Even if the statues in Parliament Square are not ‘Made of Stone’, as the introductory music to our feature on Matt Chorley’s Radio 5live programme might suggest, the grand figures give an impression of timelessness. However, Parliament Square itself has developed in purpose and layout in the past 150 years, and of course the figures commemorated are complex and intriguing historical actors. I hope I’ve been able to thank on air my Victorian Commons colleagues, in particular Kathryn Rix, for their help in my research, and acknowledge in particular the work of Geoffrey Hicks, whose work on the square I have relied on.

Parliament Square first became a public memorial space in the 1860s, following the designs of Edward Barry, son of Charles, the architect of the rebuilt Palace of Westminster. As Hicks has argued, the initial aim of the Square was an ‘outdoor mausoleum’ and ‘sacred space’ for imperial Britain’s political leaders [Hicks, 165-67]. This was in the context of what historians have termed Victorian ‘Statue Mania’. Throughout the country, as Rix for example has recently discussed in an article describing public statues of politicians in the north and midlands, statues of ‘Great Men’ were erected as inspirational figures and decoration for new public spaces. Historians Terry Wyke and Donald Read have demonstrated the importance of the death of Prime Minister Robert Peel in starting this craze, which all seems rather strange in our more cynical political times.

The first five statues are squarely in this tradition: five prime ministers, all added in the decades after their deaths. First to be moved to the Square was George Canning (1770-1827), who until recently was the Prime Minister with the dubious honour to have been in office for the shortest time period. Nevertheless, our biography describes him as ‘One of the most singular and remarkable of the leading statesmen of his time’ [Stephen Farrell] – all the more fascinating given his relative lack of privilege for a political figure of his time. Canning’s statue, by Sir Richard Westmacott, had a difficult origin, falling off the hoist in the studio and killing an assistant sculptor in 1831, and moved from New Palace Yard in 1867 during works on Westminster ground station, to the area now known as Canning Green.

Next to follow Canning was a very different figure, a pillar of the establishment: Edward Stanley, 14^th Earl Derby (1799-1869). This statue, unveiled by his close political ally Benjamin Disraeli in 1874, has excellent reliefs by John Thomas on the plinth commemorating Derby’s political life. Henry John Temple, 3^rd Viscount Palmerston (1784-1865) by Thomas Woolner was added to the square in 1876, after earlier versions were considered too small. Palmerston’s colourful private life, despite being considered ‘the supreme epitome of Victorian pride, respectability and self-respect’ [Stephen Farrell] featured in our piece. Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), whose statue was added fourth, also in 1876 (after an earlier version was rejected after MPs), led a political life so complex and interesting it was very difficult to squeeze any of it into 8 minutes! Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was the last of the Victorian leaders first added to the square, in 1883. The statue’s role as a shrine to Disraeli by the Primrose League, the Conservative grassroots organisation, in the years after his death demonstrated the extent these Victorian politicians were admired.

That, however, all changed with the First World War, as politicians were blamed for the catastrophe and commemoration shifted to honouring the war dead. However the sixth addition, a copy of Augustus Saint-Gardens’ statue of US President Abraham Lincoln in Chicago, was originally due for inclusion in 1914. Almost as soon as he arrived Lincoln left visitors (and Matt!) asking why he was there; the answer to celebrate Anglo-American friendship in the centenary after the end of the war of 1812-14. As Hicks argued, Lincoln was the first figure added to the square to present a different view of Britain to the wider world as its imperial power declined. [Hicks, p.172]

After the Second World War, Parliament Square was reorganised by the architect George Grey Wornum largely into the design we know today. Canning and Lincoln have remained in Canning Green, with the other four organised around a grassy central area. Two spaces were left for new additions, although the Ministry of Works rather felt that the Square was ‘finished.’ [Hicks, pp.174-5] No-one had told Winston Churchill, however, who on his return to government in 1951 proposed a statue to his friend and war cabinet member Jan Smuts (1870-1950). Smuts was probably the most difficult of the individuals on the square to talk about in a short slot on the radio. Reconciling Smuts, the defender of the Commonwealth and liberal world statesman who directly influenced both the League of Nations and the Preamble to the UN Charter, with Smuts as one of the leading figures and chief architects of a racially segregated South Africa is hard to do justice to in a short period of air time. Churchill (1874-1965) himself was added in 1973, apparently having chosen his prime slot close to the Commons in the 1950s (although this story is doubted by many of his biographers). In recent years the wartime leader has also become a controversial and contested figure.

The final four figures in the Square were all added in the 21^st century, in a ‘reinvigorated’ political space, now as much as a place of protest as a ‘sacred’ space to honour parliamentary politics. The final additions were ‘radical politicians that do not proclaim too obviously the conservative nature of the project.’ [Hicks, p.180] Many of their predecessors would also have been shocked to see direct political opponents honoured in the same way they were! Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and David Lloyd George (1863-1945) were unveiled within a few months of each other in 2007, Mahatma Ghandi (1869-1948) in 2015 and Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929) in 2018. As these figures are all much more familiar to a modern audience, the ‘Made in Stone’ recordings focused more on the campaigns for their commemoration. Mandela, Lloyd George and Fawcett all made it to the square after considerable public pressure; particularly Fawcett as the first, and so far only, woman.

Excitingly, we have more in store for those of you who have enjoyed the ‘Made in Stone’ series so far, as we have recently recorded another seven pieces on statues and memorials all around parliament, from Boudicca to George V. So keep tuning in for more!

E.P.

Catch up with the series so far on BBC Sounds.

Further Reading:

Geoffrey Hicks: ‘Parliament Square: The Making of a Political Space’ Landscapes 16:2 (2015) 164181

Donald Read, Peel and the Victorians

Kathryn Rix, ‘Living in Stone or Marble: The Public Commemoration of Victorian MPs’ in Memory and Modern British Politics: Commemoration, Tradition, Legacy ed. Matthew Roberts (Bloomsbury, 2024), 13970

Kathryn Rix: Parliaments, Politics and People Seminar: Dr Geoff Hicks on ‘Memorialising Britain’s politicians: the politics of Parliament Square’

Terry Wyke, ‘Memorial Mania: Remembering and forgetting Sir Robert Peel’ in People, places and identities: Themes in British social and cultural history, 1700s-1980s eds Alan Kidd and Melanie Tebbutt (MUP, 2017)

The History of Parliament’s 2023 Undergraduate Dissertation Competition is open for entries until 29 September. Find all the details here.

“Britain is now at the full strength of an Imperial tide, and whilst the tide will still get higher, it will never submerge the joy of the little nation in its past, in its present, and in the future which it conceives for itself.”

David Lloyd George, Cardiff, October 1916.

Wales has been described by many as England’s first colony, yet it also played a formative role in British imperialism, creating a nuanced, almost paradoxical national identity that is crucial in understanding Wales today.

At the turn of the 20^th century Wales was experiencing cultural, economic and political transformation, re-emerging as a distinct nation after centuries of English dominion. This national rebirth intersected with the high-water mark of British imperialism, too, as the Empire approached its territorial and cultural extent.

In the two most significant wars during this period, the 1899-1902 Boer War and the 1914-1918 First World War, the Welsh nation compared itself to fellow small nations facing colonial expansionism and defined itself against imperial aggression.

David Lloyd George, the first and only Welsh prime minister, was a particular exponent of this ‘small nations’ narrative, personifying it as one of the strongest critics of the Boer War, and one of the strongest supporters of fighting the First World War to the bitter end.

He was a Welsh speaker, who, early in his political career, campaigned for home rule through the Cymru Fydd movement. By the end of it, however, he was at the very top of British politics as the Empire became the biggest in history. He was a complicated man whose split (or more accurately concentric) personal and political identities mirrored those of Wales – Welsh, but also British. Colonised, but also a coloniser. 

The Boer War was a popular one in Wales as it was in the rest of Britain. But there was a key contingent of Welsh Liberal Members of Parliament – the so-called pro-Boers – who opposed it using the small nations narrative, and there were many more who could certainly be classed as sympathetic to the anti-war camp while not explicit pacifists.

They held diverse views, seeing Britain’s war against the two small Boer republics as a variety of things: a greedy landgrab; a vengeful punitive campaign; a needlessly brutal colonial expedition; or even a fundamentally just war, but incompetently prosecuted.

Lloyd George led these Welsh pro-Boers, and it was on this issue he made his name, giving impassioned speeches against the war in constituency meetings in Wales and in the House of Commons alike, earning him a reputation as a firebrand backbencher.

Lloyd George’s political metamorphosis, even maturation, from anti-war activist to ‘knock-out blow’ wartime leader is a fascinating one. His rapid rise from rural constituency MP to prime minister, via ministerial posts as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Minister of Munitions and Secretary of State for War, brought with it a greater burden of responsibility and understanding of the realities of statecraft, as he sat in the seat of power of the world’s largest empire. His 1911 Mansion House speech, where he warned a sabre-rattling Germany over the Agadir Crisis, was a key point in this journey.

While his private correspondence shows that he desperately sought to maintain peace in Europe on the eve of the First World War, he became increasingly convinced of the inevitability of war and the necessity of intervening in the event of a violation of Belgian neutrality.

Here the small nations narrative returns, as his decision to support declaring war on Germany and Austria-Hungary for invading the small nations of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro was crucial in ensuring that the Cabinet remained united. He invoked the narrative in speeches throughout the war, frequently and explicitly making connections between his Welshness and his belief that the war was a just one, a war to defend fellow small nations.

Speaking to the Welsh community in his birthplace of Manchester in September 1918, Lloyd George noticed a Welsh flag hung before the platform. Pointing to the ddraig goch (red dragon), he made a call to Welsh martial tradition to deliver the final blow to Germany that was the ongoing Hundred Days Offensive:

“I like to see that its tail is well up, with a curl. But it is rather shocking that its tongue is well out too. And its claws are out too. And I do not want them sheathed until the greatest foe of human progress has been crushed.”

This war was another popular one, especially at the outset. The small nations narrative was now used, contrastingly, as a casus belli for ‘gallant little Wales’ to support, and indeed send its sons to fight and die in, a war to defend small nations rather than to conquer them. The Empire, once criticised for trampling on the right to self-determination, was now lauded for defending it.

Present but not necessarily popular in the Boer War, this narrative framing could now be found across all of Wales, from recruitment meetings and fundraising drives for Belgian refugees, to school assemblies and local newspaper reports, to even the national Eisteddfod, the beating heart of Welsh culture.

Wales in the early 20^th century was a proud nation with a distinct culture, language, religion and identity. It cannot be said, however, that it was not broadly supportive of Empire, if more critical of it than English or Scottish counterparts. The Empire was a popular project across the United Kingdom, and Wales was no exception. It had a seemingly contradictory national-imperial identity, that can be clearly seen through the contrasting uses of the small nations narrative.

In the early 20^th century, Wales conceptualised itself as a ‘small nation’ with a history of fierce independence, using this self-image to argue for a moral and responsible British Empire as a defender of self-determination, without challenging its underlying principles. David Lloyd George personified this and did much to popularise this view.

The seemingly paradoxical relationship that Wales had with the Empire shows us that history seldom fits into neat boxes. There are always nuances, contradictions, and exceptions. Yet it is all the richer for it.

RC

Robert Crosby graduated with a degree in International Relations and History from the London School of Economics in 2022, and is now completing a master’s degree in Strategic Communications at King’s College London, where he is researching the intersection of devolved politics and norm entrepreneurship in the context of the Welsh Government. He is pursuing a career in communications and currently works for a legal public relations agency.

Further reading

John W. Auld,. “The Liberal Pro-Boers”, Journal Of British Studies (1975), 14 (2): 78- 101

John S. Ellis, ““The Methods Of Barbarism” And The “Rights Of Small Nations”: War Propaganda And British Pluralism”, Albion (1998), 30 (1): 49-75

Bentley B. Gilbert, “Pacifist To Interventionist: David Lloyd George In 1911 And 1914. Was Belgium An Issue?”, The Historical Journal (1985), 28 (4): 863-885

Kenneth O. Morgan, “Peace Movements In Wales 1899-1945”,Welsh History Review (1980), 10: 398-430.

Britain was slow to adopt the constitutional device of a referendum – the practice of referring political issues directly to the judgment of the people without recourse to Parliament. It was only in the late twentieth century that referendums were held to decide important issues that cut across party lines, such as devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and Britain’s membership of, or exclusion from, the European Union.  But in the early twentieth century some prominent politicians and political theorists advocated the use of the referendum as a means of ending the constitutional deadlock between the two Houses of Parliament. The 1906 general election resulted in a large Liberal majority in the House of Commons, which soon came into conflict with the even larger Conservative majority in the House of Lords. In 1909 the Lords, in an unprecedented action, rejected Lloyd George’s Liberal Budget. The Prime Minister, Asquith, contemplated holding a referendum on the issue but instead called a general election, in January 1910, on the theme of ‘the peers versus the people’. The result left the Liberals and Conservatives with the same number of seats but the Liberals remained in office due to the support they received from Irish Nationalists and Labour MPs. The government then introduced a Parliament Bill to abolish the permanent veto that the House of Lords had over legislation passed by the Commons. The peers were desperate to preserve their veto power and some of them advocated a referendum on the question, which they hoped would be a democratic way of retaining their traditional authority.

Prominent supporters of the referendum included members of the Cecil clan – the family of the late Victorian Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. He had advocated submitting divisive issues, such as Irish home rule, to the direct judgment of the people. His views were endorsed and developed by other members of his family.

Other influential Tories, however, were wary of the referendum proposal. They feared that the referendum, once adopted, would be extended from constitutional to financial measures, which might result in confiscatory legislation against the rich. A constitutional conference between the leaders of the two main parties did not endorse the referendum proposal. Nevertheless the House of Lords passed resolutions proposing that a referendum should be held when there was a dispute between the two Houses on a matter of gravity not adequately submitted to the judgment of the people.

In December 1910 the Liberal government called another general election at which the Conservatives had two major objectives: to defend the powers of the House of Lords and to advance the cause of tariff reform. At the earlier 1910 election the Conservatives had lost seats in Lancashire – the citadel of free trade – due to their support for tariffs on food imports. To allay the fears of free traders, Arthur Balfour, the leader of the Conservative party, promised a referendum on tariff reform if the party won the general election. Balfour’s declaration angered many tariff reformers and did not secure many more seats for the Conservatives.

In March 1911 a Scottish peer, Balfour of Burleigh, introduced a ‘Reference to the People Bill’ in the House of Lords. It was supported by peers who objected to what they termed ‘single chamber tyranny’ and by peers who had experience of the successful use of the referendum in Britain’s self-governing colonies, notably Australia. But other peers were much less enthusiastic about the proposal and the Bill was suspended. Nevertheless when the peers tried to amend the 1911 Parliament Bill they specified that a referendum might be held on issues relating to the Crown, the Protestant succession and devolution. In the event, however, most supporters of the referendum – except the Cecils – abandoned their opposition to the Parliament Bill in order to prevent the Lords being swamped with new Liberal peers. The subsequent passage of the Parliament Bill ended attempts to adopt the referendum in order to resolve constitutional disputes between the two Houses of Parliament. In 1912, moreover, the Conservatives abandoned their pledge to hold a referendum on tariff reform. An attempt by Winston Churchill to have two referendums on the issue of female enfranchisement also failed.

There were various reasons why the Edwardian referendum movement proved barren of achievement. Although touted as a democratic measure, such an appeal to the people would have been restricted to a minority because at that time all women and 40% of adult males were without the vote. Furthermore it was far from clear that one issue could be singled out from a raft of interrelated measures. There was, moreover no agreement over who exactly should call a referendum, who should draft the question and what should happen if the referendum result was at odds with government policy. Most Edwardian political leaders adopted an opportunistic partisan stance on the issue – they would only contemplate its adoption if it was likely to strengthen their partisan position. There was little discussion about how the adoption of  the referendum would undermine parliamentary sovereignty. In this and in other respects, there are some clear parallels between the referendum movement before the First World War and that before, during and after the 2016 EU referendum.

RQ

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Lloyd George rapidly called an election following the signing of an armistice on 11 November 1918. Three days later an already scheduled Labour Party Conference debated the Party’s response. The Coalition Government included eight Labour Ministers. Should the party fight the pending election as an independent force or remain within the Coalition until a formal peace treaty was signed? The vote to fight the election was carried decisively by 2,117,000 to 810,000. The decision has been typically viewed as a critical moment in the party’s emergence as an independent force. The pre-war Progressive alliance between Liberals and Labour seemed shattered; the Irish Nationalists, crucial to a Progressive majority since 1910 were about to be conclusively replaced by Sinn Fein. Labour’s electoral ambitions in the context of a massively expanded franchise and an effective and self-confident trade unionism were much stronger than pre-war.

The reality in the confused politics of late 1918 was complex. An analysis of Labour’s divisions and ambiguities is central to the emerging and contested pattern of post-1918 politics. None of the eight Labour ministers supported the decision to leave the Coalition; four stayed with Lloyd George and stood in the election as Coalition Labour. Their four former colleagues all stood as official Labour candidates, each making clear their unhappiness at the decision. Two were returned unopposed; none had an official Coalition opponent. The four who quit all had strong relationships with their trade unions, a factor which might well have shaped their decisions and which distinguished them from those who stayed.

The centrality of the trade union connection was also evident in the deteriorating relationship between the Labour Party and the British Workers’ League. The League had been formed in March 1916 as a platform for Patriotic Labour. Their adversary was the minority on the left within the Independent Labour Party and the Union of Democratic Control. The BWL enjoyed support from Lord Milner who envisaged it as the basis for a realignment of Labour around an agenda of collectivism and imperialism. The League had the vigorous backing of several Labour MPs but difficulties began late in 1917. The BWL’s desire to run candidates in a future election ran foul of trade union ambitions for a greater parliamentary presence. The Yorkshire Miners’ Association reported the League to the Miners’ Federation. This issue was subsequently debated at the January 1918 Labour Party Conference and membership of the League was declared incompatible with membership of the party. The decision ended hope of a realignment of Labour and the BWL became the National Democratic Party in May 1918. In the December election it ran 25 candidates; 18 had formal Coalition support; nine were elected.

This episode underlines the centrality of trade union priorities. These did not involve in most instances any difference of opinion with either the Labour Ministers or the BWL over the war. The unions, not least in mining, were optimistic that a post-war election would increase their contingent of sponsored MPs. This would be achieved through the Labour Party and the agenda should be located within the reconstruction of the Labour Party led by Arthur Henderson following his departure from the War Cabinet in August 1917. The subsequent painstaking negotiations were directed towards the achievement of an ecumenical party in which patriotic trade unionists, members of the ILP and disenchanted former Liberals could combine.

The 1918 election did not produce such a broadly based parliamentary party but the number of candidates rose dramatically compared with pre-war although, the number that was successful remained small. Many had not faced a Coalition opponent and almost all had held firmly patriotic views on the war. The overwhelming Coalition victory rendered the NDP contingent irrelevant. They were typically bracketed with the four ex-ministers and ceased to count. After the 1922 election all but one had retired or been defeated. In contrast Labour had moved towards the ecumenical party envisaged by the reformers of 1917-18. The 1922 election widened the social base of the Parliamentary Party, but the same could not be said of the party’s electoral base which remained largely within some unionised sections of the working class. The industrial experiences of 1919-22 had strengthened support especially in the coalfields. The controversy over the findings of the Sankey Commission followed by the 1921 lockout were harsh ripostes to the optimism of 1918. Coalfield MPs remained patriots but this was tempered with a renewed sense of the inequalities of class. One Durham Miners’ Member in the last agonies of the 1926 dispute would express this aspiration. “We are citizens of this country and entitled to be treated as citizens.”

DH

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At the declaration of war in August 1914, Herbert Asquith had been Liberal Prime Minister for six years. Together with his ‘fiery’ Chancellor, David Lloyd George, his government had passed the ‘People’s Budget’, introduced old age pensions and had reformed the House of Lords, in spite of troubles over Irish Home Rule, industrial unrest and electoral reform (in particular the campaign for votes for women). The government’s two leading figures were very different characters: Asquith the accomplished legislator, Lloyd George the populist, radical Welshman. By the end of the war, Lloyd George was Prime Minister leading a coalition government and Asquith head of a group of Liberals in opposition: the party had split in two. The details of this clash of personalities and politics have also divided historians ever since.

Political differences between the two men, both in substance and style, were exposed during the first years of the war. Asquith’s initial approach was similar to that followed during the Napoleonic era: Britain’s role would largely be at sea and in funding operations on the continent. For Lloyd George, modern warfare required the total mobilisation of British society and its economy. When the creation of a coalition government with the Conservatives and the Labour party in 1915 moved Lloyd George to a new post as Minister for Munitions, he wasted no time in using sweeping powers to boost production – including deals with Trade Unions and limits on alcohol sales. The clash of ideas came to a head over the issue of conscription: for traditional Liberals, directly ordering men to the front was against basic civil liberties; for Lloyd George and the Unionists, the war effort needed increased government planning in both the armed forces and the economy. Asquith’s attempts to implement a compromise during 1915 were eventually rolled back as conscription was introduced for single, then married, men in 1916. In some ways this was a success for Asquith: his efforts at compromise ensured only one Liberal resigned from the cabinet over the issue. However, by being forced to ‘give in’ he appeared weak, and faced criticism for hesitation.

Differences in style only underlined this split. Asquith’s ‘business as usual’ and ‘wait and see’ politics came under increasing criticism in the face of military setbacks in the Dardanelles and the Somme. His reluctance to change the mechanisms of government to allow for quick decisions and increased control over the military came under attack from the more dynamic Lloyd George (whose own style would later be criticised for being too authoritarian). In November 1916 a Conservative back bench rebellion threatened the government, and Lloyd George (with Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law and Lord Beaverbrook) decided to act. They proposed Asquith set up a three-man ‘war council’, chaired by Lloyd George, which would retain control of war policy. Asquith would remain Prime Minister, but he would not have a seat on this committee. After first acquiescing, Asquith later rejected the deal, and offered his resignation. On 7^th December Lloyd George became Prime Minister.

Historians have long debated whether Lloyd George treacherously plotted to grab the premiership, or whether his frustrations over the war caused him to seize his chance. Either way, the consequences for the Liberals were disastrous. Asquith was left with a ‘permanent sense of affront’ [H. C. G. Matthew, ODNB, ‘Asquith, Herbert Henry‘] at his usurpation, but he remained leader of the Liberal party, and many resigned with him from the government. Although Lloyd George was Prime Minister, supported by a group of younger Liberal MPs, he was reliant on the support of the Conservatives – a strange position for the man behind the ‘People’s Budget’.

Before the end of the war the split grew deeper. Following the German spring offensive in 1918, Lloyd George was accused by General Sir Frederick Maurice of denying British generals the troops they asked for on the Western Front. Lloyd George strongly denied this politically-explosive accusation, even if there was some truth in it (he did not always approve of his generals’ tactics and may have limited troop numbers as an attempt to influence them). Asquith proposed a vote of censure against Lloyd George in the Commons, and despite Lloyd George’s barnstorming speech and – probably massaged – troop figures denying the claims, 98 Liberals voted with Asquith. Although Lloyd George won the vote convincingly, this division proved decisive at the general election held after the armistice.

Without the full backing of the Liberal party, Lloyd George declared he would fight the 1918 election on behalf of the governing coalition. Government-approved candidates were given a ‘coupon’ of approval, and very few of those Liberals who voted against him in the Maurice debate received this approval. Standing against the coalition were the Asquith Liberals and the Labour party – the latter going it alone for the first time in their electoral history. The result was decisive. The government won by a landslide, in a coalition of 380 Conservatives and 133 Lloyd George Liberals. Asquith’s Liberals were out-performed by the Labour party, and Asquith himself lost his seat.

When Lloyd George fell in 1922 after the Conservatives pulled out of the coalition following a backbench revolt (which gave its name to the party’s powerful committee of MPs), the divided Liberals were soon eclipsed even in opposition by Labour. Both men remained in the party in an uneasy arrangement, but it never recovered from the disastrous battle of two leaders.

EP

Further Reading:

• Liberal History Group website: Resources, 1910-1929
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: ‘Asquith, Herbert Henry‘
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: ‘George, David Lloyd‘

The History of Parliament’s annual lecture for 2016 will be given by our Trustee Lord Morgan, and focus on David Lloyd George. Details will follow on our website shortly.

For the rest of the post in this series on internal party wrangling, click here. Watch this space for more!