Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood

Secretary of State for Air

Hoare was re-elected to Parliament in 1918, but by 1922 he had become disillusioned with David Lloyd George after the Honours scandal and the Chanak Crisis. He helped organise the backbench revolt at the Carlton Club meeting (19 October 1922) which brought down Lloyd George's coalition. In Bonar Law’s new Conservative government he was made a Privy Councillor and Secretary of State for Air, although he was not made a member of the Cabinet until Stanley Baldwin succeeded Bonar Law as Prime Minister in May 1923.^[10]

In 1923 Hoare presided over the merger (with £1m state subsidy) of the four principal private air carriers to form Imperial Airways, an ancestor of today's British Airways.^[10] The Conservatives fell from power in January 1924, but Hoare was once again Secretary of State for Air in Baldwin's Second Government (1924-9). As Secretary of State for Air he sided with Trenchard on the importance of the Royal Air Force remaining an independent service. He established air squadrons at Oxford and Cambridge University (to train students as potential RAF officers) and re-established a permanent air cadet college at Cranwell.^[10]

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.^[10][7] Hoare and Lady Maud travelled by air whenever possible, including the first civilian flight to India in 1927.^[10] In 1927 he published a book, India by Air.^[9] By 1929 there were regular scheduled routes to India and Cape Town.^[10]

Hoare followed his interest in aviation affairs as Honorary Air Commodore of No 601 (County of London) (1930–32) and No 604 (County of Middlesex) (1932–57) Bomber Squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force.^[19]

In opposition

Hoare was Treasurer of the Conservative Party in opposition in 1929-31.^[10]

In 1930 he published The Fourth Seal on Russia in World War One.^[9]

Hoare was a delegate to the First Round Table Conference on India’s constitutional future in 1930-1. He also helped to mediate between Baldwin and the press barons Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook, who were intriguing for his removal as Conservative leader.^[10]

Secretary of State for India

Hoare was one of the Conservative negotiators in talks with Ramsay MacDonald in August 1931 over the formation of the National Government. On 26 August 1931 Hoare was appointed Secretary of State for India.^[10]

At the Second Round Table Conference, Hoare enjoyed good relations with Gandhi. He committed Britain to eventual self-government for India, although this was not enough for Gandhi, who wanted full independence. Lord Lothian's report on the extension of the Indian franchise was considered.^[10] A White paper containing the government's legislative proposals for India’s constitution was drawn up (March 1933).^[20] A Select Committee of Both Houses met for over a year and half, beginning in April 1933, to consider the government’s plans.^[10] In January 1934 Hoare was appointed Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India (GCSI) in the New Year Honours.^[7][21]

Ill feeling between Hoare and Churchill, who opposed Indian self-government, reached its peak in April 1934. The Government proposed that the Indian Government retain the power to impose tariffs on British textiles. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce, representing the Lancashire cotton trade, initially opposed this, wanting 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. Hoare was completely exonerated by the Committee on Privileges. Churchill gave a powerful speech in the Commons Chamber attacking 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.^[21]

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 which spent the first half of 1935 passing through Parliament before becoming the Government of India Act 1935.^[10] 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 he completely dominated the committee stage of the bill, just as he had the Round Table Conferences, through his mastery of detail and skill at dealing tactfully with deputations.^[22] 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)."^[23] Butler, who as Under-Secretary helped to steer the bill through the Commons, later wrote of Hoare that he saw life as “a chapter in a great Napoleonic biography”, adding “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.”^[20]

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, after Hoare had moved on to his next job.^[21]

Although provincial governments were elected in 1937, the India Act was never fully implemented because of the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.^[21]

Foreign Secretary

In June 1935 Baldwin became Prime Minister for the third time. He offered Hoare a choice of the job of Viceroy of India or Foreign Secretary. Hoare, who was ambitious to become Prime Minister, chose the latter as it enabled him to remain active in domestic politics. The job would make him notorious.^[21]

Hoare took office against a backdrop of what Adams describes as “much idle talk” of “mutual security”. In March 1935 MacDonald’s White Paper had committed Britain to limited rearmament.^[21]

Italy, which also controlled Libya at the time, straddled Britain’s sea route across the Mediterranean to Egypt, the Suez Canal and India. Mussolini’s bombast was not taken very seriously in Britain.^[24] In April 1935 MacDonald and Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon had signed the Stresa Front of 14 April 1935, an alliance with France and Italy (which had been an Allied power in World War One and was suspicious of German designs on Austria). The Front did not last.^[24][21] It came to nothing as Britain, without consulting her partners, signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement; this dismayed the French, who soon signed an equally unilateral treaty with the USSR.^[21]

By mid-1935 Mussolini was clearly preparing to attack Abyssinia. On 12 September 1935 Hoare gave what Adams calls “the greatest speech of his career” to the League General Assembly at Geneva. He declared that Britain stood “for steady and collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression”. His speech was widely praised in the world press, but did not deter the full-scale Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October. Limited sanctions were imposed on Italy, but not oil sanctions.^[21] A General Election took place on 14 November 1935.^[21] At the election over 90% of the candidates supported the League of Nations, and there was much call for sanctions against Italy even though this was not necessarily in Britain’s interests.^[24]

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, head of the Foreign Office Abyssinia Department, to Paris to negotiate a compromise offer to Mussolini. 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, her army under Italian control. Abyssinia had not been consulted.^[21] By December 1935 Hoare was still in poor health and suffering from fainting spells since his stressful period 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.^[25]

The Pact was leaked first to the French then to the British press, causing 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.^[25] Cabinet met on the morning of 18 December. Lord Halifax, who was due to make a statement in the Lords that afternoon, insisted that Hoare must resign to save the government’s position, causing J. H. Thomas, William Ormsby-Gore and Walter Elliott also to come out for his resignation. Privately Halifax was puzzled by the moral outrage as the Hoare-Laval proposals were little different from those put forward by the League Committee of Five.^[24]

Hoare resigned on 18 December.^[25] 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 Ethiopia, and drew closer to Germany leading eventually 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.^[25] This was too quickly, thought Lord Halifax. Eden later wrote in his memoirs that Halifax “criticised Baldwin sharply for yielding to Hoare’s importunity”.^[24] 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 Chamberlain offered Hoare any office he liked except the Exchequer (which he would have liked, but which had been promised to Sir John Simon). Hoare chose the Home Office (28 May 1937).^[25] Hoare was still seen as a possible successor to Chamberlain.^[26]

Hoare had a long family interest in judicial and penal reform.^[25] The Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry was his great-great aunt.^[27][25] RJQ Adams writes highly of his time as Home Secretary.^[25] Roy Jenkins wrote that Hoare was the most liberal Home Secretary between H. H. Asquith (1892-5) and Rab Butler (1957-62).^[28]

In 1938, Hoare was instrumental in obtaining approval for the British rescue effort on behalf of endangered Jewish children in Europe known as the Kindertransport.

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”, the plan to fly to meet Hitler for a summit meeting, a decision which was popular at the time.^[25] His later account of the Munich agreement is anguished. Hoare had close links to the Czech government.^[29] In retirement he stood strongly by Chamberlain's essential judgements, but regretted Chamberlain's lack of sensitivity in foreign affairs, and his tendency for personal intervention which not only led to his failure to retain Eden, but overrode his Foreign Office advisers but, as Hoare repeatedly points out, public opinion was vociferously pacifist and Chamberlain's actions were widely endorsed, not least by American's President Roosevelt. The Labour opposition strongly opposed rearmament and the introduction of conscription, even after Munich.

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 the Foreign Secretary seemed imminent.

In 1939 Hoare almost carried the most comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform Bill in British history: he had intended to abolish corporal punishment in prisons and had been keen to work towards the abolition of the death penalty, of whose risks he was very aware. The Bill was cancelled because of the outbreak of war.^[25]

Hoare pumped energy into the Air Raid Precautions Department and the Women’s Voluntary Service Organisation.^[25]

Bibliography

• Adams, R. J. Q. (1993). British Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of Appeasement, 1935-1939. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-2101-1.
• 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. (1997). Sir Samuel Hoare A Political Biography. London. ISBN 0-224-01350-5.
• 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.
• Matthew, Colin (2004). Dictionary of National Biography. 27. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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.
• Hayes, Carlton J. H. (1945). Wartime mission in Spain, 1942-1945. London: Macmillan. 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. ISBN 0 00 211997-8.