Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T13:45:52.692Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937): The man and his diary letters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2009

Extract

‘Poor old Austen!’ Leo Amery wrote three days before Chamberlain's death. ‘He just missed greatness and the highest position, but his was a fine life of honourable public service. His real weakness was his over anxiety for good form which he was sometimes inclined to identity too much with loyalty’. In many respects Amery's brief epitaph is typical of so many assessments of this ostensibly so simple but supremely enigmatic figure. There could be no denying Austen Chamberlain's distinguished career. He sat in the House of Commons for an unbroken period of forty-five years. It was a career that truly represented a ‘link with time’. Among the many tributes after his death, Lloyd George had reminded the Commons that Joseph Chamberlain had been congratulated on his son's maiden speech by Gladstone, a leader who himself had been first elected in the year of the Great Reform Act and first served under Peel. As one MP recalled of the occasion, ‘The younger Members felt that they had been carried back through Lloyd George to Gladstone away to the battles of the Reform Bill and the administration of the Duke of Wellington’. Of his almost half a century in the Commons, Chamberlain spent over twenty-two years holding ministerial office. In 1895, at the age of only 32, he became Civil Lord to the Admiralty. Thirty-six years later in his last ministerial position he returned to his ‘first love’ as First Lord in the same department. In the interim, he held all the great offices of State except that of Prime Minister and Home Secretary. Rising from Postmaster-General, he served twice as Chancellor of the Exchequer and once as Foreign Secretary. He was also a member of Lloyd George's War Cabinet and held the India Office. Even at the age of 72 many still saw him as the obvious candidate for the Foreign Office after Hoare's forced resignation in December 1935. By any standard, this was a remarkable ministerial and parliamentary career.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1995

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 Amery Diary, 13 March 1937, Barnes, J. and Nicholson, D., The Empire at Bay: The Leo Amery Diaries 1929–1945 (1988), 437.Google Scholar

2 Channon Diary, 17 March 1937, James, R.R. (ed) Chips: the Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (1967), 117Google Scholar. Also Churchill to Lady Ivy Chamberlain, 18 March 1937, Gilbert, M., Winston S. Churchill, (8 vols, 19661988), V. Companion 3, 626.Google Scholar

3 House of Commons Debates, 5 Series, 321 Col 2102, 17 03 1937.Google Scholar

4 Nicolson Diary, 17 March 1937, Nicolson, N. (ed) Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters 1930–1939 (1966), 296.Google Scholar

5 SirPetrie, Charles, The Chamberlain Tradition (1938), 21, 130.Google Scholar

6 Clark, A. (ed) A Good Innings: The Private Papers of Viscount Lee of Fareham (1974), 339.Google Scholar

7 McKercher, B.J.C., The Second Baldwin Government and the United States, 1927–1929: Attitudes and Diplomacy (Cambridge 1984), 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Neville Chamberlain introduction to the German Edition of Sir Austen Chamberlain, reprinted in Petrie, , The Chamberlain Tradition, 280Google Scholar. Also A. Chamberlain to Mary Chamberlain, 30 March 1913, Chamberlain, A., Politics From Inside: An Epistolary Chronicle 1906–1914 (1936), 540–1.Google Scholar

9 Chamberlain, A., Politics from Inside, 19.Google Scholar

10 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 12 04 1929Google Scholar, Austen Chamberlain MSS (Birmingham University Library) AC5/1/314.

11 Churchill, to Travis-Clegg, T.J., 9 10 1903Google Scholar, Churchill, R.S., Winston S. Churchill: The Young Statesman, 1901–1914, II. Companion 1, 230.Google Scholar

12 ‘Portrait of the three Chamberlains and my eldest sister Beatrice’, 0711 1956Google Scholar (hereafter Hilda Memoir) Beatrice Chamberlain MSS (Birmingham University Library) BC5/10/1, fol.1.

13 Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, J., 11 01 1904Google Scholar, Politics from Inside, 20.Google Scholar

14 Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, Mary, 7 05 1911Google Scholar, Politics from Inside, 337Google Scholar. See also Jenkins, R., Baldwin, (1987), 170.Google Scholar

15 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 25 03 1921Google Scholar, AC5/1/195.

16 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 26 11 1922Google Scholar, AC5/1/253.

17 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 28 11 1925Google Scholar, AC5/1/370.

18 Jones Diary, 1 June 1922, Middlemas, K. (ed), Thomas Jones; Whitehall Diary, (2 vols, 1969), I, 200.Google Scholar

19 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 24 04 1933Google Scholar, AC5/1/614.

20 Dangerfield, G., The Damnable Question: A Study in Anglo-Irish Relations, (Quartet ed, 1979), 73.Google Scholar

21 Hilda Memoir, BC5/10/1 fol.6. Also Macmillan, H., The Past Masters: Politics and Politicians, 1906–1936, (1975), 128.Google Scholar

22 Amery, L.S.My Political Life (3 vols, 19531955) II, 303.Google Scholar

23 George, Frances Lloyd, The Years that are Past (1967), 184Google Scholar; Gardiner, A.G., ‘Sir Austen Chamberlain’, Portraits and Portents (1926), 106113.Google Scholar

24 Daily Mail, 17 04 1918Google Scholar, AC5/1/72.

25 Rowland, P., The Last Liberal Governments: The Promised Land 1905–1910 (1968), 50Google Scholar. Also Grigg, J., Lloyd George: The People's Champion, 1902–11, (1978), 59Google Scholar; Blake, R., The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858–1923, (1955), 72.Google Scholar

26 Thorpe, D.R., The Uncrowned Prime Ministers (1980), 512.Google Scholar

27 ‘Idealism in International Politics’, Rectorial Address, Glasgow, 11 1923Google Scholar, reprinted in America Revisited (1924).Google Scholar

28 Amery, L.S., My Political Life, I, 361.Google Scholar

29 A phrase first used on 9 March 1915 during Lloyd George's campaign for the third Defence of the Realm Act, Adams, R.J.Q., Arms and the Wizard: Lloyd George and the Ministry of Munitions, 1915–16, (1978), 39.Google Scholar

30 Garvin, J.L., Life of Joseph Chamberlain, (later with J. Amery, 6 vols, 19321969), 1, 202.Google Scholar

31 Hilda Memoir, BC5/10/1 fol.7.

32 Amery, to Baldwin, , 8 12 1923Google Scholar, Baldwin MSS 35/171 (Cambridge University Library).

33 Hilda Memoir, BC5/10/1 fol.6.

34 Feiling, K., The Life of Neville Chamberlain (1947), 287Google Scholar; Chamberlain, N. to Hilda, , 22 10 1916Google Scholar, NC18/1/85.

35 Hilda Memoir, BC5/10/1 fol.6.

36 Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, Mary, 7 05 1911Google Scholar, Politics from Inside, 337.Google Scholar

37 Hilda Memoir, BC5/10/1 fol.8; Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 12 12 1920Google Scholar, AC5/1/183.

38 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 20 03 1921Google Scholar, AC5/1/194; to Mary Carnegie, 19 March 1921, AC4/1/1204.

39 Chamberlain, A. to Carnegie, Mary, 26 04 1924Google Scholar, AC4/1/1243; to Ida, 4 November 1917, AC5/1/45.

40 Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, Mary, 7 05 1911Google Scholar, Politics from Inside, 337–8Google Scholar.

41 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 28 10 1933Google Scholar, AC5/1/637.

42 Amery, L.S., My Political Life, I, 386Google Scholar. Chamberlain banished himself from the Commons and the Clubs until the succession was settled, Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, Mary, 11 11 1911Google Scholar, Politics from Inside, 386.Google Scholar

43 Chamberlain, A. to Davidson, J.C.C., 20 03 1921Google Scholar, James, R.R., Memoirs of a Conservative: J.C.C. Davidson's Memoirs and Papers 1910–36, (1969), 103.Google Scholar

44 Amery Diary, 4 March 1918, Barnes, J. and Nicholson, D. (ed), The Leo Amery Diaries, vol I 1896–1929 (1980), 209.Google Scholar

45 Macmillan, H., The Past Masters, 128Google Scholar. Wedgwood, J., Memoirs of a Fighting Life, (1940), 203.Google Scholar

46 Hilda Memoir, BC5/10/1 fol.4, 7.

47 Jones Diary, 26 February 1937 reporting Gwynn, S., Jones, T., A Diary with Letters 1931–1950 (1954), 318.Google Scholar

48 Hilda, to Chamberlain, A. 31 01 1918Google Scholar, AC5/2/85.

49 Chamberlain, N. to Ida, , 2 07 1916Google Scholar, 24 November 1917, NC18/1/68, 139; see also Neville Chamberlain Diary, 1 June 1923.

50 Thorpe, D.R., The Uncrowned Prime Ministers, 51.Google Scholar

51 Chamberlain, N. to Hilda, , 7 11 1931Google Scholar, NC18/1/760.

52 Headlam Diary, 15 December 1925, Headlam MSS D/He/21(Durham Record Office). Also Jones Diary, 20 May 1923, Whitehall Diaries, I, 236Google Scholar; Major-General SirSykes, Frederick, From Mary Angles: An Autobiography, (1942), 311.Google Scholar

53 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 28 11 1925Google Scholar, AC5/1/370.

54 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 18 08 1918Google Scholar, AC5/1/96.

55 Chamberlain, N. to Ida, , 21 03 1937Google Scholar, NC18/1/999.

56 Amery, L.S., My Political Life II, 303.Google Scholar

57 Salter, Lord, Memoirs of a Public Servant, (1961), 203.Google Scholar

58 Clynes, J.R., Memoirs, (1937) II, 254.Google Scholar

59 Bridgeman Diary, November 1929, Bridgeman MSS S.R.O. 4629, II fol.189. (By kind permission of Mrs Stacey and the Trustees of the Bridgeman family archive); N. Chamberlain to Ida, 27 March 1926, NC18/1/520; Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 14 05 1933Google Scholar, AC5/1/616; Snell, Lord, Men, Movements and Myself, (1936), 248.Google Scholar

60 Waterhouse, N., Private and Official, (1942), 216Google Scholar; SirMackintosh, Alexander, Echoes of Big Ben: A Journalist's Parliamentary Diary 1881–1940 (1945), 122Google Scholar; Griffith-Boscawen, A., Memories, (1925), 260.Google Scholar

61 Bridgeman Diary, November 1929, Bridgeman MSS II, fol.189; Percy, Lord Eustace, ‘Austen Chamberlain’, Public Administration, XV. 2 (04 1937), 126.Google Scholar

62 Grigg, J., Lloyd George: The People's Champion, 59.Google Scholar

63 Williams, F., A Pattern of Rulers (1965), 20.Google Scholar

64 Amery, L.S., My Political Life I, 368Google Scholar; Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War (1961), 53Google Scholar. For similar comments see Thorpe, D.R., The Uncrowned Prime Ministers, 9Google Scholar; Dutton, D., Austen Chamberlain: Gentleman in Politics (Bolton, 1985), 6Google Scholar; Ramsden, J., The Age of Balfour and Baldwin, 1902–1940, (1978), 164.Google Scholar

65 House of Commons Debates, 5 Series, 321 col 2102, 17 03 1937Google Scholar, reprinted in Baldwin, S., Service of Our Lives: Last Speeches as Prime Minister (1937), 90.Google Scholar

66 House of Commons Debates, 5 Series, 321 col 2174, 17 03 1937Google Scholar

67 Chamberlain, A. to Ivy, , 2 08 1924Google Scholar, AC6/1/549.

68 Percy, E., ‘Austen Chamberlain’, 125.Google Scholar

69 A. Chamberlain to Pike Pease, 20 October 1922, AC32/2/114.

70 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 14 09 and 9 10 1924Google Scholar, AC5/1/330, 337.

71 Amery, L.S., My Political Life, II, 304.Google Scholar

72 Connell, J., The ‘Office’: A Study in British Foreign Policy and its Makers, 1919–1951 (1958), 7071.Google Scholar

73 This famous remark is attributed to Churchill by Blake, R., The Unknown Prime Minister, 73Google Scholar. Beaverbrook, Lord, Men and Power 1917–18 (1956), xiiiGoogle Scholar attributes it to Birkenhead. Churchill to his wife, 26 December 1935 provides the only documented use with ‘Poor man, he always plays the game and never wins it’. Gilbert, M., Winston S. Churchill (1981) V. Companion 2, 1363.Google Scholar

74 Earl of Birkenhead, Contemporary Personalities (1924), 72–3Google Scholar.

75 Channon Diary, 16, 17 March 1937, Chips, 117Google Scholar; Macmillan, H., Winds of Change 1914–1939, (1966), 174–5Google Scholar; Wedgwood, J., Memoirs of a Fighting Life, 203.Google Scholar

76 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 20 03 1921Google Scholar, AC5/1/194.

77 Birkenhead to Law, 5 May 1921, Blake, R., The Unknown Prime Minister, 428.Google Scholar

78 Nicholson, A.P., The Real Men in Public Life: Forces and Factors in the State, (1928), 63.Google Scholar

79 N. Chamberlain introduction, Petrie, , The Chamberlain Tradition, 282.Google Scholar

80 Chamberlain, N. to Hilda, , 7 07, 20 07 1918Google Scholar, NC18/1/175, 177. Also Neville Chamberlain Diary, 15, 21 July 1927. Bee was the family name for the eldest sister Beatrice.

81 Cecil, Viscount, All the Way (1949), 136.Google Scholar

82 Frances Stevenson Diary, 12 May 1921, Taylor, A.J.P. (ed) Lloyd George: A Diary by Frances Stevenson (1971), 216Google Scholar; Birkenhead to Law, 5 May 1921, The Unknown Prime Minister, 428Google Scholar. Also Sanders Diary, 2 July 1922 Bayford MSS (Conservative Research Department).

83 Jones Diary, 20 May 1923, Whitehall Diary, I, 236.Google Scholar

84 Younger, to Cecil, Lord Hugh, 11 12 1923Google Scholar, Quickswood MSS 31/145–6 (Hatfield House). For Younger's treatment see Jones Diary, 13–15 January 1940, A Diary with Letters, 447Google Scholar; Davidson draft memoir, James, R. R., Memoirs of a Conservative, 104.Google Scholar

85 Weekly Despatch, mid-July? 1923, AC5/1/280.

86 Chamberlain, A. to Birkenhead, , 31 05 1923Google Scholar, AC35/2/18.

87 Self, R., ‘Conservative Reunion and the General Election of 1923: A Reassessment’, Twentieth Century British History, 3.3 (1992), 266–7Google Scholar.

88 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 22 12 1935Google Scholar, AC5/1/718.

89 Dilks, D., Neville Chamberlain vol I 1869–1929 (Cambridge 1984), 172.Google Scholar

90 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 1 06 1930Google Scholar, AC5/1/503.

91 Bridgeman Diary, November 1929, Bridgemann MSS II fol. 189. Davidson draft memoir, James, R.R., Memoirs of a Conservative, 104.Google Scholar

92 Curzon to his wife, 18 November 1923, Curzon, Marchioness, Reminiscences (1955), 191Google Scholar; Chamberlain, N. to Hilda, , 17 11 1923Google Scholar, NC18/1/416; Dawson memo on conversation with Baldwin, 17 June 1923, Wrench, J.E., Geoffrey Dawson and our Times (1955), 219.Google Scholar

93 Ormsby-Gore, W. to Baldwin, , 29 01 1924Google Scholar, Baldwin MSS 42/182–7. For a similar comment see Salisbury, to Baldwin, , 26 01 1924Google Scholar, Baldwin MSS 159/260.

94 Chamberlain, A. to Ivy, , 15 03 1925Google Scholar, AC6/1/603. See also Davidson, to Baldwin, , n.d. (19261927)Google Scholar Baldwin MSS 161/71.

95 Chamberlain, A. to Carnegie, Mary, 9 10 1930Google Scholar, AC4/1/1302.

96 See Victor Cazalet Journal, 6 November 1924, James, R. R., Victor Cazalet: A Portrait (1976), 99Google Scholar; Tyrrell, to Baldwin, , 1 11 1924Google Scholar, Baldwin MSS 42/226–7; Chamberlain, N. to Hilda, , 15 11 1924Google Scholar, NC18/1/462.

97 Neville Chamberlain Diary, 19 March 1924. Also Chamberlain, N. to Chamberlain, A., 21 04 1923Google Scholar, AC35/1/34.

98 Churchill, to Baldwin, , 16 12 1926Google Scholar, Baldwin MSS; Sanders Diary, 17 November 1925.

99 Headlam Diary, 25 June 1926, Ball, S. (ed) Parliament and Politics in the Age of Baldwin and MacDonald: The Headlam Diaries 1923–1935, (1992), 93.Google Scholar

100 Amery Diary, 20 March 1928, Leo Amery Diaries, 539Google Scholar. See also Davidson's disparaging remark in James, R.R., Memoirs of a Conservative, 104Google Scholar. For Chilcott's career and louche associations see Waller, P.J., Democracy and Sectarianism: A Political and Social History of Liverpool, 1868–1939, (Liverpool, 1981), 307, 481Google Scholar; Cullen, T., Maundy Gregory: Purveyor of Honours, (1974)Google Scholar, Chapter IX.

101 Information from Mrs T. Maxwell and Mr L. Chamberlain in interview with the editor, 12 October 1992; Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 22 09 1935Google Scholar, 20 June 1936, AC5/1/708, 738.

102 Chilcott, W., Political Salvation 1930–1932 (1932).Google Scholar

103 For details see Roskill, S., Hankey: Man of Secrets (three vols, 1970–74) II, 420–4Google Scholar.

104 ‘The Eastern Crisis’, n.d. Griffith-Boscawen MSS c.396/107, (Bodleian Library, Oxford).

105 Sir Alexander Leith at Newcastle, Morning Post, 13 11 1922Google Scholar. Also Younger, to Gwynne, , 8 10 1922Google Scholar, Gwynne MSS 22, (Bodleian Library, Oxford).

106 Chamberlain, N. to Chamberlain, A., 23 04 1923Google Scholar, AC35/1/35.

107 Beaverbrook, Lord, The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George and Great was the Fall Thereof (1963), 233Google Scholar. For the source of this opinion see Frances Stevenson Diary, 17 March 1937, Taylor, A.J.P. (ed), Lloyd George: A Diary, 326.Google Scholar

108 Jones Diary, 20 May 1923, Whitehall Diary I, 236.Google Scholar

109 Amery Diary, 19 June 1923, Leo Amery Diaries, 330.Google Scholar

110 Masterman Diary, 12 October 1910, Masterman, L., C.F.G. Masterman: A Biography, (1939). 163.Google Scholar

111 Hobhouse Diary, 22 June 1915, David, E. (ed), Inside Asquith's Cabinet: From the Diaries of Charles Hobhouse, (1977), 249.Google Scholar

112 Asquith, M. to George, Lloyd, 17 05 1915Google Scholar, Gilbert, M., Winston S. Churchill, IIIGoogle Scholar. Companion 2, 898–899. Also to Strachey, 24 May 1915, Hazelhurst, C., Politicians at War, (1971), 285.Google Scholar

113 Jones Diary, 13–15 January 1940, Diary with Letters, 447.Google Scholar

114 Amery, , My Political Life, III, 71Google Scholar. Amery Diary 8 July 1923 also notes ‘the trouble with [Austen] is partly that he is rather stupid and also that he is too much worried about what people think of him’.

115 Barnett, C., The Collapse of British Power, (Gloucester 1984), 329Google Scholar. Also, Blake, R., The Unknown Prime Minister, 72–3Google Scholar; Jenkins, R., Baldwin, 170.Google Scholar

116 McKercher, B.J.C., The Second Baldwin Government, 7.Google Scholar

117 Nicholson, A.P., The Real Men in Public Life, 62–3Google Scholar.

118 Earl of Avon, Facing the Dictators (1962), 7Google Scholar. Also Pethick-Lawrence, F.W., Fate Has Been Kind, 145.Google Scholar

119 Graham, T.N., Willie Graham (London n.d.), 181Google Scholar. Also Attlee, C.R., As it Happened, (1954), 78.Google Scholar

120 Channon Diary, 16 March 1937, Chips, 117.Google Scholar

121 Jones Diary, 20 May 1923, Whitehall Diary, I, 263Google Scholar; Sir Almeric Fitzroy Diary, 6 March 1920, Memoirs (London n.d.) II, 723Google Scholar; Connell, J., The ‘Office’, 87–8Google Scholar.

122 Chamberlain, A. to Ivy, , 13 02 1926Google Scholar, AC6/1/643, to Ida, 19 July and to Hilda, 9 November 1930, AC5/1/508, 520.

123 Beaverbrook, to Borden, , 29 04 1925Google Scholar, Beaverbrook MSS C/51 (House of Lords Record Office); Amery Diary, 18 February 1927 Leo Amery Diaries, I, 447–8Google Scholar. For respect of officials see Vansittart, Lord, The Mist Procession (1958), 334Google Scholar; McKercher, , The Second Baldwin Government, 20, 22.Google Scholar

124 Jacobson, J., Locarno Diplomacy: Germany and the West 1925–1929, (Princeton 1972), 74Google Scholar; Johnson, D., ‘The Locarno Treaties’ in N. Waites (ed) Troubled Neighbours: Franco-British Relations in the Twentieth Century (1971), 105Google Scholar; Chamberlain, A., Down the Years (1935), 151172, 181.Google Scholar

125 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 12 12 1927Google Scholar, AC5/1/440.

126 Chamberlain, A. to Tyrrell, , 18 10 1925Google Scholar, Petrie, C., The Life and Letters of the Rt. Honourable Sir Austen Chamberlain (2 vols, 19391940) II, 290, 295Google Scholar; Cassels, A., Mussolini's Early Diplomacy (Princeton 1970), 310–14Google Scholar; Edwards, P., ‘The Austen Chamberlain – Mussolini Meetings’, Historical Journal, XIV. I (1971), 153164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

127 Chamberlain, A., Dawn the Years, 178188Google Scholar; Neville Chamberlain Diary, 22 October 1925.

128 Headlam Diary, 19 October 1925, Ball, S. (ed) Parliament and Politics, 71Google Scholar. For a very similar assessment see Massey, V.What's Past is Prologue, (1963), 113.Google Scholar

129 Amery, L.S., My Political Life, II, 303Google Scholar. Also Salter, Lord, Slave of the Lamp: A Public Servant's Notebook, (1967), 56.Google Scholar

130 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 23 12 1924Google Scholar, AC5/1/342.

131 Chamberlain, N. to Ida, , 19 03 and to Hilda, 28 05 1916Google Scholar, NC18/1/52, 63.

132 Chamberlain, N. to Hilda, , 22 10 1916Google Scholar, NC18/1/85.

133 Chamberlain, N. to Ida, , 12 11 1916Google Scholar, NC18/1/88.

134 Dilks, D., Neville Chamberlain, 165.Google Scholar

135 Ida, to Chamberlain, Neville, 25 08 1916Google Scholar, NC1/16/1/58.

136 Hilda, to Chamberlain, A., 7 12 1916Google Scholar, AC5/2/35.

137 Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, N., 17 11 1916Google Scholar, NC1/27/5.

138 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 7 12 1916Google Scholar, AC5/1/2 and reply 13 December 1916, AC5/2/36.

139 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 17 02 1917Google Scholar, AC5/1/11.

140 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 24 03 1917Google Scholar, AC5/1/18.

141 Dr. B.S. Benedikz to the editor, 19 December 1991.

142 See Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 24 03 1919Google Scholar and to Ida, 18 August 1921, AC5/1/122, 208.

143 Dilks, D., Neville Chamberlain, 262Google Scholar; Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 24 03 1919Google Scholar, AC5/1/122.

144 Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, Mary, 2 04 1914Google Scholar, Politics from Inside, 636.Google Scholar

145 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 18 08 1921Google Scholar, AC5/1/208.

146 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 20 10 1917Google Scholar, AC5/1/40. See also to Hilda, 1 March 1924, AC5/1/311.

147 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 17 02 and 21 10 1917Google Scholar, AC5/1/11, 41.

148 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 26 07 1924Google Scholar, AC5/1/327.

149 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 14 04 1923Google Scholar, AC5/1/270.

150 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 7 12 1929Google Scholar, AC5/1/490.

151 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 23 12 1924Google Scholar and Ida, , 6 11 1927Google Scholar, AC5/1/342, 436.

152 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 9 07 1933Google Scholar and 22 September 1935, AC5/1/625, 708.

153 Hankey Diary, 11 June 1918, Roskill, S., Man of Secrets I, 573Google Scholar; Jones, T. to Grigg, Lady, 18 03 1937Google Scholar, Diary with Letters, 325.Google Scholar

154 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 11 08 1918Google Scholar; to Ida, 25 April 1924, AC5/1/95, 316.

155 Petrie, , Life and Letters, II, 66.Google Scholar

156 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 23 07 1918Google Scholar, AC5/1/92; Neville Chamberlain introduction in Petrie, , The Chamberlain Tradition, 281.Google Scholar

157 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 11 05 1917Google Scholar and 11 October 1931, AC5/1/24, 560.

158 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 24 07 1917Google Scholar, AC5/1/30.

159 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 21 12 1916, AC5/1/4Google Scholar.

160 Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, N., 5 11 1931Google Scholar, NC1/27/99.

161 Carnegie, Mary to Chamberlain, N., 31 10 1923Google Scholar, NC1/20/2/17. Dilks, D., Neville Chamberlain, 246, 72.Google Scholar

162 Dilks, D., Neville Chamberlain, 187.Google Scholar

163 Chamberlain, N. to Ida, , 22 04 and to Hilda 1 07 1917Google Scholar, 1 February 1920, NC18/1/110, 118.

164 Chamberlain, N. to Hilda, , 4 01 1919Google Scholar, NC18/1/196.

165 For Ivy's less than flattering later views on Neville and his wife see Channon Diary, 2 May 1939, Chips, 196.Google Scholar

166 Avon, , Facing the Dictators, 445Google Scholar; Carlton, D., Anthony Eden: A Biography (1981), 100101Google Scholar. See also Stuart, J., Within the Fringe: An Autobiography, (1967), 84.Google Scholar

167 N. Chamberlain Diary, 19 February 1936, Feiling, K., The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 293Google Scholar. See also Hilda Memoir, BC5/10/1 fol.11.

168 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 13 08 1933Google Scholar, AC5/1/629.

169 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 25 03 1930, AC5/1/495Google Scholar. See also the character sketch in Down the Years, Chapter XV.

170 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 20 03 1921Google Scholar, AC5/1/194. Also Amery Diary, 10 October 1917, The Leo Amery Diaries, 173.Google Scholar

171 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 4 11 1917Google Scholar, AC5/1/45; Down the Years, 119–121, 125–6. Cf his sketch of Law, 224–5.

178 Derby Diary, 23 November 1922; Chamberlain, N. to Ida, , 18 02 1923Google Scholar; memo, Pollock, ‘The Fall of the Coalition Government under Lloyd George in October 1922’, n.d. (?1922)Google Scholar corrected 14 September 1931, Hanworth MSS d.432. fol. 163 (Bodleian Library, Oxford).

173 Hyde, H. Montgomery, Baldwin: The Unexpected Prime Minister, (1973), 47, 74Google Scholar; Young, G.M., Stanley Baldwin, (1952), 26–7Google Scholar.

174 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 28 02 1931Google Scholar, AC5/1/532.

175 Dilks, D., Neville Chamberlain, 165.Google Scholar

176 Avon, , Facing the Dictators, 130.Google Scholar

177 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 18 04 1919Google Scholar, AC5/1/125.

178 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 23 08 and 6 12 1919Google Scholar, AC5/1/136, 144.

179 ‘My Cottage Garden’, Down the Years, 292306Google Scholar. Reprint of 1932 article in The Countryman. Petrie, , Life and Letters II, 146–7Google Scholar. Also The Garden: Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, 117.1 (01 1992), 37–9Google Scholar.

180 Chamberlain, A. to Hilda, , 15 05 1924Google Scholar and 12 March 1933, AC5//318, 611.

181 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 7 10 1921Google Scholar; to Hilda, 25 April 1926, AC5/1/216, 380.

182 Chamberlain, N. to Hilda, , 28 05 1916Google Scholar, NC18/1/63; Hilda, to Chamberlain, N. 26 01 1917Google Scholar, NC18/2/52.

183 Cowling, M., The Impact of Labour 1920–1924: The Beginning of Modern British Politics (Cambridge 1971)Google Scholar

184 Hilda Memoir, BC5/10/1 fol.6.

185 Amery, L.S., My Political Life, II, 202Google Scholar; Dutton, D., Austen Chamberlain, 334Google Scholar; Grigg, J., Lloyd George: The People's Champion, 59Google Scholar; Jenkins, R., Baldwin, 170.Google Scholar

186 Chamberlain, A. to Farrar, Lord, 9 11 1926Google Scholar, AC24/8/22.

187 Chamberlain, A. to Churchill, , 20 10 1930Google Scholar, Gilbert, M., Winston S. Churchill, V. Companion 2, 201.Google Scholar

188 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 20 03 1918Google Scholar, AC5/1/66.

189 Chamberlain, A. to Chamberlain, N., 24 09 1917Google Scholar, NC1/27/12.

190 A. Chamberlain at the Coalitionist dinner, 30 November 1922, Petrie, , Life and Letters, II, 210.Google Scholar

191 Chamberlain, A. to Ida, , 9 11 1918Google Scholar, AC5/1/112.