Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford
President of the Board of Agriculture | |
---|---|
In office 23 October 1911 – 6 August 1914 | |
Monarch | George V |
Prime Minister | H. H. Asquith |
Preceded by | The Earl Carrington |
Succeeded by | The Lord Lucas |
President of the Board of Trade | |
In office 5 August 1914 – 5 December 1916 | |
Monarch | George V |
Prime Minister | H. H. Asquith |
Preceded by | John Burns |
Succeeded by | Sir Albert Stanley |
In office 5 November 1931 – 28 May 1937 | |
Monarchs | George V Edward VIII George VI |
Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald Stanley Baldwin |
Preceded by | Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister |
Succeeded by | Hon. Oliver Stanley |
Lord President of the Council | |
In office 31 October 1938 – 3 September 1939 | |
Monarch | George VI |
Prime Minister | Neville Chamberlain |
Preceded by | The Viscount Hailsham |
Succeeded by | The Earl Stanhope |
Personal details | |
Born | 19 November 1870 |
Died | 14 November 1949 | (aged 78)
Nationality | British |
Political party | Liberal National Liberal |
Spouse | |
Children | 5 |
Parent |
|
Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford,
Background
Runciman was the son of the shipping magnate
Political career
1899–1913
Runciman unsuccessfully contested Gravesend in a by-election in 1898, but was elected as a member of parliament (MP) in a two-member by-election for Oldham in 1899,[2] defeating the Conservative candidates, James Mawdsley and Winston Churchill. After winning, Runciman is reported to have commented to Churchill: "Don't worry, I don't think this is the last the country has heard of either of us."[citation needed] The following year in the 1900 general election Churchill stood against Runciman again and defeated him.[2]
Runciman soon returned to Parliament for
]He then served as
Runciman, along with McKenna and
He then served another three years as
Other policies
Runciman was a personal friend of Margot Asquith, and a highly valued colleague in Cabinet. He supported the Haldane Mission of 1912, in a purged cabinet dominated by like-minded Liberal Leaguers.[11] He and his allies believed that there would be peace in the long run, as the Imperial German Navy was 'a luxury' too expensive for the Reich to maintain.[12][13] Runciman was also in the McKenna dining group that opposed escalation of the Anglo-German naval arms race, and in January 1914 opposed First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill's high naval estimates. The left-wing cabinet members desired specificity to Admiralty reductions, but the admirals themselves opposed them.
Runciman joined
Runciman encouraged political dialogue, socialism, and
Runciman was also sympathetic to addressing issues concerning rural areas,[15] such as improved wages for agricultural labourers[16] and the provision of housing.[17]
Opposing total war
In 1914, on the British entry into World War I, the President of the Board of Trade, John Burns, resigned and on Sunday 2 August Runciman was appointed to succeed him.[a]
The Board of Trade reported in October 1914 a build-up of German shipping at Hamburg; a record 187 ships entered British ports on 15 October, meaning the war seemed to be good for business. He approved food for Belgian refugees. On 12 January 1915, he agreed to send a memo to the US government to ban all copper imports to Ireland.[18]
Runciman was wholly sympathetic to Lloyd George's proposal to actively intervene in union wage disputes since "men were not malingering, but worn out...". The statement preceded the mass employment of women in factories. Runciman proposed a bill "commandeering" the armaments factories for the national war effort. Sitting between McKenna and Hobhouse, he announced an industrial agreement to pay a guaranteed 15% dividend, plus depreciation. They discussed bringing German-owned dye industries into British ownership and a prohibition of coal exports.[19]
Runciman encouraged
Board of Trade
In May 1915, after seeking Sir Edward Grey's counsel at the Foreign Office, Runciman agreed to serve in Asquith's new coalition government. Asquith had formed this without consulting most of the outgoing Liberal cabinet; a week later he was promoted to President of the Board of Trade.[21] By October, the cabinet was in open conflict, with the Conservatives (and Chancellor Lloyd George) demanding the introduction of conscription. He threatened to resign over the issue but in the end did not do so when it was carried into law in the Military Service Act 1916.[citation needed]
Like McKenna, Runciman was against total warfare of which Compulsory Service formed a major part. He resented the Conservative Army interests pre-eminent in government from spring 1916. General Haig had been convinced they intended to split the cabinet against Asquith.[22] Runciman and his allies continued to argue that conscription would damage the war effort by "depleting industry"; Margot Asquith had already tried to split up the axis within the Cabinet by inviting Runciman and then McKenna to tea separately. However, Runciman continued to enjoy good relations with the Chancellor because they shared the aims of improving trade receipts, reducing debt, and increasing output.[23]
Runciman resigned along with the rest of Asquith's government in December 1916. He did not serve in the new coalition headed by David Lloyd George. In the splits that were to rage in the Liberal Party for the next seven years, Runciman remained prominent in opposition to Lloyd George, especially when the latter became Leader of the Liberal Party in 1926.
He lost his seat in the 1918 general election,[4] and failed to get elected in the 1920 Edinburgh North by-election but was returned for Swansea West in the 1924 general election.[24]
1929–1940
In the
In 1931, the cause of the strife was seemingly removed when the Labour government was succeeded by an all-party
After the
In a 1934 speech Runciman defended the record of the National Government, citing measures such as a town and country planning country act, “the opening of the greatest crusades against slums ever attempted in any country,” and an upcoming unemployment insurance bill.[28]
Runciman remained as President of the Board of Trade until May 1937 when Stanley Baldwin retired and his successor, Neville Chamberlain, only offered Runciman the sinecure position of Lord Privy Seal, an offer Runciman declined.[29] In June 1937 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Runciman of Doxford, of Doxford in the County of Northumberland.[30] Four years earlier his father had been created Baron Runciman and "of Doxford" was consequently used to differentiate from his father's title. This was a rare case of a father and son sitting in the House of Lords at the same time, with the son holding a superior title. A few months later his father died, and he inherited both the barony and his father's shipping business.[citation needed]
Mission to Czechoslovakia
Runciman returned to public life in early August 1938, when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sent him on a mission to Czechoslovakia to mediate in a dispute between the Government of Czechoslovakia and the Sudeten German Party (SdP), which represented most of the ethnic Germans of the border regions, which were known as the Sudetenland. Unknown to Runciman, the SdP, which ostensibly called for autonomy for the Sudetenland, followed instructions from Nazi Germany not to reach any agreement on the matter, and thus the attempts at mediation failed. With international tension rising in Central and Eastern Europe, Runciman was recalled to London on 16 September 1938.[31]
The published outcome of the mission, known as the
Chamberlain agreed to the transfer of the border regions of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany at the
Further controversy arose from Runciman's use of his weekend leisure time in Czechoslovakia. That was spent mostly but not entirely on the country estates of members of the SdP-supporting Sudeten German aristocracy in a social and political environment hostile to the Czechoslovak government.[35]
In October 1938, after the Munich Agreement, Chamberlain reshuffled his Cabinet and appointed Runciman as
Family
Lord Runciman of Doxford married Hilda, daughter of James Cochran Stevenson, in 1898. They had two sons and three daughters. Their daughter Margaret Fairweather[36] (married Douglas Fairweather who established the Air Movements Flight in 1942, later joined by Margaret) was the first woman to fly a Spitfire and was one of the original eight female pilots selected by Pauline Gower to join the Air Transport Auxiliary. Margaret was killed in 1944 whilst landing a Proctor. Their second son, the Honourable Sir Steven Runciman, was a historian. Lord Runciman of Doxford died in November 1949, aged 78, and was succeeded in the viscountcy by his eldest son, Leslie. Lady Runciman died in 1956, aged 87.
Notes
References
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011. Retrieved 28 September 2017 (subscription required)
- ^ a b Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "O"
- ^ "No. 27402". The London Gazette. 31 January 1902. p. 646.
- ^ a b House of Commons: Devizes to Dorset West[usurped]
- ^ Cott, Nick (Winter 1999–2000). "Tory cuckoos in the Liberal nest? The case of the Liberal Nationals: a re-evaluation" (PDF). Journal of Liberal Democrat History (25). Liberal Democrat History Group: 24–30, 51.
However, since he and other Liberal Council members were able to go into the 1929 election supporting the Lloyd George programme (at least in public), it is unclear how seriously the criticisms should be taken. Sheer spite, rather than real policy disagreements, may have had more to do with it, particularly since before the war Runciman had been broadly progressive and in favour of state intervention in the economy.
- ^ Tanner, Duncan (2002). "2: Ideas and Politics, 1906-1914". Political Change and the Labour Party 1900-1918 (paperback ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 45.
More moderate, Centrist, reformers included W. S. Churchill (Under Sec., Colonies), Walter Runciman (Parl. Sec., Education), and A. Ure, (Solicitor-General, Scotland).
- ^ "No. 28129". The London Gazette. 17 April 1908. p. 2935.
- ISBN 0719533872.
- ISBN 978-1-84595-091-0.
- ^ David Owen, The Hidden Perspectives: The Military Conversations of 1906-1914, p. 153.
- ISBN 0719533872.
- ^ David Owen, The Hidden Perspectives: The Military Conversations of 1906-1914, p. 185.
- The World Crisis 1911-1918(London, 1938), pp. i, 113.
- ISBN 0719533872.
- ^ A Liberal Chronicle in Peace and War Journals and Papers of J. A. Pease, 1st Lord Gainford, 1911-1915, 2023, P.258
- ^ Agricultural Labourers (Wages). HC Deb 28 July 1914 vol 65 cc1107-8
- ^ Housing Bill. HC Deb 30 July 1914 vol 65 c1592W
- ISBN 0719533872.
- ISBN 0719533872.
- ISBN 0719533872.
- ^ 19 May 1915, Runciman to Reginald McKenna, McKenna Papers; Wilson (ed.), Scott's Diaries, p.122
- ^ 12 February 1916, Haig, Diary, pp. 179–80.
- ^ Roy Jenkins, The Chancellors, pp. 202–3.
- ^ House of Commons: Sudbury to Swindon South[usurped]
- ^ House of Commons: Saffron Walden to Salford West[usurped]
- ^ Hill, Rosemary (20 October 2016). "Herberts & Herbertinas". London Review of Books. Retrieved 22 October 2016.
- ^ Roy Jenkins, The Chancellors, p. 346.
- ^ The Telegraph (Queensland) April 30, 1934, P.1
- ISBN 0-333-73136-0.
- ^ "No. 34407". The London Gazette. 11 June 1937. p. 3750.
- ISBN 0-333-73136-0.
- ^ Statistický lexikon obcí v Republice československé I. Země česká, Prague, 1934, and Statistický lexikon obcí v Republice československé II. Země moravskoslezská, Prague, 1935.
- ^ Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939, Third Series, vol. 2, London, 1949, appendix II, pp. 675-679.
- ^ Bruegel, J.W., Czechoslovakia Before Munich: The German Minority Problem and British Appeasement Policy, Cambridge, 1973, pp. 272–278.
- ^ Glassheim, Eagle, Noble Nationalists: The Transformation of the Bohemian Aristocracy, Cambridge, MA, 2005, pp. 178–186
- required.)
External links
- Works by or about Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford at Internet Archive
- Portrait of Lord Runciman of Doxford at UK Government Art Collection.
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Runciman of Doxford
- Newspaper clippings about Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW