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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2016
Cecil Bisshop Harmsworth (1869–1948) was the third brother of a large, famous and influential family. His elder siblings were Alfred Charles William Harmsworth and Harold Sidney Harmsworth. These two self-made men – Lords Northcliffe and Rothermere, as they became – were amongst the most powerful and notorious press proprietors of their age. Both of them, Alfred especially, were brilliant and energetic, but they were not exactly well liked. By contrast, Cecil was an able person who had, by normal standards, a successful career as a Liberal MP and junior minister, and yet never acquired – and indeed never aspired to attain – the high profile of his brothers. If he was overshadowed, though, he had an important gift that they lacked: ‘a genius for friendship’. It is related that, before he was elected to Parliament, Cecil was invited to the terrace of the House of Commons and made a very good impression on those he met. Supposedly, Northcliffe, when informed of this by one of his journalists, replied sardonically: ‘Oh, I understand. They were delighted to meet a human Harmsworth.’
1 ‘Death of Lord Harmsworth’, Daily Mail, 14 Aug. 1948.
2 ‘Pleasure and Problem in South Africa’, Otago Witness, 4 Nov. 1908.
3 Kenworthy, J.M., Sailors, Statesmen and Others: An Autobiography (London: Rich Cowan, 1933), 184Google Scholar.
4 ‘Obituary: Lord Harmsworth’, Manchester Guardian, 14 Aug. 1948.
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6 Pound, Reginald and Harmsworth, Geoffrey, Northcliffe, (London: Cassell, 1959), 229Google Scholar, 773; Ferris, House of Northcliffe, 22, describes him as ‘mentally subnormal’.
7 D.G. Boyce, ‘Harmsworth, Harold Sidney, first Viscount Rothermere (1868–1940)’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33718/33718?back=,33717,33718,33717 (accessed 18 Feb. 2014). This information is not included in Cecil, Harmsworth, Baron, St John Harmsworth: A Brave Life, 1876–1932 (Tonbridge: privately printed, 1949)Google Scholar.
8 Pound and Harmsworth, Northcliffe, 229.
9 Ferris, House of Northcliffe, 303.
10 Cecil Bishopp Harmsworth (henceforward CBH), ‘Lord N. and other Harmsworth memorials’, unpublished MS, mid 1930s. Unless otherwise stated, all documents cited are part of the Cecil Harmsworth Papers, University of Exeter Special Collections.
11 CBH, autobiographical notes, 1917, in diary volume for 1900.
12 CBH, note of Oct. 1936 attached to diary of 19 Sept. 1911.
13 CBH, ‘Lord N. and other Harmsworth memorials’.
14 Thompson, J. Lee, Northcliffe: Press Baron in Politics 1865–1922 (London: John Murray, 2000), 13Google Scholar.
15 ‘Council of Legal Education’, The Times, 24 Apr. 1895.
16 ‘Harmsworth Brothers, Limited’, The Times, 19 Oct. 1896; ‘The Harmsworths and their publications’, The Bookman, Dec. 1897.
17 CBH, ‘Lord N. and other Harmsworth memorials’.
18 Thomas, Sue, Indexes to Fiction in the Harmsworth Magazine, later, The London Magazine (1898–1915), Victorian Fiction Research Guides X (Brisbane: University of Queensland, 1984), 9Google Scholar.
19 Pound and Harmsworth, Northcliffe, 236.
20 Thomas, Indexes to Fiction, 9.
21 Daily Mail, 9 Sept. 1899.
22 Diary for 1 Mar. 1900.
23 CBH to the editor of the Daily Mail, published 5 Sept. 1900.
24 ‘Mr. Cecil B. Harmsworth at Wollescote’, Birmingham Daily Post, 27 Sept. 1900.
25 ‘Election items’, Daily Mail, 9 Oct. 1900; ‘Meeting at Hanbury’, Worcestershire Chronicle, 13 Oct. 1900.
26 CBH, ‘Lord N. and other Harmsworth memorials’.
27 ‘Lanark campaign opened’, Daily Mail, 5 Sept. 1901.
28 ‘Our London correspondence’, Manchester Guardian, 2 Sept 1901.
29 ‘The Lanarkshire election’, The Speaker, 14 Sept. 1901.
30 ‘Lanark election’, Daily Mail, 6 Sept. 1901.
31 CBH to the editor of The Times, published 3 Oct. 1901.
32 Daily Mail, 18 Nov. 1901.
33 Diary for 29 Aug. 1900.
34 ‘Introduction’, The New Liberal Review, 1, 1 (Feb. 1901).
35 ‘The New Liberal Review’, Review of Reviews, Jan. 1901.
36 ‘The literary week’, The Academy, 9 Feb. 1901.
37 King, Cecil H., Strictly Personal (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1969), 80–81Google Scholar.
38 Pelling, Henry, Social Geography of British Elections, 1885–1910 (London: Macmillan, 1967), 197CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Trainor, Richard H., Black Country Elites: The Exercise of Authority in an Industrialized Area, 1830–1900 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
39 Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections, 196.
40 Cecil Harmsworth, election address, 4 Jan. 1906.
41 Harmsworth, Cecil, Pleasure and Problem in South Africa (London: J. Lane, 1908), 143Google Scholar.
42 Review of Pleasure and Problem in South Africa, in Times Literary Supplement, 28 May 1908.
43 Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections, 196.
44 Cecil Harmsworth, election address, Jan. 1910.
45 See Lawrence, Jon, Electing our Masters: The Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 87–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
46 University of Glasgow Special Collections, MacCallum Scott papers, MS Gen 1465/4, diary 11 June 1913.
47 Ferris, House of Northcliffe, 180, where he suggests Cecil went into politics because of ‘the corporate pride of the Harmsworths’ and ‘to please Northcliffe’.
48 Cecil Harmsworth to Walter Runciman, 10 May 1918, Runciman papers WR 169, quoted in Turner, John, British Politics and the Great War: Coalition and Conflict, 1915–1918 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 302Google Scholar.
49 Carmichael, Katie, McOmish, David and Grech, David, The Hat Industry of Luton and its Buildings (Swindon: English Heritage, 2013)Google Scholar.
50 Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections, 114.
51 Cecil Harmsworth, election address, June 1911.
52 Supplement, 23 June 1934, to diary, 8 Apr. 1914.
53 Hansard, 1 Aug. 1911.
54 15 Nov. 1911.
55 Report of the committee appointed to consider applications of the Devon and Cornwall local fisheries committees for grants from the Development Fund for assisting fishermen to instal motor power in their boats, and for other purposes (Cd. 6752, 1913), esp. 3–17; The Times, 22 Apr. 1913.
56 Report of the departmental committee on inshore fisheries appointed by the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to inquire into the present condition of the inshore fisheries, and to advise the Board as to the steps which could with advantage be taken for their preservation and development (Cd. 7373, 1914), esp. xxxv–xxxviii; The Times, 10 June, 11 Dec. 1914.
57 Hansard, 3 Apr. 1914, Vol. 60 cols 1540–1543.
58 14 June 1915.
59 Turner, John, Lloyd George's Secretariat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
60 Ibid. 20.
61 26 Apr. 1917.
62 Turner, Lloyd George's Secretariat, 39.
63 Ibid. 29–30, 40–42.
64 Ibid. 30–38.
65 Ibid. 42–43.
66 Turner, Lloyd George's Secretariat, 195.
67 Hansard, 5 series, Vol. 114 cols 2952–2953, 16 Apr. 1919.
68 Morgan, K.O., Consensus and Disunity: The Lloyd George Coalition Government 1918–1922 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 188–190Google Scholar.
69 McEwen, J.M. (ed.), The Riddell Diaries 1908–1923 (London: Athlone Press, 1986), 125Google Scholar (entry for 2 July 1915).
70 Cooper, Duff, Old Men Forget (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954), 115Google Scholar.
71 Alfred, Northcliffe, Viscount, My Journey Round the World, 16 July 1921–26 Feb. 1922, ed. Cecil and St. Harmsworth, John (London: John Lane, 1923)Google Scholar; Harmsworth, Cecil, A Little Fishing Book (Dublin: Cuala Press, 1930)Google Scholar; Harmsworth, Cecil (ed.), Immortals at First Hand: Famous People as Seen by their Contemporaries (London: Desmond Harmsworth, 1933)Google Scholar. CBH and his son Desmond had earlier published Holiday Verses and Others (Dublin: Cuala Press, 1922).
72 Crowson, N.J. (ed.), Fleet Street, Press Barons and Politics: The Journals of Collin Brooks, 1932–1940, Camden Fifth Series, Vol. 11 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Historical Society, 1998), 226Google Scholar (entry for 14 Oct. 1938).
73 Bourne, Richard, Lords of Fleet Street: The Harmsworth Dynasty (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 86–87Google Scholar.
74 Diary entry for 9 May 1916.
75 Diary entries for 2 Dec. 1937 and 12 June 1939; CBH, ‘Lord N. and other Harmsworth memorials’.
76 Diary entry for 27 Nov. 1938.
77 Crowson, Journals of Collin Brooks, 1932–1940, 246 (entry for 20 Feb. 1939)
78 CBH, ‘The Wide Horizon’, Christian Science Monitor, 29 Oct. 1938; Parliamentary Debates, Fifth series, House of Lords, Vol. 112, 2 May 1939, cols. 843–847.
79 Vincent, John (ed.), The Crawford Papers: The Journals of David Lindsay, Twenty-Seventh Earl of Crawford and Tenth Earl of Balcarres 1871–1940, during the years 1892 to 1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1984), 607Google Scholar (entry for 15 Nov. 1939).
80 Harmsworth, Cecil, Dr Johnson: A Great Englishman (London: Jones, 1923)Google Scholar; Cecil, Harmsworth, Lord, Dr Johnson's House, Gough Square, London (London: Trustees of Dr Johnson's House 1947)Google Scholar.
81 Harmsworth, A Little Fishing Book.
82 Dutton, David J. (ed.), Odyssey of an Edwardian Liberal: The Political Diary of Richard Durning Holt, The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. CXXIX (Gloucester, 1989)Google Scholar; Packer, Ian (ed.), The Letters of Arnold Stephenson Rowntree to Mary Katherine Rowntree, 1910–1918, Camden Fifth Series, Vol. 20 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Historical Society, 2002)Google Scholar.
83 Packer, Letters of Arnold Stephenson Rowntree, 1.