Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sir Kingsley Wood
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
In office
21 April 1921 – 19 October 1922
Preceded byStanley Baldwin
Succeeded byJohn Hills
Personal details
Born(1879-03-20)20 March 1879
Died11 July 1960(1960-07-11) (aged 81)
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1922; died 1947)​
ChildrenWayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet

Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet,

GBE, DSO, DSC & Bar, PC
(20 March 1879 – 11 July 1960) was a British politician and writer.

Family and early life

Young was the youngest son of Sir George Young, 3rd Baronet (see

Viceroy, Lord Lawrence. Widowed when Sir Alexander died in a bridge collapse, Alice returned to England, marrying Sir George in 1871.[3] Hilton was the youngest of three sons and one daughter (who died aged 14) born to the couple. The oldest brother, also George, would become a diplomat and Ottoman scholar. The next brother, Geoffrey Winthrop Young, became a noted educator and mountaineer. Their childhood was spent at the family's Thames-side 'Formosa' estate, at Cookham, Berkshire. On visits to their London house near Sloane Square, Hilton would often play in Kensington Gardens with the children of Sir George's friend, Sir Leslie Stephen.[4] In this way, he commenced a close friendship with his contemporary Thoby Stephen, and became acquainted with Thoby's siblings, Vanessa, Virginia, and Adrian
.

At his preparatory school,

Union Society.[6][7]

Early career

Post-Cambridge he read for the Bar and was called by the Inner Temple in 1904. However, after receiving few briefs and suffering a nervous breakdown, he transferred to financial journalism. In 1908 he was appointed assistant editor of The Economist, resigning in 1910 to become city editor of The Morning Post.[7] His 1912 work Foreign Companies and Other Corporations combined his legal and financial knowledge to examine the status of companies created in one national jurisdiction which operate in other jurisdictions.[8]

At Cambridge, through

Garibaldi's retreat which became the basis for Trevelyan's Garibaldi trilogy.[10] The second work in the trilogy—Garibaldi and the Thousand—was dedicated to the Young brothers and contained 15 photographs taken by Hilton.[11]

First World War

Enlisting in the

First World War, including the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow.[13]

He served on

Admiral Jellicoe's flagship. In a letter in October he mentioned a sailors’ entertainment for “the admiral’s” benefit including some sailors dancing the can-can. However, by February 1915 he was chafing at the “inoccupation” of the Grand Fleet, in the absence of any major sea battle.[14]

A literary consequence of his war service was A Muse at Sea, a compilation of his poems initially published in the Ducal Weekly (the Iron Duke's newspaper), and also in the Morning Post, the

Cornhill Magazine and the Nation.[15] He also rendered other types of service to his friends Lytton Strachey and Clive Bell during the War. In 1908 he had bought a thatched cottage for weekend use, The Lacket,[16] at Lockeridge near Marlborough.[17] During 1914–15 he rented the cottage to Strachey who drafted the first two chapters of his Eminent Victorians there.[18]

While on active service on HMS Iron Duke at Scapa Flow, in February 1915 he was elected unopposed as a Liberal MP at a by-election for the seat of Norwich.

In April 1915 he received a letter from Vanessa Bell, in response to his request for a letter making no mention of the war, telling him of the doings of the Bloomsbury Set, including

Ottoline Morrell.[19] In May 1915, while still serving on HMS Iron Duke, the first edition of his System of National Finance appeared.[20] Through further editions in 1924 and 1936, it remained the standard work on Westminster's budgetary processes until well into the 1950s.[21]

In September 1915 he took part

Gallipoli (in the absence of a direct land link, as Bulgaria did not join the Central Powers until October). The following month he heard his first shot fired in anger when an Austrian sentry fired a rifle at his ship.[22]

Facing a tribunal hearing to determine his claim for conscientious-objector status following the introduction of conscription, Clive Bell appealed to Young in June 1916 for a testimonial which was duly provided.[23]

Later in the war Young served on Harwich light cruisers, naval siege guns at Flanders, the Zeebrugge Raid in which, commanding a rear gun on HMS Vindictive, he was severely wounded, necessitating the amputation of his right arm, and, finally, in the Russian campaign, commanding an armoured train on the line south of Archangel.[24]

His war service brought the awards of the Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Service Cross and Bar, French Croix de guerre, and the Serbian Silver Medal.[25] He recounted his war experiences in his 1920 memoir, By Sea and Land.[26]

Post-war career

Post-war he started his rise up the political ladder in February 1919 when he was appointed

H.A.L. Fisher, President of the Board of Education.[27] In April 1921 he was promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In this capacity he was the link between the government and the 'Geddes Axe', the committee of business experts established by Lloyd George in the aftermath of the First World War to undertake a fundamental review of government expenditure in the hope of identifying major savings.[28]

In March 1922 Young married sculptor

Wayland Young, who became a writer and Labour politician.[30]

Through Cambridge and Bloomsbury, Young had a long-standing friendship with

E.M. Forster. Suffering writer's block while working on A Passage to India, the novelist was Young's guest at The Lacket in early May 1922. Shortly afterwards he wrote to Young declaring, "an unfinished novel’s before me now, and sometimes I work at it with distaste and despair…You certainly have done more than any individual I know to help me by direct remarks. Your knowledge of the business of creating seemed to me profounder than that possessed by so-called artists."[31]
These comments suggest that Young gave Forster significant advice and encouragement at a crucial stage on work on the latter's eventual masterpiece.

Out of office with the advent of Bonar Law's Conservative administration (following the

October 1924 General Election
, he devoted the rest of the 1920s to furthering his business interests.

In the City of London, Young became editor of the

Maynard Keynes was a key witness)[37] and the 1927–8 East African Commission on Closer Union.[38]

Young joined the

Minister of Health between 1931 and 1935. The health portfolio also included responsibility for housing, including slum clearance and rehousing. Key items of legislation to which he contributed in this period were: the Town and Country Planning Act 1932 (which applied to all 'developable' land), the Housing Act 1935 (which laid down standards of accommodation)[39] and the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act 1935 (which sought to consolidate urban development and restrict ribbon sprawl along major highways).[40] He retired from politics in July 1935 and was created Baron Kennet
.

After politics

Away from politics, he could now resume his life in business. By 1940, Lord Kennet was either chairman or a director of eight listed companies, which apart from the Southern Railway and timber merchants, Denny, Mott and Dickson Ltd, were engaged in the financial services and property sectors.[41] In May 1940 he resumed his former role as chairman of the Iraq Currency Board when Leo Amery, who had replaced him as chairman in 1932, resigned on becoming a member of the wartime government.[42] His political and financial experience made him a natural choice to chair the Capital Issues Committee during 1937–59. Responsible for advising the Chancellor of the Exchequer "on applications to issue capital for any purpose anywhere", this committee was particularly important during World War II when it had to approve all issues of shares and securities with face values exceeding £10,000.[43]

Although he never regretted his support for the two World Wars fought - as he saw it - to resist German aggression, after the Second World War he became a pacifist, feeling that nuclear weapons meant that the cost of any future war outweighed any possible benefit.[44]

He died at the Lacket on 11 July 1960 and was succeeded to the Kennet peerage by his son Wayland.

Arms

Coat of arms of Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet
Crest
A demi-unicorn couped Ermine, armed, maned, and hoofed Or, gorged with a naval crown Azure supporting an anchor erect Sable.
Escutcheon
Per fesse Sable and Argent: in chief two lions rampant-guardant, and in base an anchor erect with a cable, all counterchanged.
Motto
In College Domus (A House on a Hill)[45]

References

  1. ^ Williams, B. (1937) entry on Young, Sir George, Dictionary of National Biography, 1922–30, London: Oxford University Press, pp.926–8.
  2. ^ Hall, S.M. (2006), Before Leonard: The Early Suitors of Virginia Woolf, London: Peter Owen, p.244,
  3. ^ Williams (1937), p.928.
  4. ^ Young, E.H. (c.1959), In and Out, unpublished autobiography, Cambridge University Library, Manuscripts Department, Kennet Papers (KP 82/1), p. 22.
  5. ^ Harris, K. (1982), Attlee, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, p.8.
  6. ^ "Young, Edward Hilton (YN897EH)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  7. ^ a b Young, W. (1971), entry on Young, Edward Hilton, Dictionary of National Biography, 1951–1960, London: Oxford University Press, p.1088.
  8. ^ Young, E.H. (1912), Foreign Companies and Other Corporations, London: Cambridge University Press.
  9. ^ Bell, Q. (1976), Virginia Woolf: a Biography (Vol. 1), London: Triad/Granada, p.144.
  10. ^ Trevelyan, G.M. (1949), An Autobiography and Other Essays, London: Longmans, Green, p.31.
  11. ^ Trevelyan, G.M. (1909), Garibaldi and the Thousand, London: Longmans, Green, List of plates, pp.xiii–xv.
  12. ^ "No. 28894". The London Gazette (Supplement). 8 September 1914. p. 7092.
  13. ^ Young, E.H. (1920), By Sea and Land, London: Jack.
  14. ISBN 0-7456-0093-X
    pp.75-6
  15. ^ Young, E.H. (1919), A Muse at Sea, London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
  16. ^ Holroyd, M. (1995), Lytton Strachey, London: Vintage, ch.XI.
  17. ^ Historic England. "The Lacket (1033806)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  18. ^ Bell to Young, 6 June 1916, Cambridge University Library, Manuscripts Department, Kennet Papers (KP 5/2).
  19. ISBN 0-7456-0093-X
    p.165,
  20. ^ Young, E.H. (1915), The System of National Finance, London: Smith, Elder (1st ed.) 2nd and 3rd editions, John Murray, 1924, 1936.
  21. ^ Burrows, G. and B. Syme, (2000), Zero-base budgeting: origins and pioneers, Abacus, 36(2): 226–41.
  22. ISBN 0-7456-0093-X
    pp.75-6
  23. ^ Bell to Young, 6 June 1916, Cambridge University Library, Manuscripts Department, Kennet Papers (KP 5/2).
  24. ^ Young, E.H. (1920), By Sea and Land, London: Jack.
  25. ^ Young, W. (1971), p.1088.
  26. ^ Young, E.H. (1920), By Sea and Land, London: Jack.
  27. ^ The Times, 20 July 1960, p.15, col. a.
  28. ^ Burrows, G. and Cobbin. P. (2009), Controlling government expenditure by external review: the 1921–2 "Geddes Axe", Accounting History, 14: 199–220.
  29. ^ Young, L. (1995), A Great Task of Happiness: The Life of Kathleen Scott, London: Macmillan, p.207.
  30. ^ ibid., p.214.
  31. ^ Forster to Young, 10 May 1922, Cambridge University Library, Manuscripts Department, Kennet Papers (KP 28/10).
  32. ^ The Times, 16 July 1923; Issue 43394; pg. 9; col E
  33. ^ Young, E.H. (1924) Report on Financial Conditions in Poland, London: Waterlow.
  34. ^ Young, E.H., and R.V. Vernon (1925) Report of the Financial Mission Appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Enquire into the Financial Position and Prospects of the Government of Iraq, 1925 (Young-Vernon Report), London: HMSO, (Cmd 2438).
  35. ^ Special Report by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nation on the Progress of Iraq During the Period 1920–1931 (Report to League of Nations), Colonial No. 58, London: HMSO, 1931.
  36. ^ Iraq Currency Board, Report of the Iraq Currency Board for the Period Ended 31 March 1933, London: Waterlow.
  37. ^ Report of the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance, Vols I-VI (1926), London: HMSO.
  38. ^ Report of the Commission on Closer Union of the Dependencies in Eastern and Central Africa, Parliamentary Reports 1928-9, Vol, V, p. 6 (Cmmd 3324).
  39. ^ Young, W. (1971), p.1089.
  40. ^ Sheail, J. (1979), The Restriction of Ribbon Development Act: The character and perception of land-use control in inter-war Britain, Regional Studies, 13: 6, 501–12.
  41. ^ Directory of Directors (1940), London: Thomas Skinner.
  42. ^ Iraq Currency Board (1941), Report of the Iraq Currency Board for the Period Ending 31 March 1941, London: Waterlow
  43. ^ Burrows, G. and Syme, B. (2000), p.233.
  44. ISBN 0-7456-0093-X
    p.852
  45. ^ Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage. 2000.

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Norwich
1915–1923
With: George Roberts 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Norwich
1924–1929
With: J. Griffyth Fairfax 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Sevenoaks
1929–1935 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Financial Secretary to the Treasury
1921–1922 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Minister of Health

1931–1935 		Succeeded by
Media offices
Preceded by Editor of the
Financial News
1925–1929 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baron Kennet
1935–1960 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hilton_Young,_1st_Baron_Kennet&oldid=1216864735"