Brendan Bracken, minister of (dis)information

Tags

newspapers, politics

As a follow-up on the previous post on Bracken House, this week a post on the man these newspaper offices were named after. Brendan Bracken liked to make a mystery out of himself. When still young, he described himself as an Australian orphan, and although he had lived in Australia for a while, he was not born there, nor was he an orphan. He was also alleged to be the illegitimate son of Winston Churchill. The rumour probably did not originate from his vivid imagination, but he made no effort to deny it either. His private papers were on his orders destroyed within twenty four hours of his death, which certainly did not make life easy for his biographer, Andrew Boyle, who described the writing of ’Poor, Dear Brendan’. The Quest for Brendan Bracken as a work of detection.

Bracken was born 15 February, 1901 at Templemore, Ireland. Already when very young, he told colourful tales and preferred to play truant rather than go to school. After his father’s death, his mother moved the family to Dublin, but Brendan kept up his truancy antics and in 1915, his mother placed him with the Jesuits at Mungret in the hope that they could teach him some discipline. Unsurprisingly, the school did not agree with him and he ran away. He seemed to have toured through Ireland, leaving a paper trail of unpaid hotel bills. His mother was not unduly worried until the bills stopped coming. She found him in Limerick, claiming to be a trainee journalist. She was having none of that and whisked him off to Dublin where it was decided to send him to Australia. As can be expected by now, Brendan did not exactly behave as the dutiful son should and instead of staying to finish his education in Sydney, he managed to arrange a far freer existence at the sheep farm of a distant relative of his mother’s. He used the library at the convent at Echuca to educate himself in his spare time in the subjects he thought worthwhile. He supplemented his pocket money with some private teaching, pretending to be a fully qualified teacher.

But Australia was not his dream country and in 1920 he was back in Ireland, but not for long. His mother had remarried and had no intention of listening to his tall tales while footing all the bills. Brendan went to England. He somehow managed to get himself into Sedbergh School in Cumbria, pretending to be a 15-year old Australian orphan. Although the headmaster probably never fully believed him, he was admitted, but only stayed for a couple of months. When he left Sedbergh, he had every intention of trying to make a living teaching, but after just two years switched to politics and journalism. He managed to get himself introduced to Oliver Locker-Lampson who engaged Brendan to promote a new magazine, the Empire Review. In 1923, he met his hero Winston Churchill and involved himself in the latter’s – unsuccessful – attempt to become the MP for Leicester West. One thing led to another and Brendan managed to succeed in both his publishing efforts (among others The Financial Times) as well as in his political life.

Brendan Bracken (Source: borrisoleigh.ie)

His easy chameleon-like behaviour, appearing exactly what he thought others would like him to be, combined with his charm and – not always truthful – account of himself, brought him into contact with many people who could and would further his career. He became friends with Lord Beaverbrook, of Daily Express fame⁽¹⁾, and at the beginning of WWII, Winston Churchill asked him to become his Parliamentary Private Secretary. In July 1941, Bracken was appointed Minister of Information, and although at first reluctant to accept a post where three of his predecessors had failed miserably, he overhauled the Ministry drastically the first week in office, clearing it of all ”bureaucratic deadwood” and reasserting the rights of ‘his’ ministry in handling official propaganda. He had a knack of appointing the right people and could therefore leave the actual day-to-day running of the ministry to others. According to Lord Chandos, “he threaded his way with great skill through the labyrinth of public relations and avoided the pitfalls and sands. […] He ran the policy with a firm hand and left the details to others”⁽²⁾

After the war, Labour won the elections and Bracken was suddenly without a political job, but he quickly filled the gap by engineering a merger of The Financial News and The Financial Times. He became the chairman of the ‘new’ Financial Times which was at that time based in several separate buildings in the City; only after his death would they move to Bracken House. Lord Poole, his successor as chairman at the FT, said in a statement circulated with the accounts for the period June 1957-December 1958, “Bracken was a man of brilliant and varied parts […] under his inspiration the paper was broadened from a journal of primarily financial and economic interest to the lively, vigorous newspaper we have today”.⁽³⁾ Bracken died on 8 August 1958, aged 57 and, according to his wishes, there was no funeral service, no memorial service and all his papers were burnt in the fireplace of 8 Lord North Street, his London home.

8 Lord North Street

Look up to the top floor of the house and note the bricked-up window. I read somewhere that Bracken swapped that part of the house with the neighbour for a bit of the garden, but whether that is true …? In November 2007, an application was submitted for approval to renew the marquette paving, because cracks had appeared in the front entrance steps of number 8. On the photos supplied with the application, the cracks can clearly be seen.

cracked step

restored step 2013

Another application of more interest perhaps, was submitted two years earlier by English Heritage to Westminster City Council for a blue plaque. The application was received in September 2005 and the favourable decision notice was issued on 12 October. The submitted plan included a drawing of the plaque design.⁽⁴⁾ As you can see, it was to be a standard English Heritage blue plaque. I have contacted them to ask whether the plaque is indeed on the shortlist that they mention on their website and if so, whether any concrete steps have been taken about the plaque. Will keep you posted on this.

design blue plaque

UPDATE 21 Oct. 2013: the good people at English Heritage have already sent a reply to my query about the blue plaque and this is the situation: although they have permission from the council to put up the plaque, the owner of the property refuses permission, so all EH can do is check on a yearly basis whether the situation has changed. Some people … honestly … no sense of history. Let’s hope they change their mind or that ownership of the house changes and we will see a blue plaque at 8 Lord North Street. In the mean time, the drawing above will have to do.

Most of the information on Bracken’s life comes from Andrew Boyle, ’Poor, Dear Brendan’. The Quest for Brendan Bracken (1974)

(1) See: My Dear Max: The Letters of Brendan Bracken to Lord Beaverbrook 1925-1958, ed. R. Cockett (1990).
(2) Boyle, p. 294.
(3) The Financial Times, 24 June 1959.
(4) The application can be seen here

Samuel Romilly

Tags

law, politics

When walking in Russell Square, I noticed a plaque between two windows on one of the houses on the north side of the square which reads ‘Here lived Sir Samuel Romilly law reformer born 1757 died 1818’. I took a photo of the plaque and of the nice boot scraper by the doorway, but several double-decker busses had parked in front of the house preventing me from taking a photo of the whole house. A leisurely walk around the square did not help; they were still there after 20 minutes, so the picture of the house has been borrowed from Google Street View.

21 Russell Square (Source: Google Street View)

But who was this Samuel Romilly who had lived in this house? Obviously a lawyer as the plaque already stated, but that was not much help. Some biographical information was, however easily found.⁽¹⁾ He was born on the 3rd of March, 1757 as the son of Peter Romilly and Margaret Garnault, both of Huguenot descent. Peter was a jeweller and Samuel was to work in his father’s shop after an initial job in a merchant’s firm came to nothing because of the death of the two owners. But Samuel was not really interested in jewellery and preferred reading. He read voraciously, reading all kinds of books to broaden his knowledge and writing skills. At one point he decided to become a poet, but later realised that prose suited him better. In 1773, a wealthy family relation died and Samuel was left £2,000 which enabled him to give up his jewellers’ job and to study for the post of officer of the Court of Chancery. He probably chose this profession because it would allow him plenty of time to pursue his literary interests. He studied under William Lally, one of the officers of the Court of Chancery. The officers did not really have to do much, most of the real work was done by the solicitors of the litigants. The working hours were short and attendance during the holidays was not necessary, so it was an ideal post for one aspiring to a literary career. But this literary career never really materialised and after completing his articles, Samuel went on to study for the Bar at Gray’s Inn under the tutelage of Jeffries Spranger. London Remembers shows the building where he occupied chambers and where there is another plaque commemorating him (see here).

After a bout of illness, Samuel went to Switzerland to take his young nephew Peter Mark Roget (he of later Thesaurus fame) back to his parents. Samuel’s sister Catherine had married the Swiss-born minister of a French Protestant church in London, Jean Roget, but when Jean was ordered by his doctor to return to his native country for his health – he had consumption – the young child was left in London in the care of his grandfather. But when Jean’s health seemed to improve, they wanted their son with them and Samuel provided the escort to Lausanne for the child and his nurse. While in France and Switzerland, Samuel had ample opportunity to learn more of the modern way of thinking as pronounced in Rousseau’s Social Contract. He met various leaders of the democratic movement in Geneva and later also of the literary and political circles in Paris. The discrepancy between the glamorous gaiety of the French court and the squalid conditions of the ordinary people struck a cord and he wrote “It is not more surprising that a people ignorant of liberty are contented with servitude, than that a man blind from his birth laments not the want of the most delightful of the senses”.⁽²⁾

Portrait of Samuel Romilly by William Finden after Sir Thomas Lawrence ©British Museum

On June 2nd, 1783, Romilly was called to the Bar, but before he could start his career, he had to go to Switzerland once again to fetch his sister, now a widow, and his nephew home. On his way there, he had the opportunity to visit Benjamin Franklin in Paris, at that time the ambassador of the US to France. Franklin read him parts of the Constitution that had just been published, much to the surprise of Franklin who had expected the French government to suppress them. Brother-in-law Roget had been a great friend of Romilly with whom he corresponded frequently and freely and he missed him dearly, but he soon became friends with a Swiss advocate, D’Ivernois, whom Romilly had met when taking his nephew to Switzerland and who was now living in England. D’Ivernois introduced him to the French Comte de Mirabeau who in turn was to introduce Romilly to William Wilberforce and Jeremy Bentham. These two men were campaigning for causes that were close to Romilly’s heart and in 1787 he joined the committee for the abolition of slavery.

Illustration from Drake

Romilly was not really a dedicated lawyer in the sense that it absorbed all his energy, but he did use his profession to improve the condition of men as he saw it. This commitment made him slide into politics, but there again, he was not a political animal per se and frequently neglected opportunities that could have brought him further in the political hierarchy. He took his seat in the House of Commons on 24 March 1806. Although his name is now mostly forgotten and certainly not as well known as that of Wilberforce or Bentham, he did play his part against the slave trade in a speech of 10 June 1806 in which he called that trade ‘robbery, rapine, and murder’. He also did his best to reform criminal law, especially in the area of corporal and capital punishment. He supported a bill to abolish the pillory and one to stop flogging in the military and preferred prisons modelled on the principles of Bentham to penal colonies. In 1808 he obtained the repeal of the 8 Eliz. I c. 4 (1565), resulting in pick-pocketing no longer seen as a capital offence. Not all his efforts were successful; he did, for instance, not manage to get the capital punishment sentence on theft to the value of 40s lifted, but his bill to amend the Bankruptcy Laws was passed very quickly.⁽³⁾

The Morning Chronicle 3 Nov. 1818

Romilly married late in life. At the age of 40 he married Anne Garbette on 3 January 1798 at Knill, Herefordshire. The couple moved into 54 Gower Street, but relocated to 21 Russell Square where they spent the rest of their lives apart from the holidays when they moved to Tanhurst, Surrey, where they rented a property from 1812 onwards. The couple had seven children, six sons and one daughter, and appear to have had a very loving relationship. Unfortunately, the story does not end happily as Anne became ill and died on 29 October 1818. Romilly was distraught from grief and when left alone for a few minutes, killed himself a few days later by cutting his throat ‘while in a state of temporary mental derangement’. They were buried together in the parish church of Knill on 11 November. The details of the sad event were described in all the major papers of the day. On the left the report in The Morning Chronicle.

Joseph Cradock wrote this poem on hearing of Romilly’s death⁽⁴⁾:

Yes, Romilly is dead! – an awful pause
Chilly has struck the generous patriot’s cause;
‘T is but a dream – the morn’s distempered thought,
With which the public mind is inly fraught;
I scarce can dare to think, yet think I must,
I feel I’m weak, but know that God is just;
Grant, heaven, like him I act the tenderest part;
But not like him, die stricken to the heart!

(1) A short biography appeared in Samuel Adams Drake, Our World’s Great Benefactors. Short biographies of the men and women most eminent in philanthropy, patriotism, art, literature, discovery, science, invention (1887), pp. 129-134. A book-length biography was written by Patrick Medd, Romilly. A Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, Lawyer and Reformer (1968). And he has also made it into the ODNB: R. A. Melikan, ‘Romilly, Sir Samuel (1757–1818)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008; and of course he is mentioned on the History of Parliament website here. Romilly’s Memoirs have also been published, see Google Books Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3.
(3) Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 177. Letter to Jean Roget, written from Ostend 10 Nov. 1781.
(3) For a more detailed list of his political achievements, see the History of Parliament website.
(4) Joseph Cradock, Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, vol. 4 (1828), p. 324.

Waithman’s obelisk

Tags

draper, Fleet Street, obelisk, politics

In Salisbury Square, an obelisk can be found as a memorial to Robert Waithman who died in 1833.

obelisk Waithman in Salisbury Court

Waithman was born in Wrexham in 1764 and became apprenticed to a linen draper in London. He became a freeman of the Framework Knitters’ Company in October 1787 and obtained the freedom of the City the following January.⁽¹⁾ On 18 July, 1787, he had married Mary Davies (1761–1827), his cousin, at St. George the Martyr, Queen Square. They had at least 8 children (see here). Robert started trading at Fleet Market, but soon opened a shop at 120 Newgate Street. The British Library has a trade card of his in their collection which they date to 1791.

 

©British Museum

©British Museum

But soon after opening his first shop – how soon is unclear – Waithman entered into a partnership with Charles Bristow and business boomed. In 1797 they were listed for the Sun Fire Office as having insurance for premises at 104 Fleet Street, 120 Newgate Street, 7 Holborn Hill, south end Fleet Market, and Winchmore Hill. Another trade card (dated 1799) shows their shop on the corner of Fleet Street and New Bridge Road. See for a larger picture of the shop with both their names above the shop windows here. As a notice in the London Gazette of 25 December 1802 testifies, Waithman was the partner with the most financial clout, 3/4 as against 1/4 for Bristow. Very soon afterwards, the partnership seems to have been dissolved and Waithman went into a new partnership with Everington at roughly the same addresses. The trade card (dated 1803) again shows the 103-104 Fleet Street property, but now with Everington’s name in stead of Bristow’s.

©British Museum

The Sun Fire Office records for 1803 and 1804 list John Etherington alongside Waithman, but in 1811, a partnership was dissolved between Robert Waithman and his son John on the one hand and William Everington on the other.⁽²⁾ Is there a mistake and are Etherington and Everington the same? And is John related to William? Whatever the exact details of the partnership(s), by 1811, the business was solely in the hands of the Waithman family. After Robert’s death, the shop in Fleet Street was continued by his sons (see here).

Portrait of Robert Waithman by Edward Scriven © National Portrait Gallery, London

But Robert was not just a linen draper, he also went into politics. He frequented a debating society at Founders’ Hall in Lothbury and became a liveryman of the Framework Knitters’ Company. In 1795, he was elected as a common councilman for the ward of Farringdon Without and took a stance against the war with France. He was involved in the founding of the Society of the Independent Livery of London and, in 1800, published a pamphlet War proved to be the real cause of the present scarcity and enormous high price, of every article of consumption, with the only radical remedies, which was directed against the injustice of the income tax and in which he demanded reform for a more equal society. The Independent Livery became a lobbying group to be reckoned with in City politics, working for the people against high prices and taxes, and campaigning against war and for parliamentary reform. Waithman tried several times to get a seat in Parliament for London, but did not at first succeed. His background and lack of education spoke against him. “It was time to teach Mr Waithman that the government is not in the common hall, and that we are not to have a supreme council of war made up of the tradesmen of London”.⁽³⁾

But, in 1818, he was voted as one of the four City representatives, defeating the Tory candidate, Sir William Curtis. Waithman’s speech of 1 July 1819 on parliamentary reform was published in 1823. Soon after his election, in July 1818, he was chosen as alderman for his ward of Farringdon Without, replacing the deceased Sir Charles Price, but failed to hold on to his parliamentary seat in 1820. He attained the post of sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1820–21, during which time he sided with the popular radicals in support of Queen Caroline. He also became Lord Mayor of London in 1823-1824, satirized by his political opponents in Maxims of Robert, Lord Waithman, Somewhile Chief Magistrate of London (1824). Waithman always tried to strive for reform without becoming too radical, which resulted in an unfortunate middle position, where the Whigs thought he was too radical and the Radicals considered him too much of a Whig. And his background led to accusations of trying to use politics for his personal gain which he vehemently denied. His concern was the fairer distribution of power and wealth between the classes.⁽⁴⁾ While some may claim he was just an upstart shopkeeper, he, although not always successful, did much to reform the political landscape in favour of the ordinary man in the street.

Waithman died at his house at 7 Woburn Place on 6 February 1833 and was buried in St. Bride’s on the 14th. His body was brought there from Guildhall in a cortège of twenty-seven carriages. Waithman Street in London was named in his honour and a subscription was raised by the St Bride’s Society to set up an obelisk. The Morning Chronicle of 26 June 1833 reported that the day before “the first stone of the Waithman Obelisk was laid by Alderman Harmer … attended by the architect and the Secretary of the Haytor Granite Company, by whom it was constructed”. A little further on in the report on the occasion, they name the architect as John Elmes⁽⁵⁾ and the secretary of Haytor as Mr. Bigg.

The inscription seen on the pedestal of the obelisk was, according to the paper, also engraved on a sheet of lead which was deposited with a portrait of Waithman and a list of the subscribers in a hermetically sealed bottle which was placed in a cavity in the lower foundation stone. Is it still there? The obelisk was originally erected at the southern end of Farringdon Street, opposite the Fleet Street shop, but it was relocated twice. The first time in 1951 to Bartholomew Close and in 1972 to it’s present position in Salisbury Square. And if negotiations had not broken off – reason unknown – the obelisk might even have ended up in Waithman’s birthplace Wrexham.⁽⁶⁾

Besides the obelisk, a wall tablet was erected in the south wall of the tower of St. Bride’s which now lives in their crypt with other miscellaneous gravestones and memorials. According to The architecture of St Bride’s⁽⁷⁾, the tablet was accompanied by a shield of arms “Or an eagle holding in his beak a crosslet [], on a chief engrailed vert an escallop [] between two molets []”. That, however, is no longer to be seen in the church, but you can see the coat of arms on the bosses above the text on the obelisk.

Biographical information on Waithman from:
– Michael T. Davis, ‘Waithman, Robert (1764–1833)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
– Lawrence Taylor and R. G. Thorne, ‘Waithman, Robert (c.1764-1833), of 7 Woburn Place, Mdx.’ in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986 (online here).

(1) Freedom admissions papers, 1681 – 1925. London Metropolitan Archives: COL/CHD/FR/02.
(2) London Gazette, 17 Sept. 1811.
(3) William Huskisson on the reception given to Waithman’s petition for an inquiry into the convention of Cintra (Source: www.historyofparliamentonline.org)
(4) J.R. Dinwiddy, Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1780-1850 (1992), p. 78.
(5) John Elmes (1782-1862), A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland, ed. E. Skempton, vol. 1: 1500-1830 (2002), pp. 212-213.
(6) Many thanks to Martyn Partridge to pointing this bit of history out to me (see his comment). A photo of the obelisk in its original position can be found here.
(7) ‘The architecture of St Bride’s: Monuments’, Survey of London Monograph 15: St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street (1944), pp. 55-113 (online here).

You may also like to read the two other posts on Waithman:
– Waithman Street
– Waithman & Co., linen drapers