Norfolk squire with no pretensions to intellectual
a Conservative member in the two-member Norwich con distinction (despite attendance at Harrow and Trinity College,
stituency led to a by-election for the seat which Hoare won un Cambridge), was quite unlike the man his son was to become.
opposed and held for the next twenty years, for much of the To his mother, who survived her husband sixteen years and
time in double harness with a Liberal colleague. lived to see her son a minister and a leading figure in the Con
Samuel Hoare senior was in many ways an archetypal Con servative party (she died inJa nuary 1931), Samuel]o hn Gurney
servative backbencher: solid, loyal, in touch with the feelings of was a devoted but perhaps slightly distant son all her life.
the party's grass roots. He never sought office and never Among his sisters, two of the eldest - Annie (later Mother
obtained it. He performed his constituency functions con General of the Anglican Community at Wantage) and Elma
scientiously and saw his majority increase in each election. In (who married Luke Paget, subsequently Bishop of Chester) -
1899 he received the recompense of the faithful Conservative were c.l osest to Samuel along with the youngest, Christabel who
'
backbencher, a baronetcy. His loyalty was, however, strained was widowed at an early age and later became a Norfolk notable
after 1903, when Joseph Chamberlain launched his Tariff as local government councillor and local historian. He was close
Reform campaign and the party split on the issue. Hoare re also to his brother Oliver, his partner and opponent in most of
mained a convinced free trader and joined with 50 other Con the sports in which both developed considerable skill, and who
servative M.P.s to inaugurate the Free Food League as an followed him, two years behind, at both school and university.
answer to Chamberlain's Tariff Reform League.1 But the Samuel Hoare senior may have laid no claim to intellectual
Norwich Conservative association, like so many others, was distinction or political advancement but this fact perhaps in
captured by the tariff reformers and Hoare lost the Conservative creased his determination to guarantee his eldest son's prospects.
nomination and thus his seat in the 1906 election. He regained Success in politics, he knew, requires a highly developed com-
4 SIR SAMUEL HOARE, A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY EARLY CAREER 5
petitive spirit. While he did not compete for political office him application and effort and played to win. Oliver Hoare's
self he valued the element of competition in the various sports in subsequent career in various kinds of business was only spas
which he had a passionate interest (especially cricket, but also modically successful. While there is no evidence for believing
tennis and golf), and sought to instil the same spirit in his son. that his elder brother ever looked upon politics as a game for
By I 890 he had blooded young Samuel in the family enthusiasm demonstrating individual prowess it is undoubtedly true that he
for field sports, and the family game book (on which much of wanted passionately to succeed in it and that his measure of
Lord Templewood's The Unbroken Thread is based) noted on success would be the attainment of the highest political prizes.
20th December of that year that 'S.J.G.H. shot a cock pheasant If Hoare's athletic achievements at Harrow fell a little short
over his head'.2 Thus began an activity which Hoare pursued of family expectations his brilliant academic career provided
with great skill - he was one of the finest shots in England - some compensation. Of his five years there four were spent in the
until just before his death. Then there were the ball games, upper sixth. Characteristically he prevented himself from, as he
which the elder Hoare insisted on playing to win, however un termed it, 'going to seed' during four years in the same form by
important the contest might be. He coached his sons at home and competing for school prizes. In I897 and again in I8g8 he won
took a much closer interest in their athletic achievements than the coveted Arthur Macnamara Memorial Prize and in I 898
in their academic progress at school. After four years at a pre also the Charles Herman Prior Divinity Prize (hagiography was
paratory school, the Abbey School at Beckenham, the young his favourite reading at Harrow, along with Borrow, Kinglake,
Samuel gained an entrance scholarship for classics to Harrow and R. L. Stevenson). He later wrote:
and entered the school in the summer term of I 894, exactly
The occasional efforts had the excellent effect of concentra
forty years after his father. Athletically his Harrow career was
ting my energies on a limited objective. In addition ... to the
distinguished but mixed. To his father's disappointment, he
pleasure ... of winning a competition, they helped to teach me
never gained a permanent place in the cricket eleven. But in the
a lesson which since has been very useful in political life -
individual game of rackets he was much more successful, re
how to master quickly a particular subject and a mass of
presenting the school and later going on to win a university
detail.3
blue. A game like rackets, in which the player is alone respon
sible for his own play, appealed to Hoare more than a team Harrow had been a valuable experience for Hoare, but main
game in which he was one of several players. It would be a mis ly, he felt, because it had inculcated the habit of self-study
take to read too much into this preference for individual over rather than from contact with brilliant teachers. From the
team effort, but it is noticeable that the principal active leisure school the transition to university was inevitable: not, however,
pursuits ofHoare's subsequent busy career were predominantly to his father's college, Trinity, Cambridge, but, by way of a
those which maximised individual success and the will to win: classical exhibition gained in I899, to New College, Oxford.
shooting, tennis and ice skating. There he more than confirmed the academic and athletic pro
Another element in Hoare's will to succeed, even in such mise he had displayed at Harrow. He represented the uni
relatively trivial activities, may have been the dynamism that versity at both rackets and tennis and played cricket with rather
many small men seem to generate as if to compensate for their more success than at Harrow, although without gaining a blue.
lack of inches. Samuel Hoare was short (much shorter than his After securing a first in classical moderations (in April I go I) he
father) and while he developed a neat and trim figure his turned to history, in which he also (in July 1903) received the
appearance was in no way impressive. Here he was quite unlike highest classification and developed an interest which was to
his brother Oliver, who was tall and stunningly good looking. remain with him throughout his life. His New College tutor was
Oliver was naturally good at games, but played them for the H. A. L. Fisher who, years later, as Warden of New College,
enjoyment; Samuel ensured that he was good at games by was to invite Hoare to become an honorary fellow of his old