Talk:Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher

Odd final sentence
'He was evidently sufficiently discreet to avoid becoming entangled in the Cleveland Street Scandal, unlike his friend Lord Arthur Somerset.'

Is this hinting that he was a client, who somehow managed to keep his name out of the papers? Otherwise, the sentence does not seem relevant to anything. Valetude (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Textual criticisms
Having just discovered this article for the first time, it comes across to me as crammed with anecdote, name-dropping and nonsequiturs. The detail about his parents could be more summarily dealt with, his father's biographical article would be the better place for some of it. There needs to be more clarity for the reader as to what refers to the father and what to the son, the 2nd Viscount. It deserves some pruning of detail that is not so closely linked to the subject of this article.Cloptonson (talk) 20:14, 10 July 2016 (UTC)


 * If you can find time to trawl through the edit summary you'll see that a lot of barely intelligible material was added, and I did my best to tidy up at least some of it. Don't let me stop you weeding it further - it can always be restored if you throw anything important away. There has actually been a biog of Esher out in the shops over the last couple of years; I think it might be a reprint of an older one. Haven't had time to buy and read it yet.Paulturtle (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2016 (UTC) It's the 1973 Peter Fraser biog.Paulturtle (talk) 10:18, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Anachronistic sentence?
"As the Great War concluded Esher intimated that the King wanted his resignation as Lieutenant-Governor of Windsor."

How could Esher resign from a position he did not then hold? I question if there was such a position at the Castle. This sentence relates to 1918 whereas Esher did not become Governor of the Castle until 1928.Cloptonson (talk) 08:09, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * My own question answered - I noticed afterward he had been appointed Deputy Governor nearly a decade earlier. I will rephrase the sentence accordingy.Cloptonson (talk) 08:14, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * According to Constables and Governors of Windsor Castle "There was a Deputy Constable and Lieutenant-Governor from 1833 to 1989". DuncanHill (talk) 09:05, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * And according to James Lees-Milne's The Enigmatic Edwardian "Soon after the King's [Edward VII] succession... He was made Deputy Constable and Lieutenant Governor of Windsor Castle" DuncanHill (talk) 09:08, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Esher's Great War
A correction must be made to the 4th paragraph, where the author reports the Morning Post being shut down on February 10th. The news story of Colonel Repington wasn't published until the 11th, and per Peter Wright, At The Supreme War Council (pgs. 72-75), and other sources, a deal was reached to keep the incident quiet by fining the culprits and then forgetting about the incident. The government didn't want the Germans to find out. For access to Wright's book, please sign up for a free account on Archive.org.

Lord Milner (talk) 04:09, 19 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I didn't write that section, although I did write the relevant section in Repington's biog. You are right about the date error. As for the details, I wouldn't rely on such an old and parti pris book (see the 1921 Spectator review online (itself full of errors and myths, as you'd expect from something written so close to the events), or read the article on Peter Wright for how he eventually - in 1927 - lost a high profile defamation case to Gladstone's sons).


 * Instead, see David Woodward "Lloyd George And The Generals" p266, and footnote 55. The article appeared on 11 Feb 1918, discussing the recent arguments about an offensive against Turkey and the creation of an inter-Allied reserve (contrary to Lloyd George's insistence to the Commons a couple of months earlier that the Versailles machinery would be purely advisory). This was all part of the escalating power-struggle between Lloyd George and Robertson, who was finally forced to resign about a week later. The matter was discussed at the War Cabinet that day. General George Macdonogh advised the War Cabinet that he wouldn't really be able to swear in a court of law that the story was of use to the enemy. However, the War Cabinet voted to shut down the Morning Post. After further discussion with the Home Secretary (George Cave) Lloyd George decided not to do this and instead Repington and Gwynne were later tried and given a nominal fine. The Morning Post was never shut down. Lloyd George later fulminated about Repington in his memoirs.Paulturtle (talk) 07:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Peter Fraser's biog of Esher p. 383 says that Repington acted after a visit to Versailles where he was unimpressed by the uninformative nature of Leo Amery's written reports (Gwynne was the editor and contributed a supportive editorial). The War Cabinet voted at 6.30pm on 11 Feb to shut down the Morning Post but after being advised by George Cave that such a decision would be voted down by the House of Commons (the Morning Post was of course a Tory newspaper), they rescinded their decision at 8pm. As discussed above this was tied up with the possibility of pro-Robertson Tories teaming up with Asquith Liberals to bring down the government. Margot Asquith was on the phone a lot intriguing against Lloyd George, but her husband wasn't really terribly interested. I don't see any evidence that Esher was actively involved in any of this - he was just hanging around and writing to Haig, his former protege. In his new book on Henry Wilson ("Wilson's War") which I'm reading at the moment John Spencer describes Esher in 1916 as a "well-connected busybody" who shied away from any job which involved actual responsibility (or words to that effect) which seems a pretty fair summary, even if there had sometimes been times when the government used him as a useful envoy (persuading Sir John French to "resign" as CinC BEF, patching up a deal between Robertson and Kitchener, both at the end of 1915).Paulturtle (talk) 20:43, 30 December 2021 (UTC)