Talk:H. H. Asquith

Move
This page should be moved from "Herbert Henry Asquith" to "H.H. Asquith" because that was his actual use name. (See my edit of the page.) But although I am a registed user and logged on, when I try to do this I keep being sent to a page telling me that I need to be a registered user and log on to do this.

Whether or not Asquith preferred to be know as H.H. Asquith or not is irrelevant. His name was Herbert Henry Asquith and, importantly, it is as 'Herbert Asquith' that he is best known. Valiant Son 23:41, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, that is not true. Wikipedia practice is to put main entries under the name by which the person is best known, not under their full legal name. And Asquith is, and always has been, best-known as "H.H. Asquith" unless and until incorrect encyclopedia entries persuade people to call him by the wrong form of his name. - Kalimac, April 14, 2006

Edwardian gentlemen often referred to themselves by pairs of initials (eg. A.J.Balfour, C.T.Ritchie, F.E.Smith, C.B.Fry) rather as Indians do today. H.H.Asquith was no different - although his upward social mobility with his second marriage was marked by a change in the Christian name by which he was privately called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.40.198.126 (talk) 12:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Squiff
Why does this page show up when I search for an entry on "squiff"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 170.20.11.116 (talk • contribs).


 * Apparently it was a nickname used by his detractors. It may warrant a mention somewhere on the page... &mdash;Wh o  uk (talk) 07:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

As i recall members of his liberal faction were named "squifites" while he himself was rather fond of a drink (squiffy). As i have no sources for this other than the memory of a history lesson i'll leave it here unless someone can confirm.


 * It was a nickname used by his political opponents. e.g. Leo Amery in February 1916 wrote Not only the country, but even the House of Commons are very sick of the Government - and old Squiff in particular. Bastie 00:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Venetia Stanley
Added a sentence on Asquith's infatuation with her; it's sufficiently well-known (resulting after all in a published volume of his letters to her which is an important biographical resource) that it seemed odd not to find her mentioned. --Andersonblog (talk) 01:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Reputation
Asquith's reputation remains pretty low because of his wartime failure. John Little is something of a supported but Little admits that A's "reputation suffered severe criticism from his political enemies following his fall from office, and historians, almost without exception, have followed this lead. The image that survives is of a vacillating prime minister, barely handling forces he could not contain." Wiki should rpeat that consensus --"almost without exception" is pretty strong. See John Gordon Little, H. H. Asquith and Britain's Manpower Problem, 1914-1915. History; 1997 82(267): 397-409 Rjensen (talk) 17:40, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Name

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

H. H. Asquith → Herbert Henry Asquith – per wp:common which states "In determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, it is useful to observe the usage of major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, quality encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies and scientific journals." The two are close with "Herbert Henry Asquith" edging out H.H. in GHits and the Dictionary of National Biography using "Herbert Henry Asquith". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:45, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "Herbert Henry Asquith" 67,200 Ghits
 * "H. H. Asquith" 65,000 Ghits


 * Comment. I have no opinion about the move, but this is one of the examples used at WP:UCN ("H. H. Asquith (not Herbert Henry Asquith)"), so if the page is moved that reference will need to be removed. And the Dictionary of National Biography always uses full names, so it's not the best guide to use if you're searching for the "common name". Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. A generic google search will often throw up a lot of unreliable sources, so it is better to search google books/google scholar/google news archive (depending on which is more appropriate) because the majority of hits with those searches will be reliable. A google books search shows 19,900 hits for "H. H. Asquith", compared to only 8,400 for "Herbert Henry Asquith". Similar results with google news archive; 1,650 hits for "H. H. Asquith", compared to 354 for "Herbert Henry Asquith". Jenks24 (talk) 12:13, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Ridiculous to say the DNB uses "Herbert Henry Asquith". As a dictionary of biography, the DNB naturally uses his full name, just as we do in the body of the article. But he is commonly referred to as "H. H. Asquith". -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:10, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. I don't see why GBooks or GScholars are better than just plain Google for this one. That I knew what his full name was before coming here suggests to me, a Canadian, that it is not rare in the literature. Srnec (talk) 16:00, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Gbooks and gscholar are better because they give more reliable sources (see more at WP:AT). Jenks24 (talk) 16:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Nobody is saying that his full name is not well-known, but it is not his commonly-used name. In any case, if we were going to use his first name instead of his initials then we should probably use just Herbert Asquith, as middle names shouldn't generally be used. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:00, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Necrothesp's arguments. Rjensen (talk) 02:08, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. He is most commonly known as "H. H. Asquith". He even signs himself off as "H. H. Asquith" in a voice recording.--Britannicus (talk) 19:51, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Possible illegitimate son
It has been suggested that Louis T. Stanley, owner of the BRM Formula One team, was an illegitimate child of Asquith's with Louis' mother, Venetia Stanley. This has come out in a new book - Louis was the author's stepfather. I thought someone might be interested in this as it could have some influence on future additions to the page. Readro (talk) 22:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This article has photographs of Louis Stanley and H. H. Asquith. The resemblance is uncanny. Apparently more of Asquith's letters will be released in 2015 by the Bodleian Library. Perhaps they will shed more light on their relationship.--Britannicus (talk) 20:42, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to note that we have an existing article on the woman in question, Venetia Stanley (1887–1948). BrainyBabe (talk) 19:41, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * For information, in the event that it is ever required. I have read Ms Neate's book which is complete nonsense.  Lacking both an index and a bibliography, and very poorly written, it seeks to establish that Ms Neate's step-father, Louis Stanley, was the illegitimate son of Asquith and Venetia Stanley.  Unfortunately, it does so without any evidence, and indeed ignores evidence that doesn't fit Ms Neate's theory.  The examples are legion, including: positing an earlier beginning to the full relationship than is supported by the evidence; ignoring documented evidence that Venetia wasn't pregnant when Ms Neate's theory needs her to be; suggesting that the ending of the relationship was the direct cause of the first coalition; claiming that Louis Stanley's birth certificate must be forged as the date of his birth doesn't fit her theory; getting the date of Asquith's death wrong; and, perhaps most critically, saying that a further cache of Asquith-Stanley letters, which would support her claims, was held by the Bodleian and was due to release in 2015.  No such cache exists, as the Bodleian has confirmed to me.  All of the letters they hold were made available soon after their purchase in 2002, some 10 years before Ms Neate wrote her book.  Ms Neate's book does, at least, have the benefit of being truthful at some points - on p.88 she writes, "Everything slotted into place.  I had no evidence that Louis was illegitimate or even the son of an MP, but from that moment onwards I never had any doubts that Venetia Stanley was his mother and Asquith his father.  Now I had a purpose – something to fight for.  For my own satisfaction I would prove it.”  However, she has no more evidence for her claims at the end of her book than she did at its beginning.  In short, a very WP:Fringe source.  KJP1 (talk) 17:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Based on what you say, it sounds like nonsense. When somebody has a theory and admits openly that he is "setting out to prove it", and starts claiming that evidence that doesn't support his theory must have been hidden away in small print appendices or, worse, documents concealed by the authorities or falsified, one is usually into crackpot territory.Paulturtle (talk) 19:05, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Believe me, I've done you a favour by reading it! And I had to buy it, though fortunately it was going for £2.01, p&p included, on Amazon.  I thought the "secret cache" of letters sounded odd so checked with the Bodleian and they confirmed there's nothing more.  But it's the kind of salacious stuff Wikipedia sometimes has a weakness for, so I thought I'd get a pre-emptive strike in. KJP1 (talk) 21:21, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Even superficial physical resemblance doesn't necessarily prove anything. So far as we can tell from old black and white photos Violet, HHA's daughter from his first marriage, appears to have borne a striking resemblance to Margot his second wife. But it's coincidental, as they were not blood relatives. Maybe he fancied Margot and Venetia (who also looked a bit similar) as like many men he had a "type", but that's as far as it goes. Paulturtle (talk) 06:34, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

19 November 1917 Commons debate
"After Lloyd George’s Paris speech (12 November) at which he said that “when he saw the appalling casualty lists he wish(ed) it had not been necessary to win so many (“victories”)” Asquith (briefed by Robertson) rose to loud cheers to debate the matter in the Commons (19 November) ..."

This sentence appears to be in need of a little expansion. Is there a summary of what Asquith said? Did the debate result in anything? etcEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 07:40, 18 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The "official" line, put about by the generals and their press allies, was that the Somme, Third Ypres, etc were "victories", based in part on massaging the German casualty figures upwards, but otherwise a line which one still occasionally encounters in sillier military history enthusiasts even today, sometimes based on cherry picking a few choice sentences from the memoirs of German generals out of context. Of course they inflicted painful loss on the Germans, but not enough - France, Italy and Russia all cracked long before Germany did, British losses were unsustainable for a war whose duration was still uncertain (with agriculture, shipbuilding and ship-crewing also needing manpower), and the Allies might very well have had to throw in the towel had the USA not lent a hand (which is not to denigrate the BEF's superb role in autumn 1918). That is why the popular myth version of the war (that those offensives were simply "disasters", or Haig a moron) grew up. By the end of 1917 Lloyd George was starting to reassert political control over the war and getting ready to scale down the BEF and concentrate on land grab in the Middle East (he openly said that Palestine and Mesopotamia would be his legacy just as Bengal and Quebec had been for Pitt the Elder). The debate resulted in Lloyd George retaining power and Liberal division deepening, and ultimately Henry Wilson replacing Robertson as CIGS, and then in Spring 1918 the Germans, supposedly almost beaten, came close to inflicting catastrophic eleventh hour defeat on the Allies, the blame for which continues to be debated.Paulturtle (talk) 16:44, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Champagne from Corney & Barrow
A note for passing researchers, but unworthy of comment in the main text. In a Corney & Barrow order book (Guildhall Library, MS 11779) are records of orders of champagne, by “The Rt Hon’ble H. H. Asquith M.P.” (of “127 Mo[illegible]t Street”), on several dates including 10th January 1893. “2 Dz. Perrier Jouet 1884 Champagne … £10—”, and “2 Dz. Giesler 1884 Champagne … £9.12—”. (My picture #5974.) Those writing (another) biography might wish to be the first to peruse this tome. JDAWiseman (talk) 22:52, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Wasn't Perrier Jouet Oscar Wilde's favourite champagne? DuncanHill (talk) 00:30, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Orphaned references in H. H. Asquith
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of H. H. Asquith's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "odnb": From Percy Alden:  From William Nicholson, 1st Baron Nicholson:  From Sir Edward Holden, 1st Baronet:  From Arthur Winnington-Ingram: Article by Jeremy Morris. From Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle:  From Reginald McKenna: "McKenna, Reginald" - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography From Frederick Leith-Ross:  <li>From Claud Schuster, 1st Baron Schuster: </li> <li>From Michael Howard: (Subscription Required)</li> <li>From John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon:

</li> <li>From May Tennant: Serena Kelly, "Tennant, Margery Mary Edith Josephine Pia (1869–1946)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004</li> <li>From Henry McCardie: </li> <li>From William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield: </li> <li>From Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener: </li> <li>From John Lawson Walton: J. B. Atlay, revised by H. C. G. Matthew, Sir John Lawson Walton in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online; OUP 2004–10 (subscription or UK library card required for online access). Retrieved on 20 August 2010.</li> <li>From John Cowans: John Cowans at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</li> <li>From Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet: </li> <li>From John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute: Miller, Karl, Stuart, Lady Louisa (1757–1851), writer in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004 & online edition, January 2006 (subscription required) accessed 2 March 2008</li> <li>From Thomas McKinnon Wood: </li> <li>From Nevil Macready: </li> <li>From Francis Bridgeman (Royal Navy officer): </li> <li>From Rab Butler: </li> <li>From John French, 1st Earl of Ypres: </li> <li>From Martin Dunbar-Nasmith: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</li> <li>From Charles Abbott, 1st Baron Tenterden: </li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:36, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Bobbie Neate claims.
Are the claims made by Bobbie Neate worth including in the article at the present time? It seems to me to be a single, uncorroborated, and speculative source. Bobby Neate is not a historian. DuncanHill (talk) 15:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)


 * In general I'm not fond of chopping stuff out of articles but it does seem a bit thin. Perhaps it should be relegated to a footnote. There've been a few books published about Margot lately so it would be worth checking to see if the claim has been given any credence by reputable writers. My understanding is that Venetia and Asquith probably did not have much, if any, of a sexual relationship, although people have tried to read stuff into some phrase in one of Asquith's letters about how he'd "got to know the real her" which was apparently a euphemism of the time.Paulturtle (talk) 01:06, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with the footnote idea, and if there are any reliable sources giving credence then yes, it could go back into the main body. DuncanHill (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Ann de Courcy's book about Margot doesn't discuss this, although she does have some useful material about how Venetia used to write back to Asquith - it wasn't just a one-sided crush. Her view, and it does seem to be just opinion, was that Asquith and Venetia probably were lovers as she was in her late twenties and Margot had broken off conjugal relations after a series of difficult pregnancies. There is also a paragraph about the post-coital oily douche which upper-class women used to use for contraception at that time, which is an amusing bit of social history if nothing else.Paulturtle (talk) 02:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC) The view of Michael and Eleanor Brock is that the relationship was probably not consummated, which I think is probably the majority view, although of course we shall never know for certain unless other letters come to light which make matters explicitly clear.Paulturtle (talk) 09:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The Budget and the Lords
This section was semi-complete, almost entirely my fault as I started writing it up a few summers ago and had only managed to write up the period up to Edward VII's death. (I wish we could find a cite for the cry at the time that Asquith had "killed the King"). My notes from 1910 onwards are somewhere in development hell, along with my notes on the horribly complex intrigues of December 1916. A lot of good stuff has been added lately but a fair bit of baby - e.g. the real or perceived Irish dimension - had gone out with the bathwater.

At same stage we may need a bit more on Asquith's bullying of the new King late in 1910, e.g. telling him that he had no business consulting the Tory leaders, so King George gave a pledge unaware that Balfour would have been willing to form a government. And yet Edward VII had been consulting Balfour throughout. Asquith at one point lectured the new King that it had been established since the 1830s that ministerial advice was binding on the monarch - he was referring to William IV's attempt to put Peel in as Prime Minister in 1834 - a deliberate confusion of the monarch's purely nominal role in day-to-day government with his having to bow to political reality in the exercise of his powers as Head of State (legal textbooks to this day inform us that the monarch appoints and dismisses the Prime Minister and can take advice from whoever she pleases on that matter - otherwise a Prime Minister could give "binding advice" that he remain in office, or who his successor should be - even if in practice she has to appoint somebody who can command a majority in the House of Commons and it is hard to think of a crisis so grave that the monarch would actually get involved in politics nowadays). The same sort of thing was true over the Curragh Incident of March 1914 - Asquith cheekily lectured the King at one point that the Army was entirely under government orders, and the King's role purely nominal, in the same way as any government department like the Post Office. This view was most certainly not shared by the King or by senior officers, who made clear that they were not prepared to do the government's dirty work for them.

One does has to be careful with this topic as the Tories and Ulster Unionists of that era do get a very rough ride from even moderately leftish historians, e.g. crass talk that their actions were "barely legal", so much so that it's an eye-opener to read documents from the period and see how Asquith and his Cabinet were regarded by half the political nation as virtual traitors. If Asquith had failed, e.g. if Edward VII had told him to shove off in April when he demanded creation of peers without a second election, it's impossible to say where the crisis would have gone but it seems fair to say that historians would write about him rather differently.Paulturtle (talk) 05:40, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your thoughtful advice. Do you have suggestions as to what sources I might consult (especially if online, say JSTOR or the like) as to Asquith and King George in late 1910? I am sorry to overwrite your work.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:00, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm not stopping you from editing the article - I don't own it. My copies of Spender & Asquith, Jenkins and Koss are somewhere in the attic so I was relying on books about Edward VII – I’ve made notes from the Nicolson and Kenneth Rose biogs of George V but haven’t got round to posting them. I’ve also been making notes from Hattersley’s biog of Lloyd George. All of that is just to get an easy-to-read narrative in place.

Edward VII was a lazy man who did not read much, but at the same time was a shrewd judge of men and was keenly involved in political and military matters. George V was not terribly bright, and was famously better on paper than orally, because his papers were written for him by his eminence gris Lord Stamfordham – he later said that he should have sent Asquith away and insisted on time to give a considered answer. George V/Stamfordham did take legal advice as the Irish Home Rule Bill wended its way amidst angry scenes in the Commons (Asquith had been studiously ambiguous on the Irish issue in the Dec 1910 election) – and were told he was still perfectly entitled to dismiss the Prime Minister, to refuse a dissolution or to order one contrary to the Prime Minister’s wishes, or to veto the legislation. They backed off rather than be seen to be taking sides in politics.

Just flicking through the Balfour biogs (Zebel, Ruddock Mackay, Adams, Egremont) makes it clear how exercised the Tories were about tariff reform in 1910. Adams’ biog of Bonar Law (1999) might be worth looking at, and Robert Blake’s classic “The Unknown Prime Minister” is still serviceable. Beyond that one would have to dig deeper into specialist works on the politics of the period – people like Peter Clarke and Ross McKibbin have written on Liberal and Labour politics.

Obviously it’s a biography of Asquith so the focus needs to be on what Asquith said, wrote and did. My main concern is to make sure that everybody’s point of view is covered fairly, rather than slipping into a jejune account of how the Liberals were bringing in self-evidently beneficial reforms in the teeth of “obstruction” from the stupid and wicked Tories.Paulturtle (talk) 03:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Just flicked through a few books this evening and it appears that Asquith's demand for secret assurances off King George in November 1910 - having asked for no such assurances when he first requested an election a few days earlier - is thought to have been so that he could be seen to have kept his pledge back in the debate in April that he would seek assurances "in that parliament". Unless any of the Asquith biogs say different. More on this anon.Paulturtle (talk) 00:55, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll look for it tonight, though the Asquith bios are going to go back to the library for a while tomorrow due to higher priorities. I may do some additional reading before resuming.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I've just given Bonar Law's biog a thorough comb-through. It's largely based on the 1999 Adams biog (my copy of which is sadly in storage) but does give a clear picture of how heated tempers were getting over Ireland in the 1912-14 period, with Asquith pushing through a major constitutional change without any clear mandate, and doing his best to avoid a General Election which the Liberals would very likely have lost. Asquith had deliberately not committed himself to any settlement over Ulster, so what would have happened had war not intervened is hard to say: either hostilities as is usually assumed, or perhaps as Keith Jeffrey argues, deprived of the option of using the Army the government would have had to back down, grant the Six Counties a complete opt-out and tell Redmond to lump it ... and of course the arguments about potential Home Rule settlements just rumbled on and on until they were left behind by events in southern Ireland. Anyway, more on this anon.Paulturtle (talk) 12:34, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Reference
A note on the proposed Catholic procession (currently note 65) is "Devlin, pp. 408–409". The book's title needs to be included as it is not in the references section.--Britannicus (talk) 15:30, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


 * That's a prime example of why that style of referencing is so bloody awful and unsuited to Wikipedia. DuncanHill (talk) 15:31, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * agreed. Rjensen (talk) 15:50, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I think I've found it on JSTOR in a piece in Volume 63 of Church History- if I'm right I'll update the ref. Well spotted! DuncanHill (talk) 16:02, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Done! JSTOR was being a bit temperamental and pretending that I wasn't logged in, but got there in the end. Many thanks for spotting this, "ghost" refs are in many ways worse than no refs, as if people aren't as on the ball as you they can easily get overlooked. DuncanHill (talk) 16:31, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Good job on hunting down the reference!--Britannicus (talk) 16:56, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that, I meant to add it when I added the ref, but I was on a cruise ship (Baltics) at the time and they charge internet by the minute, so my editing was a bit disjointed.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:21, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Balfour and December 1916
Just combing through Wehwalt's recent rewrite of the article - most of it, in fairness, excellent work and a good effort has clearly been made to disentangle the byzantine intrigues of December 1916, in which, as the article quite rightly points out, important discrepancies and differences of interpretation still remain.

I'm just raising a slight query for the time being about the claim that Balfour "shifted allegiance" prior to the Buckingham Palace Conference. Just had a flick through four Balfour biogs which I have to hand - Egremont, Zebel, Adams and Ruddock Mackay (annoyingly I don't own the Kenneth Young biog which is cited in the article) - they all seem to agree that Balfour, who had been ill, resigned because he thought Lloyd George deserved a chance to run his small War Council and did not intrigue or rustle up support to hang onto the Admiralty. On the other hand, like most of the players at first he insisted that he wanted Asquith to stay on as a figurehead PM (because Asquith could run a broader-based administration in which the Irish nats and left-wing Liberals were more likely to stay on board, although he doesn't specifically say so). Only after the Buckingham Palace Conference did he agree to serve as Foreign Secretary under Lloyd George, either when asked by Bonar Law on his way away from the Palace, or if Aitken's more picturesque account is to be preferred Bonar Law called on him and he replied something like "very well, if you put a gun to my head I accept", an account which cannot be discounted altogether as Balfour apparently did use that phrase.

I'm not quite sure how Woy Jenkins interprets all this as "a change of allegiance" at the time of his resignation. My copy of Jenkins is buried deep in the attic but I'll have a chance to look at a copy when I next go up to London on Tuesday.

Of course there is Churchill's famous phrase about Balfour changing sides like "a powerful graceful cat" crossing a muddy street, but that really concerns his agreeing to serve under Lloyd George.Paulturtle (talk) 02:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Paul, Firstly, we're delighted that you like the rewrite. We tried to build on the earlier version, to which you contributed so much.  Secondly, many thanks indeed for all of your recent contributions, which have further improved the article.  Thirdly, re. Pretty Fanny, I take a somewhat more cynical view.  I think Balfour's love of power was a very strong strand within his character.  But you're entirely right that we will never know exactly what his motivations were.  The Fall was accompanied by so much confusion, dissembling and downright lying that it's impossible to know the complete truth and all attempts to chronicle it will have elements of interpretation.  In this case, your rewording shows that it was Jenkins who took a cynical view of Balfour's moves, which I happen to share, but that others are more charitable.  Which is completely fair.


 * In a while - with half an eye on the centenary of Asquith's Fall on 6 December 2016 - we want to take this to FA. Your contributions there would be hugely appreciated, as they are here.  Best regards.  KJP1 (talk) 06:44, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Re Balfour, I suspect he was just a well-practised political survivor and knew that it was not be helpful to make himself into the focus of attention by trying to hang onto the Admiralty if Lloyd George and Carson wanted him out. He could see which way the wind was blowing, i.e. that Asquith's position was a bit weak, but the evidence suggests that he was acting out of self-preservation rather than actively trying to deepen the crisis. He was still a major political "big beast" (in modern parlance), perhaps even a figurehead Prime Minister himself at a pinch. But at this stage nobody overtly wanted Asquith out as Prime Minister (unless, as you say, everybody was lying - but I don't think that's really what the most accurate books say): it was Asquith who then resigned as Prime Minister, and it's unclear whether he was just at the end of his tether or whether he was going all-in and gambling that nobody else could form a government, that the Tories would have to carry on putting up with him and the likes of Lloyd George and Carson would simply have to accept his authority no matter how much leeway he was willing to allow them. Maybe Jenkins is saying that Asquith had slipped up in not realising that others, including Balfour, might be willing to support a Lloyd George government. But I'll check when I get to a copy.

Re the article, I have stacks of notes on Asquith kicking around, most of them done last year, including stuff on some of the thornier bits like Welsh Disestablishment in the 1890s, Featherstone, Relugas (it was actually Asquith who was the first to rat), the outbreak of war in 1914, the formation of the coalition in 1915 (the evidence is quite thin on Asquith's sudden decision there, and Koss's theories aren't really accepted by other historians). I've also got a copy of the Michael and Eleanor Brock book on Margot turning up any day now - it has an excellent introduction on which I had taken notes which I then lost. I quite enjoy getting my head round complex material but I'm a bit bad at finishing articles ... but I'll see what I can do over the next month or so.Paulturtle (talk) 13:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Jenkins' actual wording is; "It is doubtful whether Asquith fully assimilated the shift of allegiance which this letter (Balfour's first) quietly announced." And Jenkins certainly has a view on Balfour's motivations; "he had an unusually strong although carefully concealed love of office,."  I think your suggestion of HHA "slipping up" is pretty close to Jenkins' meaning.  As an aside, the "You hold a pistol to my head" quote.  Does anyone have it but Beaverbrook, and those who came after, who so often took Beaverbrook on trust?  To me, and Young, it has a strong whiff of the Beaver's dramatic flair and journalistic licence.  Another instance, perhaps, of why it is almost impossible to now know exactly who did what, let alone who thought what.  KJP1 (talk) 17:14, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thought I'd go and re-read Beaverbrook and it is interesting. He says; "Bonar Law found Balfour sitting in a chair in his bedroom, wearing a dressing gown.  (BL) offered him the (FS).  Lord Balfour jumped up instantly and replied: 'Well, you hold a pistol to my head - I must accept'."  But in an immediately following footnote, the Beaver records; "Lord Balfour wrote me that he believed the first suggestion that he should take the Foreign Office was made as he and Bonar Law were walking away from the Buckingham Palace Conference.  This was not Bonar Law's recollection."  So, contradiction even then.  BL, through the prism of Beaverbrook, or Balfour - I know whose version I'd incline to believe.  As a further aside, I was in no way intending to suggest that all the players were liars.  But some certainly were, LlG foremost amongst them!  All the best.  KJP1 (talk) 17:25, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

It just isn't clear who was telling the truth. By the time Beaverbrook (as he was by then) wrote up his account, Bonar Law was dead. Balfour was old and sick, declined an offer to proof-read the manuscript, and said that his recollection was the discussion whilst walking away from the Palace, but that he couldn't be exactly sure. One of Balfour's biographers also remarks that he was in the habit of using the phrase "hold a pistol to x's head". So maybe one or all of the participants got genuinely muddled in his recollections (we've all had the experience of checking an old diary and finding we've mixed up events which happened on separate days, or conflated the two in our mind, or forgotten stuff altogether), or maybe both meetings happened. But as for Jenkins, based on what you say it sounds like he means that Balfour was distancing himself from Asquith a bit, not that he was (yet) actively aligning with Lloyd George, and as I said Asquith blundered in not realising that Balfour would jump ship once Asquith was no longer PM.Paulturtle (talk) 05:05, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Just had a chance to reread the relevant chapter of Jenkins properly (reread Koss, which is much more deeply researched as you would expect of an academic historian, last week). Jenkins uses the same phrase again, Balfour "switching allegiance" a few pages later, to talk of Balfour accepting the FO. So it's not entirely clear whether it's sloppy writing on Jenkins' part - meaning that Asquith should have guessed from Balfour distancing himself that he might jump ship - or whether Jenkins is implying (without evidence) that Balfour already had switched allegiance. But I don't think we need to go into that. We can just stick to the facts.Paulturtle (talk) 04:44, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Place of death
I see the issue over the Berkshire/Oxfordshire POD has rearisen today, so I've decided to raise the debate since it was originally my edit that was reverted a few weeks ago: In my opinion, the articles should be written in the context of their time. Sutton Courtenay was in Berkshire when Asquith died, and it was never in Oxfordshire during his lifetime. What I noticed was that his POB is listed as the West Riding of Yorkshire, which no longer exists as an administrative county, so why would one be reverted and not the other? I won't go to the extreme and say it's "confusing/distorting history" etc (see the Ridley Scott article), but on most other biographies, any counties listed are usually in the historical context (e.g. Liverpool, Lancashire/Sunderland, County Durham/Abingdon, Berkshire etc.). It's a minor issue but it shouldn't really be a contentious one. Samuel J Walker (talk) 23:48, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree that it should be given as it was at the time that the event occurred. DuncanHill (talk) 23:50, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Also agree that we should use the administration details at the time of the event. Thus any references to South Yorkshire for dates before 1974 are incorrect and should use West Riding of Yorkshire. Similarly for Berkshire/Oxfordshire depending on the time frame for the event. Keith D (talk) 00:21, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree it's a minor issue, but I would favour having Sutton Courtenay in Oxfordshire, accepting that, for internal consistency, the earlier Yorkshire references should also change. If I was looking for HHA's grave, I would be confused to find that Wikipedia places it in Berkshire, when it isn't, and I think it would make us look anachronistic and quaint - rather than encyclopaedic. Three further thoughts:
 * would a footnote help?
 * doesn't Wikipedia have a policy/guideline on this?
 * what would we do with his "resting place"? Would we really place Sutton Courtenay in two different counties, 1 line apart? KJP1 (talk) 16:35, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I've done a bit of searching on this, and I've come across the MoS section on this, and I've decided to copy and paste the bit I find most relevant to this discussion:
 * Many place names have a historical context that should be preserved, but common sense should prevail. There can be few places that have not been parts of more than one culture or have had only one name. An article about Junipero Serra should say he lived in Alta Mexico not the U.S. state of California because the latter entity did not exist at the time of Junipero Serra. The Romans invaded Gaul, not France, and Thabo Mbeki was the president of the Republic of South Africa, not of the Cape Colony. To be clear, you may sometimes need to mention the current name of the area (for example "what is now France"), especially if no English name exists for that area in the relevant historical period.
 * I don't think it makes us look "anachronistic" or "quaint" to list that Asquith was born in the WR or Yorkshire and died in Berkshire, quite the reverse, because an encyclopedic Wikipedia would have the facts in the correct context. For example, on World War II articles, you'd see reference to Leningrad and Stalingrad, not St Petersburg or Volgograd. Samuel J Walker (talk) 23:26, 28 February 2017 (UTC)


 * It's also worth noting that the article Sutton Courtenay mentions the change of county in the second sentence, as is visible to anyone using pop-ups, so I doubt that anyone would end up in the wrong place, unless they planned driving randomly around graveyards in the current iteration of Berks looking for Asquith's grave. DuncanHill (talk) 23:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Not one to die in the last ditch over. If the consensus is for Berkshire, then Berkshire it should be. KJP1 (talk) 06:08, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Asquith did NOT like Lloyd George in early 1920s
There is a 1995 book by Paul Adelman --a leading expert on the Liberal party--that states I think very clearly that Asquith strongly disliked Lloyd George in the early 1920s: he writes: “The crises and quarrels that set Liberal against Liberal during the years between 1916 and 1922 could not easily be forgotten, and the personal relations of Asquith and Lloyd George were no better now than they had been during the years of the coalition itself. For Asquith, the National Liberals were ‘all of them renegades’, and he indicated to Herbert Gladstone that ‘he would never again accept Lloyd George as a colleague'. . . . Asquith nevertheless accepted the principle of reunion, however reluctantly; but it had to be reunion on his terms. He made it clear that the ex-Coalitionists (especially Lloyd George)  would be welcomed back to the Liberal party, not in a spirit of equality and friendship but as erring sinners who had repented of their folly and were now prepared to accept the wisdom and leadership of the Asquithian establishment.”  Paul Adelman, The Decline Of The Liberal Party 1910-1931 p 52. Rjensen (talk) 11:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Adelman's short books, including "The Rise of the Labour Party" and "Gladstone, Disraeli and Later Victorian Politics" used to be staples for A-Level students, and useful nutshell guides for undergrads who hadn't got round to opening a book until the exam was only a month away.


 * This is, I think, the sort of thing where one has to stick to what the facts tell us - certainly in an article which has reached this level of detail - rather than rely on oversimplifications like saying "Asquith strongly disliked Lloyd George".


 * I'm not daft enough to think that they were close personal friends. Clearly they weren't. The usual rule of thumb in British politics is that there are a few close personal relationships, including some unlikely cross-party ones, but people in the same party tend, in private, to thoroughly dislike one another, as they are fighting viciously over the same turf - sometimes with personal animosities going back all the way to their student days, and competing with one another to get selected for winnable seats and for ministerial positions in a way that American senators and congressmen perhaps aren't. "Those people opposite are your opponents; your enemies are the ones sitting around you" as the old saw goes, yet somehow they manage to work with one another; at the same time the weighty figures, the "Big Beasts", sort of recognise and respect one another even if their ideological viewpoint is different. As far as Asquith was concerned, Lloyd George was a known quantity, going all the way back to the early 1890s when he had been a nuisance backbencher and Asquith the thrusting young Home Secretary. In 1905-16 they were always wary colleagues, closer at some times than others. Asquith seems to a certain extent to have put Lloyd George's behaviour in 1916 down to where it came from, whilst being really hurt by the ruthlessness of Balfour, whom he respected and had tried to keep in office. Therafter it tended to be the people around Asquith who really hated Lloyd George.


 * Conversely Asquith despised Bonar Law, mainly I think because he hadn't been to Oxford - he still had no problems working with him when he had to.


 * On a personal level, their relations always remained cordial if strained, as far as I'm aware. I included the story about Lloyd George helping a drunk Asquith up the stairs at a party in 1922; there was another occasion (I forget exactly when) at a railway station when Lloyd George saw Asquith and Margot waiting to board a train, and he had the police open the barriers and invite them to join him on the prime ministerial train. The Liberal Party had had serious splits before, eg. in the 1890s, and personal relations between Rosebery and Harcourt were a lot worse - barely on speaking terms iirc - than they ever were between Asquith and Lloyd George.


 * If you know when he made that indication to Herbert Gladstone we can add it to the narrative (I'm guessing it was probably HG who recorded it, in which case there are obvious issues of a biased eyewitness remembering what he wanted to hear). The rest of the Adelman quote is basically saying the same as what is already in the article - in his guts HHA knew that the Liberal Party would have to reunite, but he wanted it to be on his terms, so they were sort of circling warily until Baldwin's adoption of Protection threw them together. As Adelman says, Asquith was cross with the Liberals who had deserted him to support Lloyd George, hence his "gloating" at Churchill et al losing their seats in 1922 (it's in the article already) - but MSR Kinnear writes that this is evidence of Asquith's main motivation being dislike of Lloyd George, when as far as I can see it is no such thing. I dare say there was an element of satisfaction that Lloyd George had at last had his come-uppance and in his turn been booted out of Number Ten, but we'd need to find a book which says so explicitly.


 * After 1924 it was a different story - by then Lord Oxford knew that his career was over, but was under pressure from colleagues and family to stay on, and doubtless resented pressure to quit, while Lloyd George was exasperated at his refusal to retire. At that point their relations really did boil over to the point where they couldn't work together any more. Roy Jenkins likened their relations to Field Marshals French and Haig bickering over joint command of an infantry battalion and predictably getting on each others' nerves (he was writing in the early 1960s when people still remembered who Sir John French was).Paulturtle (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Reference mistakes
I have just found two incorrect references - wrong pages being given. I wasn't even looking for them. Both were to the Roy Jenkins biography of Asquith. When I get the time I shall check all the refs to that work. DuncanHill (talk) 15:33, 29 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The first one, on his return to the Commons Chamber after Paisley, was mine. Sorry. I was using an older, rebound, copy of Jenkins from a library (I do have a paperback bought in 1991, but it's somewhere in the attic). The one about it being dusk in 1924 and night in 1926 was somebody else's.Paulturtle (talk) 06:22, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Emily Willans Asquith Correct Year of Death?
Under H. H. Asquith, it lists Emily Willans Asquith as having lived from 1828-1888.

"and his wife Emily, née Willans (1828–1888)."

However, under H. H. Asquith, it says that "[i]n 1863 Willans died".

Which one is correct? Tiniestkid (talk) 21:34, 25 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiniestkid (talk • contribs) 20:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC) ‎


 * The article was worded rather obscurely. William Willans, the father of Emily, died in 1863. I've tried to clarify the text a little with this edit. DuncanHill (talk) 21:00, 25 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clarifying! I thought it was Emily who had died and didn't realize it was her father. Tiniestkid (talk) 21:34, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

President of the Liberal Party?
I have removed the succession box claim that Asquith was President of the Liberal Party from c 1924-1928, as he wasn't. Donald Maclean was President 1923-1926, J. A. Spender from 1926-1927, Charles Hobhouse from 1927-1930. I do not know why or when or by whom the claim was added to this article. DuncanHill (talk) 10:39, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

"Henry Asquith" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Henry Asquith. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 20 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. NotReallySoroka (talk) (formerly DePlume) 22:57, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Liz The Lettuce Truss Losing her seat as PM
Can you add in a section covering Liz Truss? 88.97.108.45 (talk) 20:31, 5 July 2024 (UTC)


 * @88.97.108.45 No. KJP1 (talk) 20:50, 5 July 2024 (UTC)