Philip Snowden

184 Pages·1966·17.417 MB·English

by  Colin Cross

COLIN CROSS
ALSO BY COLIN CROSS
The Fascists in Britain
The Liberals in Power 1905-1914
Philip Snowden
BARRIE AND ROCKLIFF /)
LONDON
DERBY
BOROl'Gl-J- l
UBRArrt::i
"A reform party must die or be born
again in each generation."-Philip Snowden 1903
s
L ... C ...
© 1966 by Colin Cross
First published in 1966 by
Barrie & Rockliff (Barrie Books Ltd)
2 Clement's Inn, London, WC2
Printed in Great Britain
by Butler and Tanner Ltd
Frome and London
UNIVERSITY
OF YORK
LffiRARy
ILLUSTRATIONS
CONTENTS
Philip Snowden as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1924 Frontispiece
ix
INTRODUCTION
Philip Snowden, by Low, 1926 page xii
ONE Cowling (I866-1886) I Philip Snowden's birthplace fadng page 4
TWO Crippled (I886-I893) IO The village of Ickornshaw 4
THREE Socialism (I893-1894) 18 Early days of the I.L.P. 5
FOUR The Christ that is to be ( 1894-1900) 35 James Ramsay MacDonald 5
FIVE St. Philip of Blackburn (1900-1906) 49 Ethel and Philip Snowden at the time of their=marriage n6
SIX The new Robespierre (1906-1910) 72 Snowden at Golder's Green 117
SEVEN Quarrels (1907-1914) IOO In Downing Street 117
EIGHT War (1914-1916) 127 Montagu Norman 148
NINE Peace (1916-1918) 148 The first Labour Cabinet 148
TEN Common sense and moderation After the conference 149
(1918-1922) 167 A musical luncheon 149
ELEVEN Front bench (1922-1924) 183 The Cabinet of 1929 244
TWELVE Office (1924) 197 The National Government 244
THIRTEEN Shadow Chancellor (1924-1929) 213 Snowden on his way to the Palace 245
The last ditch 245
FOURTEEN Freedom of the City (1929-1930) 234
Victory celebrations, by Strube page 255
FIFTEEN The City fails (1930-1931) 256
The conquering hero, by Low facing page 276
SIXTEEN Cabinet crisis (1931) 282
Dinner is now served, by Low 276
SEVENTEEN Bolshevism run mad (1931) 302
The Snowden memorial 277
EIGHTEEN Resignation (I931-1932) 325 Shoot the pianist, by Strube page 330
NINETEEN Alone (1932-1951) 331
TWENTY Ickornshaw Moor 345
NOTE ON SOURCES 347
INDEX 350
INTRODUCTION
Philip Snowden in 1934 was reported as having "scant respect for those
biographies of prominent people written by virtual strangers". He
agreed with the saying: "No man can write of another who has not
known him by his own fireside." Therefore he wrote his own life in his
two-volume Autobiography and left no other material for use by a future
biographer. What papers he did leave were destroyed on the instructions
of his wife. The loss to history is a regrettable one; the private papers
of Philip Snowden might have shed light on a number of troublesome
details in the history of the British Labour Party. At the same time,
however, Snowden lived so much of his life in public and spoke and
wrote so generously about his aims and ideas that the lack of private
papers appeared to present no insuperable obstacle to the preparation
of a biographical study of him. There are few real secrets in British
politics.
Where ideas and opinions are attributed to Snowden in this book
without a source being given, they come from the Autobiography.
I would like to thank Sir Max Aitken, Bt., for access to the Lloyd
George papers in the Cherkley Treasury and Miss Rosemary Brooks
for assistance there and H.M. Commissioners of Customs and Excise
for access to the material relating to Snowden in their library. I acknow
ledge with gratitude, too, the assistance I have received at the British
Museum Library, the London Library, Keighley Public Library, the
libraries of the Daily Express and The Observer and the B.B.C. Sound
Archives.
Many people have helped me with information and advice, and I
would like to thank them for giving me their time. They include the
Right Honourable Earl Attlee, the late Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Brock
way, Mr. E. 0. Driver, Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Gledhill, Mr. John
Gordon, Mrs. Sam Gott, the Right Honourable Lord Henderson, Mrs.
x INTRODUCTION
Alice Jenkins, the late Naomi Jacob, Dr. S. P. Lock, Sir Frank Mark
ham, Miss Bridget Martyn, Mr. A. E. Pedley, Mr. J. M. Ramsden,
Mr. Gordon Schaffer, Miss Alice Smith, and the late John Strachey.
Of course the responsibility for everything in the book is my own.
COLIN CROSS
PHILIP SNOWDEN
ONE
COWLING
1866-1886
Philip Snowden was born on July 18, 1864, in the substantial wool
weaving village of Cowling on the moors of the West Riding of York
shire, near the Lancashire border. It is a bleak and yet stimulating place
in the area which a generation earlier had inspired the writings of the
Bronte sisters. Such villages as Cowling, with their high mill chimneys
lie scattered among miles of empty moorland, sometimes in winter cut
off by snow from the outside world. The local market town is Keighley,
on the banks of the Aire about seven miles from Cowling. In Snowden's
childhood it was reached by horse-bus and by the new railway line from
Kildwick. The big regional centre is Leeds, eighteen miles away.
It made a fine background for the training and upbringing of a child,
for the Cowling weavers could be counted among the aristocracy of the
British working class. They lived hard, frugal lives and attached high
importance to self-respect and education. Snowden's father, John
Snowden, was a weaver. Well within memory was the time when the
West Riding weavers had been independent craftsmen, weaving cloth
by contract on their own handlooms in their own cottages. John Snow
·1'~s~ den, who was thirty-five when Philip was born, had himself started life
as such an independent worker, and he still kept his handloom upstairs
Churchill's opposite number as seen by David Low, 1926.
in his four-roomed cottage and used it to make cloth for his family.
Courtesy of Lady Low and Tht Ntw Statesman
By the 186o's, though, the introduction of the big power looms had
concentrated commercial weaving entirely into the mills. The Cowling
weavers had lost their independent status and become wage-earners.
But they continued to cherish an individualistic outlook, and during
Snowden's childhood had no trade union. They were blunt, egalitarian
people, suspicious of sentiment and "frills". They believed in what
PHILIP SNOWDEN COWLING 3
2
they called "plain speaking", which was sometimes a euphemism for Ickornshaw with the accent on the second syllable-a kind of suburb:to
deliberate discourtesy. They were very poor, but their habits of thought the west of Cowling. It consisted of about lOO cottages built on the
in some respects were closer to those of the middle than of the ordinary slopes of a steep little valley, a moorland stream rushing down the
manual working class. In outlook they were more independent than middle. His birthplace was a four-room cottage on the edge of Ickorn
roost of the mass proletariat which had grown up in the slums of the big shaw, the empty moor stretching for miles behind the back door. He
towns during the Industrial Revolution. was the youngest in the family and had two elder sisters. The Snowdens
Like other West Riding villages, Cowling can strike the visitor at were an established and numerous clan in Cowling, and Philip grew up
first sight as being a gloomy, even a dirty place. This is because the among a multitude of uncles, aunts and cousins.
local stone, of which most of the houses are built, blackens on exposure Both his parents had strong personalities. His father, John Snowden,
to weather. But really it is very clean, the biting moorland winds and worked all his life as an ordinary worsted weaver, but he had pronounced
rain sweeping through it to provide a natural hygiene. The wives then, intellectual tastes and possessed a little library of books, Burns, Byron,
as now, made a fetish of cleanliness and careful housekeeping. Door Shakespeare and Milton being his favourite authors. He had an excel
steps shone, and Cowling had a flourishing branch of the Yorkshire lent memory and could recite much of Burns by heart. He was a slow
Penny Bank. Wives as well as husbands customarily went to work in spoken, thoughtful man with a hard, humorous face. In politics he was
the mill, and most children went, too, from the age often. Many of the a convinced and instructed Radical, so full of ideas that it was said of
established residents owned their own homes, worth about £! 50 or him in the village that he had j"maggots in his head". Philip's mother,
£200, and they tried to provide for old age by buying a second cottage, who was born Martha Nelson, had no intellectual aspirations, but she
which they could put out to rent. Few, however, were able to reach far was a strong-willed housewife who believed in dominating her family's
beyond the brink of total poverty; illness or accident meant utter dis home life. She had the curious trait of always wanting to move house;
aster, which could be mitigated only by help from friends and relations. during her life she lived in twenty-one different houses-nineteen of
Such help was usually forthcoming-the weavers had a horror of the them in Cowling and two of them in Nelson. She used to explain that
workhouse. It was a close-knit community of some l,900 souls with moving to a new house made her feel she was starting a new life. From
much intermarriage, and everyone knowing everyone else's business. his birth Philip was idolised by his entire family, parents and sisters.
The local dialect, which showed traces of Norse influence from l,ooo He grew up an active and sometimes a very naughty little boy, but
years earlier, was incomprehensible to the stranger. Snowden, like other always a truthful one. Like the young George Washington, he is sup
Cowling people of the time, regarded standard English as a language posed never to have told a lie. He was very strong-willed. Aged about
which had consciously to be learned. In later life he spoke pure and eight, he fell into bad company and, to the horror of his parents, started
very clear English, his Yorkshire origin marked mainly by his short to use swear-words. They remonstrated with him to no avail. Eventu
a's. To tell a humorous anecdote or to talk to his Cowling friends, he ally after a torrent of particularly bad language, they whipped him and
would lapse back into dialect. sent him upstairs to bed. An hour later Philip, his face pale and tear
As a roan Philip Snowden dreamed of a Utopian society being set up stained, came back downstairs and stood at the living-room door. He
according to his ideas of Socialism, and probably he thought of it in took a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and slowly, one by one, repeated
terms of the whole world becoming something like Cowling. The worst the forbidden words. He was a natural leader among his fellows and
of the poverty would be removed, of course, and co-operation would adept at planning mischief. In school he would start some uproar and
replace private ownership in the operation of the mills. But the Cowling then disassociate himself from it. The teacher would glare round at
characteristics of thrift, plain living and personal independence would the unruly children and see Philip sitting in the middle of them, his
be universal. He ran his own life to such principles, and eventually tried face composed in an expression of the utmost innocence.
to run the Treasury in the same way. The framework of his religious and moral upbringing was the
Snowden was born and brought up in Ickornshaw-pronounced Wesleyan Methodist chapel, of which nearly everyone in the little
4 PHILIP SNOWDEN COWLING 5
community was a member. Ickornshaw Chapel, built during Snowden's His Methodist background was the framework of his young life, and
childhood, is a tall, gaunt building standing by the stream in the middle one to which he looked back with sentimental nostalgia. He loved look
of the valley, a few hundred yards down the steep slope from Philip's ing back to the hymns and sermons of his youth. But he was never at
birthplace. It is constructed on two floors, the lower one serving as a pains to keep up his church membership, and he appeared to regard the
meeting-hall and the upper one as the chapel. Outside it looks bare to existence of a future life as an open question. At the same time he never
the point of ugliness, but inside the chapel itself is an attractive little renounced Christianity, and he liked to use religious and biblical themes
place, arranged symmetrically with a high pulpit, long pews and a semi in his speeches. Christian ethics formed the very stuff of his Socialism.
circular gallery. There is a cosiness to it and an atmosphere of religious Occasionally he would preach by invitation in some Nonconformist
devotion. Methodism provided a profound religious and mystical experi pulpit, but then he would confine himself entirely to ethics. He was
ence for some of the Cowling weavers, and entertainment, interest and a never, like such of his Labour Party contemporaries as Arthur Hender
way of life for nearly all of them. Social life in the community circulated son, a regular lay preacher, a theologian, the expounder of a definite
around the Sunday services, the "class" meetings, the Sunday School religious faith.
and the festivities of chapel teas. Local laymen conducted most of the After religion the other great interest in Cowling and in the Snowden
services and all the administration; some weavers could recite by heart household was politics. Cowling took the Liberal line and possessed a
whole chapters of the Bible. Intense interest in religion and the organisa flourishing Liberal Club, equipped with copies of such Liberal news
tion of religion was their intellectual and emotional outlet after the long papers as the Leeds Mercury, the Manchester Guardian and the Bradford
hours in the mill. In endless prayer meetings they poured out their Argus. John Snowden and his friends read these papers and discussed
fears and aspirations, looking always to reward in Heaven for their lives what they read. They had at least a nodding acquaintance with every
of frugality, toil and honest morality. major national and international issue. During Snowden's childhood,
John Snowden played his part in Ickomshaw Chapel and served as W. E. Gladstone emerged as their hero and idolised leader. They hated
Sunday School superintendent, but he had intellectual reservations. the aristocracy, the landlords and the Church of England. They believed
The doctrine of Hell was repugnant to him. Philip was brought up in in peace, retrenchment and reform and opposed imperialism. But they
the life of the chapel, acquiring a detailed knowledge of the Bible and tolerated and even supported the rich mill-owners and industrialists,
becoming a Sunday School teacher, but was guided by his father away most of whom had sprung from their own class. What they wanted above
from any excessive religious enthusiasm. The doctrine of "conversion" all else was the right to vote; not because the notion occurred to them
was an important one to most Methodists; a young person was expected that being able to vote would enable them to better their own economic
at some definite moment to undergo an intellectual and emotional circumstances, but simply because they considered they had a right
change in which he suddenly apprehended and accepted "salvation". by nature to express their judgment on the political questions then
Most earnest Methodist parents looked eagerly to the :qioment when current. The urban working-class householders were enfranchised with
their children would be "converted'', but not John Snowden. Special Disraeli's "leap into the dark" in 1867, but the Cowling men had to
"revival" services were held to encourage conversion, and at one of them wait until the rural workers got the vote in 1884. John Snowden, who
young Philip was persuaded by the preacher that his own moment had had taken a lifelong interest in politics, first voted when he was aged
come. When the preacher called on those who wished to accept salva fifty-five. ·
tion to walk to the front of the chapel, Philip stood up and prepared to As he grew up, Philip emerged as the leading boy in the village.
go forward. His father seized his arm and pulled him back. He stood slightly under average height, but he possessed an excellent
It appears that never again did "conversion" come near to Philip. In physique and afterwards used to recall that he could beat at running
later years he recalled the incident in a jocular manner, and reflected and jumping any boy three years older than himself. His was a poor
that if he had gone forward he would probably have ended up as a household, but there was always enough to eat. John Snowden earned
Methodist minister. Religious doubts never appeared to trouble him. about 15s. a week, and as soon as the elder daughter was big enough
6 PHILIP SNOWDEN COWLING 7
to look after the younger children Martha Snowden also went back to would be able to go on to become a pupil teacher. Heaton must have
the mill. Later, both girls went into the mill. High spots in the young been glad of the prospect of Philip's assistance, for in his log-book of
Philip's life were the very rare day visits by excursion train to Blackpool 1875 he was commenting on the "deplorable state of ignorance" he had
or Morecambe, during the three-day annual mill holiday in July. The found among his pupils. Once the prospect had definitely opened up of
family, like most of its neighbours, followed a rigid custom of saving a further education leading somewhere, Philip's parents were probably
little money every week against a rainy day. easily persuaded. His father, at least, had a high respect for education.
He was early in the public eye. One election time his sisters dressed But it meant a sacrifice for his parents and his sisters to give up Philip's
him all up in yellow, the Liberal colour, as a walking advertisement. His prospective earnings.
clear, speaking voice led to his reciting poems in the Liberal Club. For his first eighteen months under Heaton, Philip embarked on a
He joined the Band of Hope and learned to pipe up in public about kind of secondary-school course, including Latin, French and mathe
the virtues of clear, cool water. This set him for life on the path of matics. Then, shortly before his twelfth birthday, he was appointed a
teetotalism. "monitor", which entailed his taking charge of a class of sixty children
Philip would have acquired some education at the Wesleyan Sunday only a few years younger than himself. Further promotion came on
School, where half the time was given to spelling, but he also attended May 28, 1877, just before his thirteenth birthday, when the School
for four or five years a private school in Cowling where, for a few Board appointed him "candidate for pupil teacher". He received th:e
pence a week, a master inculcated the essentials of reading, arithmetic testimonial:
and copperplate handwriting to a class of 100 or more Cowling children.
"We the undersigned managers of the Cowling Board School
Philip rapidly established himself as the brightest child in the school.
hereby certify that the moral character of Philip Snowden-now em
At the age often he was expected to go into the mill. The only choice,
ployed as a monitor in the above-named school-and of his home
in the ordinary way, was whether he should go full-time or whether he
justifies an expectation that the instruction and training of the school
should go only half-time, spending the other half of the day at school.
will be seconded by his own efforts and the example of his parents.
To the surprise of his family, the ten-year-old Philip refused to go
Signed: William Marchbank, John Binns, Christopher Snowden."
into the mill at all, either full-time or part-time. He stuck his heels in
A year later he went up from "candidate" to full "pupil teacher".
and said he wanted to continue at school. Nothing would shake his
A pupil teacher was exactly what the name implies. During ordinary
obstinacy.
school hours he taught a class of children, but from seven o'clock every
It happened that at almost the same moment the educational scene
morning until the school assembled he received his own private lessons
in Cowling was transformed for the better. Following the 1870 Educa
from the Headmaster. In the evenings he did his homework and pre
tion Act, a Cowling School Board had been elected, with Christopher
pared for the examination which, at the age of about eighteen, would
Snowden, one of Philip's relations, as a member. In 1875, when Philip
make him a certified teacher in his own right. Philip found the teaching
was aged between ten and eleven, the board erected a school house and
part of the work uncongenial, but he went on with it because it was the
engaged a certificated teacher, John Heaton. This was a great public
only way of getting a secondary education, and the only alternative was
event in Cowling, with a procession through the village and a celebra
the mill. By the age of fifteen he had reached something approaching
tion tea. The school was a public elementary school with fees of 2d. a
today's G.C.E. "O" Level. He could read and write a letter in French.
week for the younger children and part-timers and 3d. a week for the
He knew a little Latin. He had a grasp of elementary mathematics,
older children. The same building, with extensions, is in use today, and
history, geography, English grammar and English literature. And he
a picture of Philip as Chancellor of the Exchequer hangs on the wall of
had formed a hazy ambition of one day becoming a lawyer.
the main classroom. The teacher, Heaton, heard of the strange boy who
Then in the summer of 1879 came catastrophe. The mill at Cowling
would not go into the mill. He talked to Philip's parents and persuaded
where Philip's parents and sisters were working went bankrupt and
them to allow Philip to continue at school on the understanding that he
•
8 PHILIP SNOWDEN COWLING 9
closed down. The event must have caused dismay and panic in the little take it, but he rarely looked far ahead. He was a very self-contained
community, even to John Snowden, whose constant saving for a rainy man with an indifference to both triumph and disaster.
day had produced the astonishingly large bank balance of "a few The years passed and Philip reached the age at which many of his
hundred pounds". The family uprooted itself from Cowling and moved contemporaries were marrying and settling down for life. Then, quite
over the border to Lancashire-to Nelson, where John Snowden secured suddenly, he decided to quit his home surroundings and to start an
a job as a worsted weaver. Philip went with them, quitting the service of entirely new career. Whether the cause was an unsuccessful love affair
Cowling School Board and thus finishing his formal education. At or some similar emotional upheaval, or whether at the age of twenty-one
Burnley, four miles away down the railway line, Philip found a job as a he felt a sudden stirring of ambition is not at all clear. He chose to enter
clerk in an insurance office and, in a rather haphazard way, began to try the Civil Service, a career which provided security, status and a recog
to become a solicitor. Neither he nor his father knew much about the nised ladder of promotion. Entry into it would count in itself as
legal world, which was very much a closed circle, and they seem to worldly success in his own eyes and those of his family. Philip chose the
have been unlucky in their inquiries. Philip later recalled that one Excise Department of the Board of Inland Revenue. He spent months
Nelson solicitor told them it would cost £2,ooo-a ludicrously exag of evening work in brushing up his school subjects, then travelled from
gerated figure-for him to become a solicitor. A friend in the right place his parents' home, 3 Victoria Street, Nelson, to Leeds for the competi
at that moment might well have been able to launch Philip into the law. tive entry examination. He passed with honours, and on October 5,
His father's little savings would have been enough to see him through 1886, at the age of twenty-two, he wrote in clear, rounded handwriting
his articles, and Philip would have started life in much the same circum a letter to the Secretary of the Board of Inland Revenue in London.1
stances as David Lloyd George, a year olderthanPhilip, whoatthattime In it he accepted the appointment of Second-class Assistant Revenue
was starting his legal studies in North Wales. Unlike Lloyd George, Officer. The starting salary was £50 a year, plus an "officiating allow
though, Philip had such singleness of purpose that had he become a ance", or expenses, of 2s. a day.
solicitor he probably would never have thought of entering national This was not just a job, but a career. Before him stretched a ladder of
politics. He would have become at most a stalwart of local Liberal promotion up which over the years he could expect to climb. At the end
ism in Lancashire or Yorkshire, the founder of a substantial legal of it there was a pension.
practice. Snowden appeared now to be settled for life.
Politics did interest him at this time in Nelson, which was a lively 1 In his Autobiography Snowden gave the age at which he took the Excise
Radical centre. Former Chartists were still active, and he met an old examination as "eighteen or nineteen'', but, according to the Excise records, his
"examination certificate" was dated July 22, 1886, and he joined the service at
man who had been present at the Peterloo massacre at Manchester in
the end of the same year. He was then twenty-two.
1819. There was a flurry of agitation in favour of tariff protection, and
Philip studied the arguments in favour of the established system of free
trade. He found them satisfying and conclusive, an opinion he was to
maintain until he died. What other interests he had in these formative
years of his life, his late 'teens, is far from clear. Although he was always
fond of reading, he made no apparent attempt to continue his education
or to acquire any new qualification. His insurance work aroused no
ambition in him. It was a time of drift and uncertainty. He had worked
hard in his earlier years and now, perhaps, was happy to relax and even
to enjoy himself, although he always kept up his reading. Such lack of
long-range ambition was characteristic of Snowden. When an oppor
tunity came for him to rise one step, he was always ready and fitted to