Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood
Frederick Guest | |
---|---|
Succeeded by | The Lord Thomson |
Member of Parliament for Chelsea | |
In office 15 January 1910 – 14 July 1944 | |
Preceded by | Emslie Horniman |
Succeeded by | William Sidney |
Personal details | |
Born | Samuel John Gurney Hoare 24 February 1880 Lady Maud Lygon |
Parent | Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Baronet (father) |
Alma mater | New College, Oxford |
Military service | |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Branch/service | British Army |
Years of service | 1916–1918 |
Rank | Lieutenant colonel |
Unit | Norfolk Yeomanry Royal Army Service Corps |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Samuel John Gurney Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood,
Hoare was
Hoare also served as British ambassador to Spain from 1940 to 1944.[1]
Youth
Hoare was born in
Hoare was educated at
Michael Bloch comments that Hoare was "indubitably homosexual", but being highly ambitious and discreet (his nickname amongst colleagues was 'Slippery Sam'), may not have acted much upon it.
Hoare was short, slightly built and a dapper dresser. As a youth he took up games to bolster his physique, including figure skating. He became a tournament-level shot and tennis player. He was a poor speaker[4] but a good writer.[11] He was hard-working but cold.[11]
Early political career
In 1905, Hoare's father arranged for him to be secretary to the Colonial Secretary Alfred Lyttelton to gain political experience.[12] Hoare stood unsuccessfully in the 1906 General Election for Parliament at Ipswich,[3] but became a justice of the peace for the county of Norfolk that year.[13]
Hoare entered local politics in March 1907, when he was elected to the London County Council as a member of the Municipal Reform Party, the local government wing of the Conservative Party, representing Brixton. He served as Chairman of the London Fire Brigade Committee.[1][14] He served on the LCC until 1910.[12]
Hoare was elected to the House of Commons at the January 1910 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelsea.[12] In the early years, he was a member of the Anti-Socialist Union.[15]
During the Conservative Party leadership contest of November 1911, Hoare wrote pledging support to both leading candidates,
First World War
Aged 34 at the time, Hoare joined the Army soon after the outbreak of the First World War. He was commissioned into the Norfolk Yeomanry as a temporary lieutenant on 17 October 1914.[17] To his disappointment, he was initially only a recruiting officer[12] and illness prevented him from serving at the front. He was promoted to temporary captain on 24 April 1915.[18]
While acting as a recruiting officer, he learnt Russian. In 1916, he was recruited by
In March 1917 he was posted to Rome, where he remained until the end of the war. His duties included helping to dissuade Italy from dropping out of the war.[12] In Italy, he met and recruited the former socialist leader Benito Mussolini on behalf of the British overseas intelligence service, which was then known as MI1(c). Britain's intelligence service helped Mussolini to finance his first forays into Italian politics as a pro-war spokesman, giving the 34-year-old newspaper editor £100 a week to keep his propaganda flowing.[21]
For his services in the war, Hoare was twice
Interwar period
Secretary of State for Air
Hoare was re-elected to Parliament in
In 1923, Hoare presided over the merger (with £1 million state subsidy) of the four principal private air carriers to form
Lady Maud was awarded the DBE in February 1927, and Hoare was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire (GBE) in June 1927.[12][8] Hoare and Lady Maud travelled by air whenever possible, including the first civilian flight to India in 1927.[12] In 1927 he published a book, India by Air.[11] By 1929 there were regular scheduled routes to India and Cape Town.[12]
Hoare continued his interest in aviation affairs as Honorary Air Commodore of
In opposition
Hoare was treasurer of the Conservative Party in opposition in 1929–1931.[12]
In 1930, he published The Fourth Seal on World War I Russia.[11]
Hoare was a delegate to the First Round Table Conference on India's constitutional future in 1930–1931. He also helped to mediate between Baldwin and the press barons Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook, who were intriguing for his removal as Conservative leader.[12]
Secretary of State for India
Hoare was one of the Conservative negotiators in talks with
At the Second Round Table Conference, Hoare enjoyed good relations with
Ill feeling between Hoare and Churchill, who opposed Indian self-government, reached its peak in April 1934. The British government proposed for the Indian government to retain the power to impose tariffs on British textiles. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce, representing the Lancashire cotton trade, initially opposed that since it wanted Lancashire goods to be exported freely to India. Churchill accused Hoare of having, with the aid of the Earl of Derby, breached parliamentary privilege by improperly influencing the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to drop its opposition.[24]
Hoare was completely exonerated by the Committee on Privileges. Churchill gave a powerful speech in the Commons Chamber that attacked the committee's findings. On 13 June 1934, Leo Amery spoke, arguing that Churchill's true aim was to bring down the government under the cover of the doctrine fiat justicia ruat caelum ("may justice be done, though the heavens fall"). Churchill, who was neither a lawyer nor a classicist, growled "translate it!" Amery replied that it meant "If I can trip up Sam, the Government's bust". The ensuing laughter made Churchill look ridiculous.[24]
The Select Committee of Both Houses finished its deliberations in November 1934. The result was one of the most complicated pieces of legislation in British parliamentary history, a bill that spent the first half of 1935 passing through Parliament before becoming the Government of India Act 1935.[12] The Bill contained 473 clauses and 16 schedules, and the debates took up 4,000 pages of Hansard. Hoare had to answer 15,000 questions and make 600 speeches and completely dominated the committee stage of the bill, just as he had during the Round Table Conferences, by his mastery of detail and his skill at dealing tactfully with deputations.[25] Alec Douglas-Home, later to be Prime Minister, commented in his autobiography, "The most noteworthy performance of that Parliament was without question the piloting of the India Independence Bill through the House of Commons by the Secretary of State, Sir Samuel Hoare, ably assisted by Mr. R. A. Butler (later Lord Butler)".[26] Butler, who, as Under-Secretary, had helped to steer the bill through the Commons, wrote of Hoare that he saw life as "a chapter in a great Napoleonic biography" and added "I was amazed by his ambition; I admired his imagination; I shared his ideals; I stood in awe of his intellectual capacity. But I was never touched by his humanity. He was the coldest fish with whom I ever had to deal".[23]
Hoare was widely praised for his conduct as India Secretary but was close to exhaustion after the difficult passage of the Bill, which was opposed by Churchill and by many rank-and-file Conservatives. The Act became law in August 1935, when Hoare had moved on to his next position.[24]
Although provincial governments were elected in
Foreign Secretary
In June 1935, Baldwin became prime minister for the third time. He offered Hoare a choice of the job of
Hoare took office against a backdrop of what
Italy, which also controlled Libya, straddled Britain's sea route across the Mediterranean to Egypt, the Suez Canal and India. The bombast of the Italian dictator
By mid-1935, Mussolini was clearly preparing to attack
With the election out of the way, the government, with the agreement of the League Council, authorised Hoare to find a solution. Hoare sent Sir Maurice Peterson, the head of the Foreign Office Abyssinia Department, to Paris to negotiate a compromise offer to Mussolini. An agreement was reached by the end of November: Italy was to gain territory in the north, with the rump of Abyssinia to be an Italian client state and its army under Italian control. Abyssinia had not been consulted.[24] By December 1935, Hoare was still in poor health and suffering from fainting spells since the stressful period of passing the Government of India Act. Suffering from a serious infection, he stopped off in Paris on his way to a skating holiday in Switzerland. The ensuing Hoare–Laval Pact with French Prime Minister Pierre Laval was unanimously approved by the Cabinet on 9–10 December.[28]
It was leaked to the French and then to the British press, causing a public outcry, not least because of memories of Hoare's recent Geneva speech. Hoare, who had been injured in a skating accident, returned to Britain on 16 December.[28]
The Cabinet met on the morning of 18 December.
Hoare resigned on 18 December.[28] His successor was Anthony Eden. When Eden had his first audience with King George V, the King is said to have remarked humorously, "No more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris."
In his memoirs, Hoare admitted that his negotiations in Paris with Laval had caught him at a disadvantage. He noted that in the absence of the Hoare–Laval Pact, the Italians seized all of Abyssinia and drew closer to Germany, which eventually led to the destabilisation of Austria and the indefensibility of Czechoslovakia.
First Lord of the Admiralty
It was widely recognised that Hoare had been a scapegoat for Cabinet policy. His return to Baldwin's Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty in June 1936 was widely praised in the press.[28] It was too quick for Halifax. Eden later wrote in his memoirs that Halifax "criticised Baldwin sharply for yielding to Hoare’s importunity".[27] Hoare vigorously endorsed Britain's naval rearmament, including ordering the first three King George V-class battleships, and worked to reverse the subordination of the British naval aviation to the Royal Air Force.
Home Secretary
On Baldwin's retirement, the new Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, offered Hoare any office that he liked except the Exchequer, which Hoare would have liked but had been promised to Simon. Hoare chose the Home Office (28 May 1937).[28] Hoare was still seen as a possible successor to Chamberlain.[29]
Hoare had a long family interest in judicial and penal reform.
In 1938, Hoare was instrumental in obtaining approval for the British rescue effort on behalf of endangered Jewish children in Europe, which was known as the Kindertransport.[citation needed]
In September 1938, Hoare was part of the informal inner Cabinet, along with Simon and Halifax, and was one of the few consulted by Chamberlain about "Plan Z" to fly to meet Hitler for a summit meeting, a decision that was then popular.[28]
Hoare's later account of the
In spring 1939, Hoare aligned himself very firmly with Chamberlain's upbeat belief that war was now unlikely, rather than with Halifax's increasing focus on shoring up alliances and rearming for a conflict that to seemed imminent to Halifax.
Samuel Hoare speaking of a possible future disarmament conference betweenThese five men, working together in Europe and blessed in their efforts by the President of the United States of America, might make themselves eternal benefactors of the human race.
In 1939, Hoare almost carried the most comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform Bill in British history: he had intended to abolish
Hoare pumped energy into the Air Raid Precautions Department and the Women's Voluntary Service Organisation.[28]
Second World War
On the outbreak of war, Hoare became
Alexander Cadogan saw Hoare as a potential quisling in 1940, but Leo Amery and Lord Beaverbrook thought highly of him. Another Foreign Office mandarin, Robert Vansittart, thought him prim and precise but not a resilient figure in political struggle.[11] Hoare was named as one of the fifteen "Guilty Men" in the influential July 1940 book of the same name.[35]
Following Winston Churchill's appointment as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940, Hoare was dropped from the government altogether unlike Chamberlain, Halifax and even Simon.[28] He still hoped in vain to be Viceroy of India.[36]
After a brief period of unemployment
Hoare loathed Franco and found him a puzzling and obtuse interlocutor. (Hoare found Franco's Portuguese counterpart, António de Oliveira Salazar, much more pleasant to deal with.) His fluent memoir of the period, Ambassador on Special Mission, is an excellent insight into the day-to-day life of a demanding diplomatic job, his primary challenges being to dissuade Franco from his preferred drift to the Axis powers and to prevent the Allies from reacting with undue haste to repeated Spanish provocations. Hoare's memoir is not completely frank about his deployment of an array of bluff, leaks, bribery and subterfuge to disrupt unfriendly elements in Franco's regime and the operations of the German embassy, but those methods were remembered fondly by his team.[citation needed]
In June 1941, Spain, ostensibly remaining
Hoare also helped to prevent Spanish interference with Operation Torch in November 1942.[28]
On 14 July 1944, he was created
Later life
In the House of Lords, Viscount Templewood served on the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee from 1950 and chaired it from 1954.[39] He gave energetic support to penal reform, the Criminal Justice Act 1948 and the abolition of capital punishment. He took up many company directorships.[28]
He was President of the Lawn Tennis Association (1932–56), an elder brother of Trinity House (1936–1950),[28] Chancellor of the University of Reading (1937 until his death in 1959),[40][28] Chairman of the Council of the Howard League for Penal Reform (1947–59),[8][28] President of the Magistrates' Association (1947–52),[28] President of the Air League of the British Empire (1953-1956),[8][28] and President of the National Skating Association (1945–57).[28]
Templewood published a number of books after the war, including Ambassador on Special Mission (1946) about his time in Spain, The Unbroken Thread (1949), a family memoir, The Shadow of the Gallows (1951) on capital punishment, and Nine Troubled Years (1954), a memoir of the 1930s.[11]
In addition to those awarded for his services in the First World War, he held the following foreign honours:[8]
- Grand Cross of the Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia.
- Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star of Sweden.
- Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog of Denmark.
- Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau of the Netherlands.
He died aged 79 of a
Templewood's estate was valued for probate at £186,944 3s 6d (just over £4.5m at 2016 prices).[6][41] His residence, Templewood House, in Frogshall, Northrepps, Norfolk, was inherited by his nephew, the architect Paul Edward Paget.
Hoare's widow Viscountess Templewood died in 1962.[9]
Arms
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In media
Hoare, in his later role as Ambassador to Spain, appears in
The Apple TV streaming miniseries The New Look also depicts Hoare's time in Spain, featuring him meeting Coco Chanel during the latter's attempt to serve as an intermediary between Germany and the United Kingdom.[44]
References
- ^ Who Was Who. Oxford University Press. December 2007. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
- ISBN 0-19-861377-6.Article by R. J. Q. Adams.
- ^ a b Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 27. p. 365.
- ^ a b c Matthew 2004, p364
- ^ Matthew 2004 p.364 An Oxford or Cambridge MA is essentially an "automatic upgrade" for which a student may apply a few years after graduation
- ^ a b Matthew 2004 p.368
- ^ Michael Bloch,Closet Queens, Little Brown 2015, p153
- ^ a b c d e f g Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 1959. Burke's Peerage Ltd. p. 2207.
- ^ a b Matthew 2004 p.364
- ^ J.A. Cross, Sir Samuel Hoare: A Political Biography, Cape 1977, p10.
- ^ a b c d e f Matthew 2004, p368
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Matthew 2004, p365
- ^ Kelly's Handbook of the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, 1920. Kelly's. p. 829.
- ^ The London County Council Election, Great Municipal Reform Victory, The Times, 4 March 1907, p. 6.
- ^ Markku Ruotsila, British and American Anticommunism Before the Cold War, Routledge, 2001, p. 8.
- ^ Blake 1985, p.194
- ^ "No. 28940". The London Gazette. 16 October 1914. p. 8259.
- ^ "No. 29151". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 April 1915. p. 4254.
- ^ "No. 29699". The London Gazette (Supplement). 8 August 1916. p. 7862.
- ISBN 978-0-7475-9183-2.
- ^ Kington, Tom (13 October 2009). "Recruited by MI5: the name's Mussolini. Benito Mussolini". The Guardian.
- ^ Kelly's Handbook of the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, 1959. Kelly's. p. 2063.
- ^ a b Butler 1971, p. 57.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Matthew 2004, p366
- ^ Butler 1971, pp. 55-6.
- ISBN 0 00 211997-8, pp. 56–58.
- ^ a b c d e Roberts 1991, pp78-9
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Matthew 2004, p367
- ^ Gunther, John (1940). Inside Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 341.
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 27. p. 367.
- ^ Jenkins 1999, p385
- ISBN 0-224-01350-5, pp. 56–58.
- TIME Magazine, 20 March 1939.
- ISBN 9781526783721. pp. 199-201
- ^ https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-70401
- ^ Jago, p.146
- ^ In his memoirs (Nine Troubled Years p.433), Hoare stated that his appointment came a fortnight after he was dropped from the government.
- ^ https://www.libertaddigital.com/opinion/historia/rusia-es-culpable-1276239379.html El embajador, Samuel Hoare, llamó a Serrano Súñer. Discutieron acaloradamente, y tuvo entonces lugar una anécdota muy conocida. Serrano le preguntó si le enviaba más guardias para asegurar la embajada, a lo que Hoare contestó: No, no me mande más guardias; mándeme menos estudiantes
- ^ a b Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 27. p. 368.
- ^ J. C. Holt, 'The University of Reading: The First Fifty Years', Reading: University of Reading Press, 1976, p. 331.
- ^ Compute the Relative Value of a U.K. Pound Archived 31 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Burke's Peerage. 1914.
- ^ Burke's Peerage. 1949.
- ^ Wittmer, Carrie (14 February 2024). "The New Look Series-Premiere Recap: Longing for Survival". Vulture. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-8047-2101-1.
- ISBN 0-0068-6003-6.
- Braddick, H. B. (1962) "The Hoare-Laval Plan: A Study in International Politics" Review of Politics 24#3 (1962), pp. 342–364. in JSTOR
- Burdick, Charles B. (1968). Germany's Military strategy and Spain in World War II. Syracuse Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-608-18105-9.
- Coutts, Matthew Dean. (2011). "The Political Career of Sir Samuel Hoare during the National Government 1931–40" (PhD dissertation University of Leicester, 2011). online bibliography on pp 271–92.
- Cross, J. A. (1977). Sir Samuel Hoare: A Political Biography. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-01350-5.
- Holt, Andrew. "'No more Hoares to Paris': British foreign policymaking and the Abyssinian Crisis, 1935." Review of International Studies 37.3 (2011): 1383–1401.
- Jago, Michael Rab Butler: The Best Prime Minister We Never Had?, Biteback Publishing 2015 ISBN 978-1849549202
- Jenkins, Roy (1999). The Chancellors. London: Papermac. ISBN 0333730585. (essay on Simon, pp365–92)
- Leitz, Cristian (1995). Economic Relations between Nazi Germany and Franco's Spain, 1936 – 1945. Oxford: Oxford Historical Monographs, Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-820645-3.
- ISBN 978-0198614111. (pp. 364–8), essay on Hoare written by R. J. Q. Adams.
- Roberts, Andrew, The Holy Fox The Life of Lord Halifax. London, 1991.
- Robertson, J. C. (1975) "The Hoare-Laval Plan", Journal of Contemporary History 10#3 (1975), pp. 433–464. in JSTOR
Primary sources
- Butler, Rab (1971). The Art of the Possible. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 978-0241020074.
- ISBN 9781121497245.
- Hoare, Sir Samuel (1925). A Flying Visit to the Middle East. Cambridge University Press.
- Hoare, Viscount Templewood, Sir Samuel (1977) [1946]. Sedmay (ed.). Ambassador on Special Mission. Madrid: Collins.
- Hoare, Viscount Templewood, Sir Samuel (1947). Complacent Dictator. A.A. Knopf. ASIN B0007F2ZVU.
- Lord Home (1976). The Way the Wind Blows: An Autobiography. Collins. ISBN 0 00 211997-8.