Hastings Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford
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His Grace The Duke of Bedford | |
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Tenure | 27 August 1940 – 9 October 1953 |
Successor | Ian Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford |
Other titles |
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Born | Minnigaff, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland | 21 December 1888
Died | 9 October 1953 Endsleigh Cottage, Devon, England | (aged 64)
Spouse(s) | |
Issue |
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Parents |
Hastings William Sackville Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford (21 December 1888 – 9 October 1953) was a
Russell died after accidentally shooting himself in 1953.
Early life
Educated at
Naturalism
A keen naturalist, Russell arranged a 1906 expedition to
He was also an
While known as the Marquess of Tavistock, he wrote "Parrots and Parrot-like Birds". He was a founder member and first President of the Foreign Bird League. He was successful in breeding many species, including the Tahiti Blue Lorikeet and Ultramarine Lorikeet. Both of these are recognised as the world's first breedings in captivity. The Marquess disposed of his birds upon succeeding to the Dukedom in 1939.
Politics
Pre-war activity
Russell was active in politics for much of his life. In his youth he flirted with
Russell was a founder of the
During the war
Russell was friendly with Barry Domvile, the founder of the Link,[25] and had been close to that semi-clandestine group since its establishment in 1937.[26] In the early months of the Second World War, he attended several meetings of leading figures on the far-right that Domvile had organised, although he was largely unenthusiastic about this initiative.[27]
Russell chaired the British Council for Christian Settlement in Europe, established immediately after the declaration of war and featuring an eclectic melange of fascists, fascist sympathisers and committed pacifists.[28] He was a committed pacifist across the board, rejecting war entirely, in contrast to Beckett and several other leading members of the group who were opposed specifically to war with Nazi Germany rather than to war as a concept.[29] During the early days of the war, Russell was also courted by the British Union of Fascists (BUF), who had changed their name to the British Union, and held meetings with Neil Francis Hawkins, the group's Director-General.[30] He had earlier been a sometime member of the January Club, a BUF-linked discussion group.[31] He had grown close to BUF member Robert Gordon-Canning, and under his influence even came to write for the BUF's newspaper Action.[32] Nonetheless, in private BUF leader Sir Oswald Mosley dismissed Russell as "woolly-headed".[33] Tavistock engaged in a lengthy correspondence with the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax over the justice of the war, starting on 18 January 1940.[34] He blamed the war on Poland, writing that he could not understand why during the Danzig crisis Halifax had not pressured the Poles into accepting "Herr Hitler's extremely reasonable March proposals".[35] Tavistock portrayed Hitler as a victim as he continued: "We should not forget that even in our our boyhood the German Jew was a by-word for all that was objectionable; that there is good evidence of unfair treatment by the Czechs of German minorities and ample evidence of unjust and even brutal treatment of the Germans by the Poles".[36] He portrayed the war as an unjust struggle, accused the France of seeking to maintain what he called the unjust Treaty of Versailles and argued that Hitler was a man of peace whose efforts to save the peace had been rejected by the British and the French.[37] Later in the summer of 1940, Tavistock published all of his correspondence with Halifax under the title The Fate of A Peace Effort.[38]
At the start of 1940, he corresponded with the Home Secretary Sir John Anderson after obtaining a document from the German legation in Dublin that Russell claimed contained Adolf Hitler's draft proposals for peace.[27] Following the obtaining of this document by Russell, on 13 March 1940 Domvile organised a meeting for both men, Mosley and Imperial Fascist League (IFL) veteran Bertie Mills to discuss their next course of action. At this meeting, Mosley proposed the creation of a "Peace Government" to be led by David Lloyd George, although nothing more came of this initiative as the government soon launched a crackdown on far-right activity.[39] One of the leading members of the British Union was Edward Godfrey whose political views the Special Branch of Scotland Yard described being less with the British Union and "more with the Duke of Bedford".[40] The Special Branch described Godfrey in May 1940 as "an embittered and class-conscious proprietor of a chain of fish and chips shops...who is bitterly opposed to the war and violently anti-Jewish".[40] ON 20 May 1940, a meeting was called at the Dover Castle pub in Bethel Green to discuss forming the British National Party to be led by Godfrey and which was to be funded entirely by Bedford's wealth.[41] At the meeting, Ben Stokes of the BUF who was acting as Godfrey's agent stated that a "monster meeting" would be held in London sometime later that spring under which the new British National Party would be unveiled.[42] Stokes stated that the executive council of the new party would consist of the Duke of Bedford, the military historian General J. F. C. Fuller, Captain Bernard Acworth, Lord Sempill, the writer John Middleton Murry and Lord Lymington..[42] A MI5 report noted that every name on the list belonged to the F3 category, which MI5 defined as "terrorism, excluding Irish terrorism".[42] The plan came to naught when Mosely insisted on being the leader of the new party as a condition of having the BUF join the British National Party while Godfrey continued to insist on his claim to be the leader and that Mosely should step aside.[42]
Leading figures were interned under Defence Regulation 18B although Russell was not among their number.[43] Russell's nobility helped to ensure that he avoided arrest[44] along with other far-right leaning noblemen such as the Lord Lymington, the Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Westminster, the Earl of Mar, Lord Brocket, Lord Queenborough and others.[45] His personal links to Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax also helped to ensure his freedom.[46] He wrote a series of letter to Halifax in the early days of the war expressing his admiration for Hitler and urging him to use his influence to bring the war to a swift conclusion.[47] Bedford was, however, placed on the "Suspect List" by MI5 as some within that group suspected that, in the event of a successful Nazi invasion of the UK, Russell might have ended up as Governor of the territory or even Prime Minister of a puppet government.[48] Under the suspect list, Russell was to be arrested immediately without charge in the event of a German invasion as a potential traitor and collaborator.[49]
Beckett however was among those held, and Russell attempted to intervene on his behalf, assisting Beckett's common-law wife Anne Cutmore in a letter-writing campaign to secure his release.[50] When Beckett was released Cutmore again asked Russell, by then Duke of Bedford, for help as they were penniless and he agreed to allow them to live in a cottage in the village of Chenies, at the time entirely owned by the Duchy.[51] He would continue to underwrite the Becketts until his death in 1953, even purchasing a large house in Rickmansworth for the family's use in 1949.[52]
On 18 November 1941, speaking in the House of Commons, the Lord Chancellor, Sir John Simon, noted that the duke was lucky to be British as he noted "If he was a German and was in Germany, and if he gave expression to the reverse opinion and denounced Hitler and all his works, and found excuses for Hitler's enemies", he would have been sent to a concentration camp or executed.[53] On 3 December 1941, Bedford took up his seat in the House of Lords, and immediately attracted attention for a series of speeches that condemned the Churchill government and the war.[49] His speeches in the House of Lords were noted for their pro-Axis tone as he blamed the war on "the attempt by the moneylending financers and big business monopolists to destroy the relatively sane financial system of the Axis powers".[54] Bedford used his great wealth during the war to fund a number of fascist groups such as the British National Party and the English Nationalists Association..[55] The British historian Richard Giffiths noted that the groups that Lord Bedford funded were "remarkably unsuccessful", which led him to suggest that the way he poured millions of pounds into such groups reflected his convictions rather than any hope of power.[55] In a letter to the pro-Nazi historian Sir Arthur Bryant dated 5 July 1944, Bedford bemoaned that the Allies were winning the war.[55] On 12 April 1945, he learned that American President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died. In an obituary of Roosevelt published in The Word magazine, Bedford gloated over his death and wrote that Roosevelt had been "an inveterate and unscrupulous war-monger and a tool of Big Finance".[55] On 30 April 1945, he learned that Hitler had committed suicide. In an obituary of Hitler published in Talking Picture News, Bedford wrote that "Hitler's virtues had caused his destruction to be ordinated by the financers of the City and Wall Street using the politicians as their puppets".[55] In contrast to the gloating, cheering tone in his obituary of Roosevelt, there was a sad, dejected tone to his obituary of Hitler. On 8 May 1945, he responded to the news that Germany had surrendered by writing that the war was "a glorious victory" for "Soviet tyranny and Big Finance".[55]
Post-war
Russell re-established the BPP in 1945, the group having been in abeyance during the later years of the war.
Personal life
In London, Middlesex, on 21 November 1914, he married Louisa Crommelin Roberta Jowitt Whitwell; the couple had three children:
- John Ian Robert Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford (1917–2002), who supplied a detailed and hostile portrait of him in the 1959 memoir A Silver-Plated Spoon;
- Lady Daphne Crommelin Russell (2 September 1920 – 1 June 1991);[60]
- Lord Hugh Hastings Russell (1923–2005), a Second World War, married Rosemary Markby and had issue.
Russell was a committed
Russell put his 11-acre estate, the Chateau Malet in
He published a memoir titled The Years of Transition, in 1949.
Death
Russell died in 1953, aged 64, as a result of a gunshot wound in the grounds of his Endsleigh Estate in Devon. The coroner recorded his death as accidentally inflicted,[64] but his elder son suggested it may have been deliberately self-inflicted.[65] Griffiths wrote that his death was almost certainly suicide as the duke had been extremely depressed in the days prior to his death.[54] Griffiths wrote: "When we try to assess the Duke of Bedford's motives, we are confronted with a very complex picture. He was a lonely, introverted character, unable to forge human relationships, possibly a result of his strange upbringing. This lack of human contact may have contributed to his conviction that he was right in all he thought and did, and that it was the world that was out of step, not him. And then there was the succession of obsessions that ruled his life-evangelical Christianity, pacifism, Social Credit, financial reform".[53] Griffiths wrote that "many of his underlaying attitudes were of themselves admirable", but that Bedford's tendency to explain everything in terms of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories as he believed that the Jews had vast secret powers that they used to dominate the world both politically and economically led him straight into the embrace of Nazism..[53] Griffiths wrote that Bedford was tenacious and obstinate, which led him to express pro-Nazi views in the midst of the war, despite all of the opprobrium that it brought him as he concluded that Bedford "had ideas that blended ill with his real Christian beliefs".[53]
Bibliography
- Francis Beckett, The Rebel Who Lost His Cause – The Tragedy of John Beckett MP, London: Allison and Busby, 1999
- Stephen Dorril, Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley & British Fascism, London: Penguin Books, 2007
- Elliot, David (2004). James Bradford (ed.). Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century. Regina: University of Regina Press. pp. 125–145. ISBN 9780889771512.
- Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers on the Right, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983
- Griffiths, Richard (2016). What Did You Do During the War? The Last Throes of the British Pro-Nazi Right, 1940-45. London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781317495659.
- Martin Pugh, 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts!': Fascists and Fascism in Britain between the Wars, London: Pimlico, 2006
- Kershaw, Ian (2004). Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry, the Nazis, and the Road to War. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0143036076.
- Richard Thurlow, Fascism in Britain: From Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts to the National Front, London: IB Tauris, 1998
References
- ^ Obituary:Duchess Of Bedford The Times (London, England), Monday, 29 March 1937; pg. 12; Issue 47644
- ^ Stevens, Keith (1998). Naturalist, author, artist, Explorer and editor. Hong Kong Branch Royal Asiatic Society.
- ISBN 978-0446581776.
- ^ a b c Dorril, p. 205
- ^ Griffiths, p.351
- ^ a b Elliot 2004, p. 145.
- ^ https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-scotsman/20180906/281492162200111. Retrieved 29 July 2019 – via PressReader.
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- ^ Griffiths, p.352
- ^ Griffiths, p.352
- ^ Griffiths, p.352
- ^ Thurlow, p. 172
- ^ Beckett, p. 157
- ^ Beckett, pp. 158–159
- ^ Griffiths, p.352
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- ^ Griffiths, p.352-353
- ^ Griffiths, p.352
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- ^ Griffiths, p.352-353
- ^ Kershaw 2004, p. 301.
- ^ Griffiths, p.353
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- ^ Thurlow, p. 180
- ^ Dorril, p. 424
- ^ a b Thurlow, p. 181
- ^ Beckett, p. 160-161
- ^ Beckett, p. 170
- ^ Thurlow, p. 185
- ^ Pugh, p. 146
- ^ Dorril, p. 482
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- ^ Griffiths, p.371-372
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- ^ Thurlow, p. 182
- ^ a b Griffiths 2016, p. 115.
- ^ Griffiths 2016, p. 115-116.
- ^ a b c d Griffiths 2016, p. 116.
- ^ Thurlow, p. 223
- ^ Beckett, p. 167
- ^ Pugh, p. 306
- ^ Pugh, p. 307
- ^ Griffiths, p. 372
- ^ Dorril, p. 515
- ^ a b Griffiths 2016, p. 69.
- ^ Beckett, p. 184
- ^ Beckett, p. 186
- ^ Beckett, p. 191
- ^ a b c d Griffiths 2016, p. 71.
- ^ a b Griffiths 2016, p. 69-70.
- ^ a b c d e f Griffiths 2016, p. 70.
- ^ a b Macklin, p. 123
- ^ Beckett, p. 192
- ^ a b c Macklin, p. 124
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- ^ "NOTICES UNDER THE TRUSTEE ACT 1925, s . 27". THE LONDON GAZETTE, 1st SEPTEMBER 1992. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
- ^ Beckett, pp. 194–195
- ^ Beckett, p. 194
- ^ "Knight, Frank & Rutley". The Times. No. 42635. 3 February 1921. p. 25. Retrieved 6 February 2020 – via The Times Digital Archive.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/58844. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
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- "Burke's Peerage and Baronetage"