G. P. GOOCH: A STUDY IN HISTORY AND POLITICS

Other books by Frank Eyck

THE PRINCE CONSORT: a Political Biography THE FRANKFURT PARLIAMENT, 1848-1849 THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848-49 (editor) FREDERICK HERTZ, THE GERMAN PUBLIC MIND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (editor)

G. P. Gooch

G. P. GOOCH

A Study in History and Politics

Frank Eyck

© Frank Eyck 1982

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1982 978-0-333-30849-3

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

without permission

First edition 1982 Reprinted 1983

Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD

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throughout the world

Typeset by Computacomp (UK) Ltd, Fort William, Scotland

ISBN 978-1-349-05866-2 ISBN 978-1-349-05864-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-05864-8

To Andrew and George

Contents

G. P. Gooch frontispiece

Preface Xl

I CHILDHOOD (i) Family origins

(ii) Eton 3 (iii) King's College, London 5

2 CAMBRIDGE 10

(i) Trinity College 10

(ii) Sir John Seeley 14 (iii) Thackeray 17 (iv) Defoe 23

3 LORD ACTON 29 (i) The Inaugural Lecture 29

(ii) Berlin and Paris 31 (iii) Acton's influence on Gooch 33 (iv) Farewell to Cambridge 36 ( v) English democratic ideas in the seventeenth century 39

(vi) Annals of Politics and Culture 45

4 SOCIAL WORK 48 (i) The call to service 48

(ii) Adult education 51 (iii) Church Army 53 (iv) London City Mission 55 (v) Temperance 57

I

I

Vlll Contents

5 BOER WAR 6o (i) A moral stand 6o

(ii) The War and Its Causes 63 (iii) Patrick Duncan 69 (iv) Essay on imperialism 72 ( v) Gooch's political philosophy 79

(vi) Preparation for active politics 84

6 MARRIAGE AND POLITICS 91 (i) Visit to Egypt and Greece 91

(ii) Prospective liberal candidate for Bath 94 (iii) Eighty Club and Rainbow Circle 98 (iv) Election manifesto, 1906 100 (v) Triumph in Bath 107

7 PARLIAMENT IIO (i) Private Parliamentary Secretary 110

(ii) Irish politics 113 (iii) Irish history II7 (iv) South Africa 123 (v) India !28

(vi) Limitation of armaments 135 (vii) Egypt 140

(viii) Persia 142 (ix) Tsarist oppression 144 (x) Balkan Committee 146

(xi) The Young Turks 154 (xii) Old Age Pensions 157

(xiii) Socialism and liberty 159 (xiv) Sweated wages 163 (xv) Moral instruction 164

(xvi) Licensing Bill 169 (xvii) Labour Exchanges 172

(xviii) Workhouse children 174 (xix) The House of Lords 175 (xx) Defeat in Bath 177

(xxi) Reading By-Election 179 (xxii) Historical studies 184

8 HISTORY AND HISTORIANS 188 (i) Germany 188

Contents lX

(ii) France 200 (iii) Great Britain 208 (iv) Reactions to the book 2I9 (v) The historian's code 223

9 A JOURNAL AT WAR 23I (i) The Contemporary Review 23I

(ii) The War 236 (iii) The Balkans 242 (iv) German theories of the state 247 ( v) Germany and the French Revolution 252

(vi) The February Revolution in Russia 262 (vii) The Races of Austria-Hungary 265

(viii) A Century of British Foreign Policy 275 (ix) Planning for peace 284 (x) John Morley 287

(xi) I9I8 292 (xii) Leonard Courtney 298

(xiii) The final stage 303

IO THE DEBATE ON THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR 3II

(i) 'A Clemenceau peace' 311 (ii) The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy 320

(iii) Recent revelations on European diplomacy 325 (iv) Ramsay MacDonald 329 (v) James Headlam-Morley 342

(vi) Sir Austen Chamberlain 35I (vii) Harold Temperley and Stephen Gaselee 359

(viii) The threat of resignation 364 (ix) The Earl of Birkenhead 374 (x) A report by senior officials 381

(xi) Final problems 390

II NAZI REGIME AND SECOND WORLD WAR 406 (i) Adolf Hitler 406

(ii) National Peace Council 411 (iii) 30 June 19 34 4I4 (iv) Nazi wooings 4I7 (v) Anschluss and Munich 421

(vi) Companion ofHonour 424

X Contents

(vii) War again 426 (viii) Radio Bremen 429

(ix) 'How to deal with Germany' 432

12 SERENITY 437 (i) Under Six Reigns 437

(ii) Audience with the Queen 440 (iii) German reconstruction 446

Notes and References 451

Index 488

Preface

During one of many conversations over thirty-two years, when I asked Gooch a question about his time in Parliament, he replied that it was all in his autobiography. Little did I dream then that I would be writing his biography.

Since I started work on the book soon after Gooch died in 1968, I have been asking numerous questions about him. My researches took me - apart from regions of Canada - to many countries, to Britain, the German Federal Republic, Portugal, Switzerland and the United States of America. Though I knew Gooch for the last third of his life, ever since I was a schoolboy at St Paul's School in London, I only fully began to realise the wide range of his interests during my work on the biography. My own feeling at this moment- apart from relief at the completion of a task - is thankfulness for the spiritual sustenance I received while trying to trace the path of a man dedicated to helping others. Through his lifelong concern for the moral values of Britain, he was one of those who contributed to that greatness which enabled the country to survive the ordeal of the Second World War.

My thanks are manifold. Mr Bernard Gooch generously put his father's papers at my disposal and gave me much help. Unfortunately, the papers consist mainly of letters addressed to Gooch, rather than written by him. He worked very simply, without a secretary of his own, for most of his life. Thus file copies of his letters were only rarely made. In any case, he was not a great believer in personal files, and- as a friend of his put it - made extensive use of the waste-paper basket.

Luckily, an elaborate search of private papers and public archives yielded a rich harvest of letters written by Gooch. The author wishes to express his heatt-felt gratitude to all the owners of papers and copyright-holders who helped him to write this book by making material available and by giving permission to use and to quote: to Mr

Xll Preface

Bernard Gooch for the papers, letters, speeches, and writings of Dr G. P. Gooch; to Laurence Pollinger Limited and to the Estate of the late John Cowper Powys for extracts from his Autobiography, now published by Pan Books Ltd; to the Hon. Mrs Woodruff for the papers and letters of the first Lord Acton; to Mr John Duncan for the papers of Sir Patrick Duncan in the University of Cape Town Libraries; to Messrs Warren Murton & Co. for the letters of Lord Bryce and the Bryce papers in the Bodleian Library; to the British Library of Political and Economic Science for the papers and letters of Lord Courtney, the E. D. Morel papers, and the National Peace Council archives; to the British Broadcasting Corporation for the broadcast interview of Nancy Wise with Dr Gooch on 2 November 1965; to the Hon. MrsJ. C. Hogg and Professor Noel Fieldhouse for the papers of the first Lord Noel-Buxton and to Mrs Hogg in respect of quotations from an article by Lord Noel-Buxton in The Contemporary Review of January 1918; to Mrs Pauline Dower for the papers of Sir Charles Trevelyan in the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne Library; to Mrs Mary Moorman for the letters of Dr G. M. Trevelyan and his book An Autobiography and Other Essays published by Longman; to the Chief Librarian of Ghent University and Professor S. Fredericq for the letters of Professor Paul Fredericq and his papers in the University of Ghent Library; to Professor Hugh Seton-Watson and Mr Christopher Seton-Watson for the papers of Professor R. W. Seton-Watson and quotations from his articles in The Contemporary Review; to Mr S. S. Wilson for the minutes of the Rainbow Circle; to Mrs Else Pick vance and Mrs Mary J. Jeffries for the papers of Dr W. H. Dawson in the University of Birmingham Library and for quotations from his articles in The Contemporary Review; to Miss Dorothy Henkel for letters written to her by Dr Gooch; to Frau Helene Hobe-Delbriick for the papers of Professor Hans Delbriick in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek Berlin/DDR, Nachlass Delbriick; to the Rt Hon. Malcolm MacDonald, O.M., for the letters of the Rt Hon. Ramsay MacDonald; to the Mendelssohn Archiv der Staatsbibliothek, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, for the papers of Professor Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy; to Professor H. N. V. Temperley for the papers and letters of Professor Harold Temperley; to the University of London Library for the papers of Professor Emile Cammaerts; to Hubertus Prinz zu Lowenstein for his papers deposited in the Bundesarchi v, Koblenz ; to Professor A nnelise Thimme for the letters of Dr Friedrich Thimme; to Mrs Helene Pick and Mr Michael Pick for the papers of Dr F. W. Pick; to Dr Dirk

Preface Xlll

Oncken for the papers of Professor Hermann Oncken in the Niedersachsische Staatsarchiv, Oldenburg; to Mr Hugh Noyes for the papers of Alfred Noyes; to Professor A. Closs for the papers of Mrs Hannah Closs; to McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Canada, for the papers of Sir George Catlin; to Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, for the papers of Professor Friedrich Meinecke; to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for the Gilbert Murray papers; to the National Register of Archives, Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, London, for the Oscar Browning papers; to the National Liberal Club, London, for the T. Fisher Unwin papers; to the National Library of Scotland for the papers of Viscount Haldane; to Mrs Christine Steinberg for the papers of Dr S. H. Steinberg; to the Hon. Mrs Helen Pease for the papers of the first Lord W edgwood; to the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, for the papers of President Theodor Heuss; to the Utrecht University Library for the papers of Professor Pieter Geyl; and to Yale University Library for the papers of Colonel House.

I wish to express my gratitude to Her Majesty the Queen for permission to reproduce the memorandum on his audience dictated by Dr Gooch. I acknowledge Crown copyright for being allowed to quote from papers in the Public Record Office and the Historical Section of the Cabinet Office, from British Documents on the Origins of the War 1898-1914 and from Hansard.

Quotation from the papers of Sir William Rothenstein is by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University; from Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910 (published by Macmillan) by permission of the author, Dr Henry Pelling.

The biographer's task has not been made easier by Gooch outliving not only most of his contemporaries, but also many younger men and women with whom he collaborated. It was thus fortunate for the author to have had the privilege of meeting sons and daughters of several of those involved in the project which took so much of his time in the inter-war years, the British Documents. Mr Malcolm MacDonald, the son of the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary who launched the scheme, during an afternoon at his house let me sense some of the warmth of friendship between his distinguished father and Gooch that he remembered from his childhood. I am also deeply indebted to him for allowing me to catch glimpses of his wide experience of public life, which were invaluable to me in writing the book. The sons of both editors of the British Documents, Mr Bernard Gooch and Professor H. N. V. Temperley, gave me hospitality at

XlV Preface

their homes and patiently answered queries. I was able to interview Miss Sybil Crowe, Sir Eyre Crowe's daughter, and Professor Agnes Headlam-Morley, the daughter of Sir James Headlam-Morley, Historical Adviser to the Foreign Office. The picture was completed by an account at ftrst hand from Miss Agatha Ramm, who assisted the editors during the fmal stages of their work. The debt I owe to Miss Ramm and to others is acknowledged in the notes. At Cambridge, Sir Herbert Butterfield and Sir James Butler gave me their wise counsel.

Lord Noel-Baker drew on his personal recollections to provide the author with valuable insights into Gooch's part in the 'peace movement'. Hubertus Prinz zu Lowenstein recalled years of friendship in troubled times. Members of the London City Mission threw light on Gooch's work for the needy and on his attitude towards them. A visit to the London headquarters of the Society of Friends left a strong impression of a relationship of mutual trust and respect between the Quakers and Gooch.

My own reminiscences were supplemented by Mr and Mrs Bernard Gooch, as well as by Mrs Herta Lazarus, who rewarded Gooch's lifelong care for others by ministering to him in his old age. Miss Evelyn Sewell, a relative, gave me valuable information on the history of the family, and Gooch's niece, Mrs Marguerite Cole, personal impressions of her uncle. Dr Ruth Schulze-Gaevernitz, a relation of Gooch's wife, recalled conversations she had had with him. Mrs Grace Ban yard drew on her experience of working with him in the editorial offices of The Contemporary Review. Mr Charles Bards well of Bolton & Lowe, for many years the family solicitor, was kind enough to see me. The memories of Mr H. J. Andrews as an estate agent went back to Gooch's mother. Among many others who discussed Gooch with the author were Miss Dorothy Henkel, Professor Felix Hirsch, Dr A. 0. Sarkissian, Professor W. N. Medlicott, Professor William L. Langer, Sir George Catlin, Professor Gerard Friters, Dr P. D. Whitting, Mrs Betty Abel and Mrs Tilda Barr.

The author also wishes to express his gratitude to a number of scholars who advised him during the writing of the book. He received much encouragement and help from Lord Briggs of Lewes, Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, his former tutor at the college. Professor Georga G. Iggers kindly read a first draft of the part dealing with History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century and commented. Professor George Wing and Professor James Black of the Department of English at the University of Calgary advised on the sections

Preface XV

relating to Thackeray and Defoe respectively. It need hardly be emphasised that any shortcomings in the book are solely the responsibility of the author.

I also wish to thank Mrs Jenny Watkins for helping me to build up the collection of correspondence around the Gooch papers; Mr Charles Philpin, Mr Hart Horn, Mr John Scotvold, Mr Terry Riley and Mr John Alexander for assisting me in research; Mrs Jennifer Dowding and Mrs Joyce Woods for helping me with conducting correspondence; and Mrs Marian Burke for typing the manuscript.

Warm thanks go out to the institutions whose generosity made the completion and publication of the book possible. Canada Council fmanced many expenses, particularly research and travel, during the early years of the project. The University of Calgary, which appointed the author to a professorship of history in 1968, provided the environment in which he could do the work for the biography. The author is deeply indebted to the University for periods of sabbatical leave and for a Killam Resident Fellowship. He also expresses his gratitude for publication having been made possible in part by a grant from the Publications Committee of the University of Calgary. It would be impossible to list the many librarians and archivists at the University of Calgary and elsewhere who gave the author invaluable help. My thanks go out to them, too.

The book owes much to the steady support and help of my wife, and is dedicated to our sons Andrew and George, to whom Gooch gave so much affection, so that he may be an inspiration to them.

Department of History University of Calgary September 1980

F. E.