Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood

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For other people named Josiah Wedgwood, see Josiah Wedgwood (disambiguation).

J. C. C. Davidson
Succeeded byThe Viscount Cecil of Chelwood
Personal details
Born16 March 1872
Died26 July 1943 (1943-07-27) (aged 71)

DL (16 March 1872 – 26 July 1943), sometimes referred to as Josiah Wedgwood IV, was a British Liberal and Labour politician who served in government under Ramsay MacDonald. He was a prominent single-tax activist following the political-economic reformer Henry George. He was the great-great-grandson of the famous potter Josiah Wedgwood
.

Background

Josiah Wedgwood was born at

Royal Naval College, Greenwich
.

He

Charles Bowen, 1st Baron Bowen
, in 1894 but she left him in 1913 and divorced him in 1919. Since divorce at that time required a guilty party, he agreed to take the blame and was found guilty of adultery and desertion of his wife and children, which led to criticism from the press and pulpit. More criticism was levelled after the divorce was final and he revealed that the desertion was a formality and the adultery staged. They had seven children:

In 1919 he remarried; his second wife was Florence Ethel Willett (1878–1969).

Military and political career

Wedgwood photographed by John Benjamin Stone in 1911

His mother's family was involved both financially and in the management of Elswick Shipyards and Armstrongs Armament manufacturers in Newcastle upon Tyne. Josiah was sent to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich to study Naval Architecture before going to work at Elswick.

He worked for a year from 1895 as an Assistant Naval Constructor in Portsmouth before returning to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to head Armstrong's drawing office.

In 1891, he was commissioned in the

Single Tax
, advocating a tax on property to replace taxes on income and goods as a way of securing for workers the full reward for their work. He became president of the League for the Taxation of Land Values in 1908.

Having returned to

barley-water and chocolate
according to press reports, until his voice gave out. This campaign brought him to public attention outside of his own constituency and the Land Reform movement, and he became known as a leading backbencher.

World War I

Following the outbreak of the

Zion Mule Corps commanded by Joseph Trumpeldor that would affect his views about British policy on Palestine.[4] Back in Parliament he expressed concern at under-staffing and support for national service, though he also defended the rights of conscientious objectors. Later that year he was posted as an army captain to the staff of General Jan Smuts in East Africa. In 1916 he was part of the Mesopotamia Commission of Inquiry
.

Promoted to Major he commanded a machine gun company in the 2nd South African Infantry Brigade in 1916. In 1917 he became Assistant Director of Trench Warfare with the rank of colonel. At the start of 1918 he was sent to

Bolshevik
control in Siberia.

1918 General Election

In the

Coalition Liberal. However, during the election campaign he publicly distanced himself from the Coalition Government. His own local election campaign was minimal because he was not opposed. In his election address he stated "I come before you, the same impenitent independent radical that you first elected in 1906".[5] This had led some to incorrectly describe him in 1918 as an 'Independent Radical' even though in 1906 he was classified as a 'Liberal'. The usually reliable F. W. S. Craig, in his book British Parliamentary Election results, 1918-1949 described him as an 'Independent Liberal'. However his status as an official Liberal rather than an Independent Liberal was subsequently confirmed when he attended the first meeting of the Liberal parliamentary party on 3 February 1919.[6]

Joining Labour

In 1919, Wedgwood took the

Horthy regime that succeeded the revolutionary Communist dictatorship of Béla Kun. He supported refugee causes in Britain, particularly that of anarchists from the Soviet Union, such as Emma Goldman. Most of all he became known for his support of the Indian independence movement
.

Cabinet and the Lords

Josiah Wedgwood

There was tacit co-operation between Labour and the opposition Liberals in some seats at the

Privy Council
in 1924.

He chaired a Cabinet Committee to contemplate the use of the Emergency Powers Act against strikes in the transport industry. He took a strong line on a number of issues, opposing disarmament and the promise of a loan to the Soviet Union. He was also wary of the state undertaking public works purely for the sake of doing so, without any utilitarian benefit.

After the fall of the government, Wedgwood publicly criticised MacDonald's leadership and Labour's reliance on civil servants. He sat on Labour's front bench in opposition, speaking on, amongst other policy areas, local government, where he encouraged

History of Parliament Trust. Throughout the 1930s, he continued to speak in the Commons on issues of importance to him, particularly the Single Tax and native resistance to colonialism. In 1930 and 1931 he was made Mayor of Newcastle-under-Lyme after successfully campaigning for the town to remain independent of Stoke-on-Trent.[7]

From the mid-1930s he was critical of

parliamentary question[8]
asked by Wedgwood which resulted in his being given a visa to Britain.

In the

County of Stafford on 21 January 1942.[9] The following year he died in London
aged 71.

Zionism

Wedgwood was impressed by his contact with the

Zion Mule Corps in 1915, while serving in World War I, but said that he first became aware of Zionism "as a creed" in 1916 when Dorothy Richardson invited him to address a Zionist meeting.[10] In October 1926, Wedgwood, a devoted Zionist, visited Palestine and challenged the Mandatory government's policies in his 1928 book The Seventh Dominion, accusing the British administration of hindering the country's social and economic development.[11]

In 1942 he prefaced the booklet STOP THEM NOW, the first public report printed in English about the non-stop destruction of the Jews in German-occupied territories, in which he says : "The Huns and the Mongols,

Tamerlane with his mountains of skulls, all these demons of long ago were patterns of chivalry compared with the pureblooded devils into which Hitler has converted Germans."[12]

Legacy and commemoration

Arms

Coat of arms of Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood
Crest
Upon a ducal coronet a lion passant Argent.
Escutcheon
Gules four mullets in cross; a canton Argent.
Supporters
On either side a lion double-queued Argent supporting a staff raguly Gules.
Motto
Obstantia Discindo[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ "No. 26139". The London Gazette. 27 February 1891. p. 1122.
  2. ^ "No. 27170". The London Gazette. 2 March 1900. p. 1434.
  3. ^ "No. 29358". The London Gazette. 5 November 1915. p. 11029.
  4. ^ Greenfield, Murray S. & Hochstein, Joseph M., Jews' Secret Fleet, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem, 2010, p.56
  5. ^ The Last of the Radicals by C. V. Wedgwood
  6. ^ The Downfall of the Liberal Party by Trevor Wilson
  7. ^ "Mayors from 1900 to Present". Newcastle Borough Council. Archived from the original on 28 July 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2014.
  8. ^ REFUGEES. (Hansard, 6 July 1939)
  9. ^ "No. 35431". The London Gazette. 23 January 1942. p. 401.
  10. ^ Bloom, Cecil. “Josiah Wedgwood and Palestine.” Jewish Historical Studies, vol. 42, 2009, pp. 147–172. JSTOR, . Accessed 29 January 2020.
  11. ^ Josaih Wedgwood and the seventh dominion scheme, Joshua b. Stein
  12. ^ STOP THEM NOW - German mass-murder of Jews in Poland, p. 3.
  13. ^ Wedgwood Memorial College Archived 6 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine Barlaston Online
  14. ^ Robert Fulford's column about place names
  15. ^ Burke's genealogical and heraldic history of the peerage, baronetage, and knightage, Privy Council, and order of preference. 1949.

Further reading

  • Paul Mulvey (2010) The Political Life of Josiah C. Wedgwood: Land, Liberty and Empire, 1872-1943
  • J. C. Wedgwood (1940) Memoirs of a Fighting Life (autobiography)
  • C.V. Wedgwood
    (1951) Last of the Radicals
  • Joshua B. Stein (1992) Our Great Solicitor: Josiah C. Wedgwood and the Jews
  • Gabriella Auspitz (2004) My Righteous Gentile: Lord Wedgwood and Other Memories Labson

VIAG

VIAF 22945636

External links
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme
1906–1942 		Succeeded by
John David Mack
Political offices
Preceded by
J. C. C. Davidson
 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
1924 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baron Wedgwood
1942–1943 		Succeeded by
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