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Sonam Wangfel Laden [Laden La]
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Accessed: 1/31/20

Norbhu's contemporary, Rai Bahadur Sonam Wangfel Laden La (1876-1937), was a very different type of individual. A Sikkimese, he was a nephew of Urgyen Gyatso, and worked his way up in the Bengal Police. Displaying a great aptitude for intelligence work, he escorted both the Panchen and Dalai Lamas during their visits to India, in return for which he was given the Tibetan rank of Depon. Laden La also visited Europe, accompanying four Tibetan schoolboys who were sent to Rugby school in 1913. Like Norbhu, he made numerous visits to Lhasa in the 1920s and '30s on behalf of the British. [43]

Laden La became an extremely powerful figure on the frontier, and was active in frontier politics in opposition to the growing power of the Nepali community. [44] Unlike Norbhu, he made many enemies in India and Tibet. The independent observer, William McGovern, accused him of using his position for personal profit, and there is considerable doubt that his own claim to personal popularity in Lhasa bore any close relation to fact. As will be seen in Chapter Four, the Dalai Lama personally intervened to prevent his appointment as Trade Agent Yatung. Despite that, Laden La remained of great value to the Tibet cadre, which, in the light of his failures in other areas, suggests this was because of his intelligence skills. As one officer commented 'Laden La is very full of himself, but is very interesting regarding events and personalities in Lhasa.'[45]

Laden La also differed from Norbhu in that he adopted British dress and social customs, and aspired to a British lifestyle.[46] While he retained the support of the Tibet cadre, he was less successful than Norbhu in cultivating the friendship of the Tibetan leadership, and was not appointed to a Political post. He remained, therefore, by our classification, an intermediary, rather than a member of the Tibet cadre. Thus succeeding local officers of ambition followed the Norbhu model. Ultimately Laden La failed to achieve the desired balance of British and Tibetan understanding and forms of behaviour, and he was not trusted by the Tibetans after his involvement in the events of 1923-24, described in the next chapter.

There was an obvious tension between Norbhu Dhondup and Laden La in addition to that arising from their different life-styles; they represented different local interests and communities. Laden La had connections with Sikkimese aristocracy through his uncle, while Norbhu, though of undistinguished background, was favoured by the Tibetan community with which he identified. These diverging interests have affected subsequent history, with traces of their rivalry remaining among the available oral sources in the Himalayas.

The Rudolphs have shown that competing lineages were common within a particular body of intermediaries in Rajastan.[47] Similarly, British service offered both Norbhu and Laden La the chance to ensure future prosperity for their families, and, ideally, to establish a family administrative lineage. Thus they competed to establish themselves as the most reliable intermediary between British India and Tibet; a contest won by Norbhu, as his promotion to the Tibet cadre indicates. While his son died young, Norbhu's value to the Tibetans may be reflected in the fact that his daughter now works for the Tibetan Government in Dharamsala. Laden La failed to establish a family administrative tradition, but he acquired considerable wealth, and while he died early, his family, like the MacDonalds, established a successful hotel business.

As a nephew of Urgyen Gyatso, Laden La did represent one of the two patterns of service Michael Fisher described.[48] Whereas Palhese and Shabdrung Lama's careers were linked to a British patron, the family tradition of service became the predominant mode among local employees in Tibet: Thus A-chuk Tsering, a Darjeeling Tibetan, and his son Lha Tsering, both served as intelligence agents for the Government of India. Tonyot Tsering, a Sikkimese educated in Kalimpong and Patna Medical College, served as a Sub-Assistant Surgeon in Gyantse, and his son. Tonyot Tsering jnr., served at Gyantse under the British, and from 1949 to 1960 at Lhasa under the Indian Government. Bo Tsering, a Sikkimese Sub-Assistant surgeon at Gyantse and Lhasa from 1914 until c 1950, was closely related to Sonam Tobden Kazi, who succeeded Norbhu Dhondup as Trade Agent Yatung. [49]

Family patterns of loyalty could represent great changes in allegiance, symbolising the process by which the British allied with existing local ruling classes after establishing their place at the top of the political hierarchy. Sonam Tobden Kazi was a great-grandson of the Sikkimese Prime Minister Dewan Namgyal, whose treatment of the Darjeeling Superintendent Dr A. Campbell and botanist J.D. Hooker in 1849 precipitated the eventual British take-over of Sikkim. Whilst Dewan Namgyal had been exiled by the British, Sonam Tobden was to be one of their most valuable employees. [50]....

Tibet's growing military power was closely associated with Tsarong Shape, who rose from humble beginnings to became Commander-in-Chief of the Tibetan Army in 1915. Tsarong had made his name commanding a small force which held off the Chinese army pursuing the Dalai Lama as he fled to exile in India in 1910, after which MacDonald had disguised him as a British mail-runner to enable him to escape to India. Tsarong was clearly an outstanding individual, a powerful figure in Lhasa politics who enjoyed a close relationship with the Dalai Lama. Tsarong was also exceptional in having a great interest in the world outside Tibet, and while British sources emphasise his ties with them, he was clearly equally interested in meeting other foreigners, for he befriended the Japanese travellers to Lhasa in the 1910-20 period, and in later years always met other foreign travellers to Lhasa. [41]

Bailey naturally identified Tsarong as a potential ally. Tsarong, however, lacked either a monastic or aristocratic power base, and his main supporters, army officers who had been trained by the Gyantse Escort Commander or at Quetta Military College, were suspected by conservative Tibetans of having adopted European values.

With his government still reluctant to allow its officers access to Lhasa, Bailey faced a problem in establishing close ties with Tsarong. In 1922 he managed, apparently without the support of the Government of India, to arrange for General George Pereira, a former military attache at the British Legation in Peking, to visit Lhasa en route from Peking to India. Although officially described as a ’private traveller', Pereira met Tsarong in Lhasa and sent Bailey detailed reports on Tibetan military forces, recommending that to organise their army 'it is absolutely necessary to send a military advisor to Tsarong'.[42]

In Lhasa, Pereira obviously exerted some influence on the Tibetan Government to follow Bell's earlier recommendation that a police force be established in Lhasa. The day after Pereira left Lhasa the Tibetans asked the Government of India to lend them the services of Laden La to establish and train the Lhasa police.[43] This request gave Bailey the chance to develop ties with Tsarong.

Bailey certainly knew that Whitehall would not sanction posting a British military officer at Lhasa, but Laden La was an experienced police and intelligence officer. He was trusted by the Tibetans, and had recently been in Lhasa with Bell. Just as in 1903, when Curzon had recognised that the distinction between a 'political' and a 'trade' agent was not 'mutually exclusive',[44] Bailey realised Laden La could fill a dual role. Bailey therefore persuaded his government that it was of 'great political importance' that Laden La be sent to Lhasa. So keen were government to use Laden La that he was able to demand promotion to Superintendent as a condition of acceptance, although there were no vacancies at that rank, and a special position had to be created for him. [45]

Laden La reached Lhasa in September 1923 and established a 200-man police force. He also established close ties with Tsarong and occupied a central role in subsequent events, the exact nature of which remains unresolved. In May 1924, a fight between police and soldiers ended with Tsarong punishing two soldiers by mutilation, as a result of which one died. Mutilation had been forbidden by the Dalai Lama, and Tsarong’s monastic and aristocratic opponents sought to use this incident to engineer his dismissal. Tsarong’s supporters, including Laden La, sought to preserve his position.[46]

Laden La became involved in what was apparently a half-formed plot to transfer secular power from the Dalai Lama to Tsarong Shape. Had it succeeded, Bailey, who was setting out for Lhasa at this time, could have arrived in Lhasa to be greeted by a new Tibetan Government headed by Tsarong. But the plot was not carried through, and the full implications of these events was not brought out by Bailey's reports at the time. It was several years before somewhat contradictory versions of the story emerged in private correspondence.

Bailey visited Lhasa between 16 July and 16 August 1924. There he spent much of his time in discussions with Tsarong. Bailey's report reveals that he asked Tsarong what would happen if the Dalai Lama died, perhaps a rather curious question given that he was apparently in good health. Tsarong replied that if the Government of India sent troops it would stop any trouble, but Bailey warned him that his government would not interfere in Tibet's internal affairs. Bailey also advised Tsarong to deposit money in India in case he had to flee into exile. [47]

Bailey's departure from Lhasa was the signal for a series of events which greatly reduced British prestige in Tibet. The struggle between the 'conservative' and 'modernising' tendencies in Tibetan society culminated in defeat for those favouring modernisation. Laden La left Lhasa on 9 October 1924 and the police force lost all power. Tsarong conveniently left Tibet on a pilgrimage to India around the same time, and was removed from his post as Army Commander on his return. In Tsarong's absence his young military supporters were down-graded, and a number of other events in this period (such as the closure of the Gyantse school), illustrated the decline in the British position. In the late 1920s there were indications that the Dalai Lama was again turning to China or Russia for support, as the concluding years of Bailey's term in Sikkim saw Anglo-Tibetan relations at a low ebb. [48]

The decline in Anglo-Tibetan relations at this time has been blamed on a number of causes. Ira Klein has emphasised the wider decline in British power in the East at this time. Other observers have blamed the British failure to supply Tibet with further weaponry, or to obtain Chinese agreement to the Simla Convention. But, as the leading studies of this period have all dismissed any suggestion of British involvement in a plot to depose the Dalai Lama, the events involving Laden La have not been seen as significantly affecting Anglo-Tibetan relations, although that would have gone a long way towards explaining the British decline.[49]

Richardson does not refer to the incident at all, but, in connection with Chinese accusations of British support for 'militaristic lay officials who wanted to substitute some form of civil government for the Lama hierarchy' in the 1930s (allegations which may reflect their belated awareness of earlier events), he states that 'to suggest that the British Government would assist such a group -- if it existed -- [sic]...is...inept'.[50]

Lamb, while noting rumours of a conspiracy between Laden La and Tsarong Shape, is content to note that there is 'not a vestige of evidence' for this in the India Office Library records. Goldstein, surveying these events, writes that ’Ladenla[sic] was an Indian official, and it would have been unreasonable to assume he acted without orders or at least official encouragement'; but footnotes this statement with the contradictory remark that 'This is, however, precisely what happened.'[51]

There is no doubt as to Laden La's involvement, although details of his role took some time to emerge. The Gyantse Khenchung, apparently at the Dalai Lama's behest, informed Norbhu Dhondup in 1926 that Laden La had been involved in a plot against the Dalai Lama, allegations which Gyantse school-teacher Frank Ludlow accepted as true. Then when Bailey was on leave in 1927, the Khenchung gave Trade Agent Williamson (who was acting as Political Officer Sikkim during Bailey's absence), a full account of the incident. The Government of India also accepted that Laden La was involved, judging from the National Archives of India restricted file on this matter titled 'Indiscretion of Laden La in associating with Tibetan officers attempting to overthrow the Dalai Lama.'[52]

The Government of India's treatment of Laden La after the incident is instructive. Far from censuring him, they promoted him to Trade Agent in Yatung, but the posting was cancelled after the Dalai Lama, who now deeply mistrusted Laden La, wrote to Norbhu Dhondup objecting to the appointment as 'he [Laden La] is not altogether a steady and straight-forward man and it is not known how he would serve to maintain Anglo-Tibetan amity.'[53]

When Laden La left Lhasa, ostensibly suffering from a nervous breakdown, he took six months' leave, and then resumed his post, continuing to be regarded as a valuable Agent, sent to Lhasa 'on special duty' whenever the need arose. Bailey strongly supported Laden La. He originally argued that the Khenchung's account was 'inconceivable', and when he finally advised his government that Laden La had indeed 'certainly committed a serious indiscretion' stated that he hoped no action would be taken against him: none was.[54]

Has previous scholarship been correct in rejecting any British involvement in this plot? Bailey was one of the outstanding intelligence agents of his time. An illustration of this is that his disguise in Tashkent had been so good that he was hired by the Cheka (the forerunner of the KGB) to find the British agent (Bailey himself), they knew was in the area. There must be considerable doubt that such an officer would be ignorant of the activities of his own key agent in a crucial post. [55]

Circumstantial evidence points to a 'plot'; we cannot necessarily expect empirical evidence. An experienced intelligence operator such as Bailey would naturally conceal evidence of a failed coup attempt if he could. The reporting of events in Tibet was largely controlled by the Political Officer Sikkim, and Bailey apparently took full advantage of his power to restrict government's knowledge of the matter.

Viewed from the perspective we obtain from knowledge of the cadre mentality, the events of this period can be seen to follow a logical sequence which provides a convincing hypothesis to explain the events of the time and the subsequent decline in Anglo-Tibetan relations. Bailey had apparently come to the conclusion that the only way to modernise Tibet to the extent where it would provide a secure northern border for India was by establishing a secular government in Tibet under Tsarong Shape's leadership. Bailey was seriously concerned about the possibility of Bolshevik subversion in Tibet, and the traditional Tibetan leadership cannot have seemed likely to be capable of resisting determined Russian infiltration.[56]

Pereira's reports must have been a significant influence on Bailey; it is clear from the way in which Bailey arranged permission for him to travel freely in areas normally closed to travellers that he had an important role. MacDonald, who was not then in Bailey's confidence, makes the unusual comment on Pereira's travels that, 'Whether his last journey was inspired by motives other than exploration and the desire to be the first European to reach Lhasa from the Chinese side I do not know, nor did he tell me.'[57]

In sending Laden La to encourage Tsarong, Bailey had an agent whose actions he could disown officially if they failed, while rewarding him later for his efforts. There is of course, the possibility that Laden La acted on his own initiative, in the tradition his 'forward' thinking superiors had inculcated in him. But Laden La was not officially attached to the Political Department at this time, and had he been involved in a foreign conspiracy without significant support from higher British officers it is hard to believe he could have escaped dismissal from government service.....

Soon after the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa, there was a new initiative by the Government of India to overcome Whitehall's objection to a British officer visiting Lhasa. Following a Tibetan request for an officer to arrange the evacuation of the defeated Chinese forces from Lhasa to India, they despatched Laden La to Lhasa.

After ordering Laden La to Gyantse on 24 May 1912, Viceroy Hardinge, apparently waited a week before informing the Secretary of State that Laden La had been sent to Gyantse with orders to prepare to visit Lhasa. Given the slower communications and pace of government at the time, it appears that by waiting until Laden La had reached Gyantse, and then despatching the telegram to London on a Friday, the Government of India intended to present Laden La's arrival in Lhasa to Whitehall as a fait accompli. On Tuesday June 4th, a telegram was sent ordering Laden La to Lhasa. He received the telegram at 9 am on June 5th and departed later that day, accompanied by Norbhu Dhondup. But while the weekend's delay slowed their reaction, Whitehall eventually halted Laden La on June 9th, 40 miles from Lhasa, following a 'clear the line' telegram ordering them to return to Gyantse. [22]....

The Bell Mission to Lhasa in 1920-21 marked a major turning point in the history of the British presence in Tibet. It had the effect of opening the Tibetan capital to regular visits by British officials. Norbhu Dhondup and Laden La subsequently made regular visits to the Tibetan capital, and at least one representative of the Government of India visited Lhasa annually.[28] Ultimately, the Bell Mission paved the way for permanent representation in Lhasa, thus fulfilling the original intention behind Curzon's Tibet policy.[29]...

The two principal intermediaries used on missions to Lhasa were [Sonam Wangfel] Laden La and Norbhu Dhondup. Laden La, as we have seen in the previous chapter, lost the trust of the Tibetans after his actions in 1923-24, and although he was sent to Lhasa again in 1930 by Colonel Weir, the Tibetans remained suspicious of him. He was detained at Chushul ferry and told 'no useful purpose could be served' by his visiting Lhasa. Laden La appealed to Tsarong Shape, who intervened on his behalf in Lhasa, and after two days he was allowed to proceed.[36]

Laden La claimed that his 1930 mission was a success, a claim apparently accepted by his superiors, for he accompanied Colonel Weir to Lhasa later that year and again in 1932.[37] Other sources however, suggest Laden La was still mistrusted by the Tibetans and that he achieved little in Lhasa. Apart from Norbhu Dhondup, whose critiques of Laden La in his letters to Bailey could have been based on personal differences and professional jealousies,[38] there were also regular complaints about Laden La from the now retired David Macdonald.

MacDonald considered that both Laden La and Norbhu Dhondup were responsible for the downturn in Anglo-Tibetan relations, stating that they were working for their own ends, and giving political information to the Tibetans. In addition, Macdonald alleged that Tsarong had been demoted from Shape to Dzasci rank due to the assistance he had given Laden La in getting to Lhasa in 1930. MacDonald's negative view of Norbhu Dhondup was supported by Mr Rosemeyer, the telegraph officer who supervised the Gangtok to Lhasa line, (and himself an Anglo-Indian). He informed Bell that Norbhu was 'not a patch on your former Chief Clerk A-chuk Tse-ring[sic], who was both shrewd and clever'. [39]

But the presence of other foreign agents at Lhasa meant that an intermediaries' career was not without its dangers, Norbhu's life was, he reported, threatened on several occasions by Russian or Chinese agents; in response, he swore 'I...shall not die before I murder at least two, as I have my rifles and pistols...always loaded'.[40]

The extent to which the Sikkim Political Officers relied on the information obtained by these two intermediaries is difficult to assess. Their visits had the advantage that they could be arranged at short notice, while missions by Political Officers involved considerable preparation, and permission from Whitehall. The two men were thus of great value to the British, despite their shortcomings, and considerable reliance was placed upon their knowledge of the culture and people of Tibet. The Political Officers were aware of the difficult position these men held, but exercised their own judgment in assessing the worth of the reports they produced.[41]

-- Tibet and the British Raj, 1904-47: The Influence of the Indian Political Department Officers, by Alexander McKay

Sonam Wangfel Laden
Sonam Wangfel Laden the top left, in the front row Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal, Charles Bell and the 13th Dalai Lama
Birth: 1876, Darjeeling
Death, 1936
Activity: Indianist

Sonam Wangfel Laden (Tibetan : བསོད་ ནམས་ དབང་ འཕེལ་ ལེགས་ ལྡན་ , Wylie: bsod nams dbang 'phel legs Idan) also called Laden La (Tibetan : ལེགས་ ལྡན་ ལགས་ , Wylie: legs Idan lags, 1876 -1936) is an Indian policeman of Tibetan origin.

Biography

Sonam Wangfel Laden was born into a long-standing Tibetan family in the Darjeeling district. He received education from the Jesuits in the region, spoke English fluently as well as several local languages ​​and dialects1.

Between 1894 and 1898, he participated in the writing of a Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary with Sarat Chandra Das and followed the teachings of Lama Sherab Gyatso from the monastery of Ghoom1.

He joined the Darjeeling police in 1899 and quickly became head of department1.

He participated in a liaison mission in the staff of the British military expedition to Tibet from 1903-19041.

He accompanied the 9th Panchen Lama during his visit of pilgrimage to India (in). He worked to foster good relations between Tibet and British India1.

When the 13th Dalai Lama fled before the Chinese invasion in 1910, he organized his meeting with Lord Minto, the Viceroy of India and stay in Darjeeling1.

In 1912, following the Chinese defeat in Tibet, the viceroy of India (Charles Hardinge) sent him to negotiate a cease-fire and various agreements. On April 15, 1912, he welcomed Alexandra David-Néel who wished to meet the 13th Dalai Lama1.

In 1913, he accompanied the first group of Tibetan boys who had left to study in England at Rugby and on this occasion visited several European countries1. During the First World War, he participated in the recruitment of soldiers and fundraising1.

In 1921, he accompanied Charles Bell, at his request, to Lhassa, during a mission aimed at improving Anglo-Tibetan relations1.

In 1923 1, the 13th Dalai Lama invited as superintendent of Darjeeling police in Lhasa rebuild a civilian police service, due to its decline after the Chinese occupation of Lhasa. He was assisted by the mining engineer trained at Rugby Mondrong Khenrab Kunzag, appointed superintendent2.

In 1929, he was asked to mediate following a deterioration in Tibetan-Nepalese relations1.

He retired in 1931, having received a number of Tibetan and British distinctions, including the Order of the Golden Lion and Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He then became involved in philanthropic and Buddhist works, collaborated in the translation of Padmasambhava's life for The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, edited by Walter Evans-Wentz1.

References

1. Joëlle Désiré-Marchand, Alexandra David-Néel: From Paris to Lhassa, from adventure to wisdom , Arthaud, 1997, ( ISBN 2700311434 and 9782700311433 ) , p. 181
2. (in) Tsepon WD Xagabba , Tibet: A Political History. Yale University Press, 1967, p 369, p. 264: " Following the Chinese occupation of Lhasa, the police system had declined and become ineffective. The Dalai Lama invited the Superintendent of Police in Darjeeling, Sonam Laden La, to establish a police department in Lhasa. Laden La, who was of Tibetan extraction, trained several hundred policemen and was appointed Superintendent of Police in Lhasa, with the title of Dzasa. He was assisted by Mondrong Khenrab Kunzag, the Rugby-educated mining engineer."

Bibliography

• (in) Nicholas Rhodes (in) and Deki Rhodes, A Man of the Frontier. SW Laden La (1876-1936). His Life and Times in Darjeeling and Tibet , Library of Numismatic Studies, Kolkata, 2006.

External link

• A hero of the old school [archive], May 23, 2005, The Statesman, India

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David Macdonald
by Wikipedia (France)
Accessed: 2/1/20

The Government of India wanted a local officer at Yatung for financial reasons. While this meant that the Trade Agent there would have less status than a British officer, this factor would, if Bell was correct, be balanced by his greater ability to cultivate the friendship of local officials, which was of paramount importance to his role (an issue that is discussed in Chapter Four). In the event, the officer chosen signified a compromise. He was an Anglo-Sikkimese, David Macdonald, a local government employee who had served on the Younghusband Mission. While not from an aristocratic family, he was intelligent and got on extremely well with Tibetans, and even the Chinese.

Macdonald was uniquely well qualified, and thoroughly conversant with British concepts of prestige. As he later recalled 'There was the prestige and pomp of the empire to be maintained and this meant one reflected the glory.' In contrast, when the Lhasa Mission was headed by a local officer of Tibetan origin in the 1940s, it was felt that 'the want of a Political Officer [i.e. a British officer] in charge of the Mission was felt by our friends'. [33]

Questions of manpower and economy, allied to the need to reward local supporters, meant that local employees had to be given positions of authority, but they were generally kept away from the key positions in which policy decisions were made. [David] MacDonald was the only local officer given a Political post in Tibet until the late 1930s, and he was originally appointed to Yatung, which had little or no influence on policy formation.

Ultimately, although the British had to use local employees, they felt that, with the exception of an exceptional individual such as Macdonald, their prestige could only be fully represented by British officers. Local officers had not been trained to command at British public schools, and thus could not be expected to understand and maintain public school codes of behaviour. In consequence, if a local officer failed to maintain the required status and standards of behaviour, his failure was blamed on his race or class, whereas if a British officer failed, it was the individual who was blamed: 'A man who does not play the game at the outposts is a traitor to our order.'[34]....

Within British India, Anglo-Indians, those of mixed British and Indian parentage, were often subject to greater prejudice than Indians, and they were excluded from several areas of government employment.[30] But in Tibet, Anglo-Indians were preferred to Indians. The difference is difficult to account for, but certainly some aspects of British Indian social attitudes were relaxed on the frontier,[31] and there was the precedent of a number of legendary Anglo-Indian frontiersmen, such as the Hearsey family, and General James Skinner, founder of Skinner's Horse, an irregular cavalry division. Several Anglo-Indian Medical Officers were used, including Dr Dyer, who accompanied Bell to Lhasa in 1920. In the 1940s, two Christian Medical Officers, the Anglo-Indian Dr Humphreys, and Captain M.V. Kurian, paved the way for the subsequent posting of Hindu Medical Officers at Gyantse. [32]

One Anglo-Indian was chosen for a Political post in Tibet, David MacDonald, the son of a Scottish tea planter, who became an important figure on the frontier. Although his father had left India when MacDonald was five years old, the boy was well provided for, receiving the then generous sum of twenty rupees a month in trust. His Sikkimese mother, Aphu Drolma, entered him in the Bhotia Boarding School, from where he entered local government service, before joining the Younghusband Mission.[33] While MacDonald began regular Tibetan service as a Trade Agent, not an intermediary, unlike the other two local officers classified here as Tibet cadre (Norbhu Dhondup and Pemba Tsering) he shared a similar background to the intermediaries, and his career may be more appropriately considered in this section.

MacDonald had a truly multi-cultural background. Raised as a Buddhist with the name of Dorji MacDonald, he converted to Christianity and adopted the name David under the influence of his wife, the Anglo-Nepalese, Alice Curtis. These various influences gave him command of all of the principal languages of the region, Tibetan, Nepali, Hindi, Lepcha and English, and insight into both Buddhist and Christian religious cultures. MacDonald had the character and skills needed to attract the patronage of British officers, a necessary quality for an ambitious individual of his background. He assisted both Charles Bell and Colonel Waddell, Chief Medical Officer on the Younghusband Mission and early scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, to learn Tibetan, and their support gained him Political employ.[34]

Bell's patronage was crucial; MacDonald was held in high regard by Bell, and owed his position to Bell's support. When his patron left, MacDonald lost influence. His efforts to support his son John, and his son-in-law Frank Perry, in various employment schemes on the frontier brought him into conflict with Bailey, the new Political Officer Sikkim, and his final years in Tibet were difficult ones. In retirement however, he ensured the family security by turning his Kalimpong home into a successful hotel, which still exists today. [35]...

The Dalai Lama's flight to India in 1910 gave the cadre the chance to befriend the traditional Lhasa leadership. MacDonald earned the Dalai Lama's life-long trust by aiding his flight into exile, and once the Tibetan leader was in India, Bell successfully cultivated his friendship, becoming the Tibetans' most trusted foreign confidant. Bell encouraged the Dalai Lama to begin transforming Tibet into a modern nation-state, guided by British expertise in such matters as the development of mining, improvement of communications, and strengthening of its armed forces.

As the British were forbidden by the 1907 Anglo-Russian convention from intervening in Tibetan internal affairs, Bell concealed the extent to which he guided these changes....

Macdonald had been specifically instructed that while he could shelter the Dalai Lama in the Trade Agency, he was to maintain neutrality in the Chinese-Tibetan conflict. But as the Tibetan leader fled south from the pursuing Chinese forces, Macdonald not only offered the Dalai Lama and his followers sanctuary in the Trade Agency, but deployed the Agency escort to protect him. [18]

Macdonald's interpretation of his orders attracted no censure from government. There can be little doubt that his actions were tacitly approved of by his immediate superior, the Political Officer Charles Bell, who was soon to benefit from the goodwill gained by Macdonald's action. Bell later described MacDonald's assistance to the Dalai Lama as being 'perhaps the chief reason why the British name stands high in Tibet.'[19]....

MacDonald considered that both Laden La and Norbhu Dhondup were responsible for the downturn in Anglo-Tibetan relations, stating that they were working for their own ends, and giving political information to the Tibetans. In addition, Macdonald alleged that Tsarong had been demoted from Shape to Dzasci rank due to the assistance he had given Laden La in getting to Lhasa in 1930. MacDonald's negative view of Norbhu Dhondup was supported by Mr Rosemeyer, the telegraph officer who supervised the Gangtok to Lhasa line, (and himself an Anglo-Indian). He informed Bell that Norbhu was 'not a patch on your former Chief Clerk A-chuk Tse-ring[sic], who was both shrewd and clever'. [39]...

In 1909-11, the publication of books by White and Younghusband, and Bailey's 'Blackwoods' article, signaled the replacement of the discourse of war by a more sympathetic approach, which became pronounced in the later works of Bell and Macdonald.[28] Tibet was no longer portrayed as hostile; indeed in Bailey's article it was simply an exotic location for shikar. As will be seen, Bell and MacDonald explained Tibet and its culture in sympathetic and comparative terms designed to portray it as 'familiar'...

The works of officers such as Bell and MacDonald played an important part in bringing Tibet into the realm of the 'familiar'. One method they used was a common journalistic device, applying comparisons to translate Tibetan institutions and personalities into familiar images. Lhasa was compared with Rome, the Dalai Lama with the Pope, and Sera and Drepung monasteries with Oxford and Cambridge. Bell even translated Tibetan personal names in an effort to make them more 'familiar'; thus he refers to Tsarong (Shape) as 'Clear Eye'.[84]...

Thus MacDonald described how, 'The climate of the Chumbi Valley is ideal, not unlike that of England', although at the time he wrote this he had never been to England![85]...

While government expected to be able to trust the judgement of its officers as to what information to present to the public, officials were required, by both civil and military regulations additional to the Official Secrets Act, to submit their writings for censorship. Some officers actively supported this system. For example the India Office noted that Macdonald was 'anxious that we should strike out anything that is considered objectionable’....

Arms supplies to Tibet from India were an issue of particular sensitivity, in that they could have been seen as implying recognition of Tibet as an independent state. Hence both Bell and Macdonald's references to these supplies were censored. Where Bell commented on Tibetan troops being 'armed with the new rifles', mention of the source of these rifles (the Government of India) was removed. Macdonald's claim in his manuscript that demands for payment for weapons were a factor in the Panchen Lama's flight was also censored, along with a large section of suggestions on future policy, including support for Tibetan independence. Macdonald was told that it was 'most important that nothing should be said which could tend to damage relations with Tibet or any other foreign power'.[8]....

The condition of the lower classes was heavily criticised on occasion, Macdonald being particularly critical. But a positive image was maintained by attributing misrule to the era of Chinese domination, and describing how conditions were improving under the Dalai Lama's rule. This positive note was enhanced by the constant stress on the overall happiness and contentment of the peasant class, which is a recurrent theme in British accounts of Tibet, where even 'the slavery was of a very mild type'. [23]

-- Tibet and the British Raj, 1904-47: The Influence of the Indian Political Department Officers, by Alexander McKay

Photographer: Evan Yorke Nepean
Collection: Evan Yorke Nepean
Date of Photo: August 7th 1936
Named Person: Sir Basil Gould, David Macdonald
Expedition: British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37

David Macdonald
Birth: Towards 1870, Darjeeling
Death: July 6, 1962, Darjeeling
Activity: linguist

David Macdonald, born Dorjé in 1870 or 1873 in Darjeeling, died on July 6, 1962 Darjeeling is an Anglo-Sikkimese1 which was British commercial agent (trade agent) in Tibet in the first quarter of the 20th century. Born to a Scottish father and a Lepcha mother, he was fluent in English and Tibetan.

According to Peter Bishop, he belongs to the lineage of the British officers of Tibetan Affairs -- Charles Alfred Bell, Hugh Edward Richardson, Frederick Marshman Bailey, Leslie Weir, Derrick Williamson, Basil Gould (in) -- who formed the backbone of reports Britain with Tibet2.

The possibility of living and traveling in Tibet combined with his knowledge of spoken Tibetan and literary Tibetan enabled him to observe Tibetan culture and to make it accessible to Europeans in his publications3.

Originally Buddhist, he was converted to Christianity by Fredrik Franson (in) of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (in) 4 . He was associated with the "Tibetan Translation of the New Testament" and founded a small church in Yatoung, Tibet5.

Biography

Origins and studies

Born in Darjeeling to a Scottish father and a Sikkimese mother of Lepcha ethnicity, David Macdonald was fluent in English and Tibetan. His father was a Scottish tea planter who left India when his son was six years old. He had, however, left to the mother of the child enough to live properly and a substantial allocation (for the time) of 20 rupees per month to pay for the studies of David 6. His mother made him wear Tibetan clothes so that he could enroll him in Bothia boarding school in Darjeeling7.

Early career

After completing his studies, he worked for the Bengal government's vaccination services, regularly touring villages in the Darjeeling district. He was thus able to familiarize himself with the mores and customs and the daily life of the peasantry of this Himalayan region8.

He then went to the service of the Tibetologist Laurence Waddell whom he helped in his research on the canons of Tibetan Buddhism and their commentaries as well as on the customs, traditions and superstitions of the Tibetans9.

Conversion to Christianity and participation in the translation of the Bible

Originally Buddhist, he was converted to Christianity by Fredrik Franson (in), of The Evangelical Alliance Mission (in), as reported by Gergan Dorje Tharchin in 1970 4, and became a devout Christian10. Around 1903, he participated, with JF Frederickson, of the Scandinavian Missionary Alliance, and H. Graham Sandberg, an Anglican chaplain, in the translation of the New Testament into Tibetan11. Around 1910, he revised the Old Testament translated into the same language by Joseph Gergan and August Hermann Francke12.

Participation in the British military expedition to Tibet

In 1904, he was Waddell's assistant along with an interpreter during the Younghusband military expedition to Tibet. He was responsible for collecting, classifying and cataloging, on behalf of the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, books and works of art taken from monasteries and dzongs and transported to India on the back of 400 mules13,14,15. He knew how to get the good graces of the most important figures involved in the expedition, both British and Tibetan, and avoid taking sides for one or the other of the existing factions among officers16.

For his skills and talents, Macdonald attracted the attention of British officials, including Charles Bell, who assured him the protection he needed to overcome the prejudices of Raj against Anglo-Indian17.

From the commercial agent in Tibet to the political representative in Sikkim

In 1909, when it was decided to appoint a public servant as a trade agent at Yatoung, Bell offered the post to Macdonald18. Of July 1909 at October 1924, he was the British commercial agent in Yatung and Gyantsé, then, for 4 months in 1921, the political representative (political officer) of the British empire in Sikkim19,20,21,22.

After their stay in Lhasa, the explorer Alexandra David-Néel, exhausted "without money and in rags", and her future adopted son Lama Yongden, were warmly welcomed by the Macdonald family (and their nine children) in Gyantsé in May 1924. Lodged with them for a fortnight, she was able to reach the north of India by Sikkim thanks in part to the 500 rupees which she borrowed from Macdonald and to the necessary papers which he and his son-in-law, Captain Perry, could give him.23,24,25.

In 1925 Macdonald welcomed and received Edwin Schary, an American who wandered through Tibet in search of the famous mahatmas (great initiates). He found him at his door, in his words "eaten away by vermin, hungry and very sick"26. A few years later, Macdonald was to preface the story of this quest published under the title In search of the Mahatmas of Tibet27.

The last years of his career were marred by problems related to his son-in-law, Captain Perry. In 1923, for the latter to obtain the post of chief of the brand new Lhasa police force, Macdonald had intermingled with the Dalai Lama. This earned him to be reprimanded and demoted by the government of India28.

At Gyantsé, Macdonald was replaced by Derrick Williamson, at least as soon as the latter arrived in May 1924, had survived an almost fatal fever which delayed the transfer of post by six weeks29.

Meetings with the 13th Dalai Lama

According to Lord Ronaldshay, Macdonald saved the life of the 13th Dalai Lama30 by helping to cross the Indian border when he was forced to flee31 in January-February 1910 32.

At Christmas 1920, he was invited by Charles Bell to accompany him to Lhasa. Unbeknownst to Delhi, he spent a month and met there several times the 13th Dalai Lama. When the government of India heard of his presence in Lhasa, he ordered him to return to Yatoung 33.

The Himalayan Hotel

The Himalayan Hotel in Kalimpong, was described in 1936 as the family home of Macdonald, then aged 34. In fact, Macdonald had the house built in 1925 and then, his children having grown up, converted it into a hotel, which it still is today. During the first half of the 20th century, the building, built in the style of English cottages35, welcomed the distinguished visitors, among other Tibetologists Charles Bell and Peter of Greece, the mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (the author of seven years adventures in Tibet), and Basil Gould, the British political representative in Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet between 1935 and 1945 36.

In the 1930s and 1949 Macdonald made several attempts to return to Tibet on an official mission, but without success. His request for permission to travel to Gyantsé in 1931 was rejected by Leslie Weir, the British political agent at Sikkim37.

Epilogue

David Macdonald died on July 6, 1962 in Darjeeling. He was the husband of Alice Curtis, a Eurasian like him, of English origin and Sherpa38, under the influence of which, according to Alex McKay, he had become a Christian before entering government service39.

Work

David Macdonald is the author of several authoritative books on Tibet. His great work is The Land of the Lama, a work published in 1929 and dealing with the region and its population from the physical, social, cultural, administrative and economic aspects, a veritable encyclopedia on Tibet which inspired many later authors.40

In 1930, he published a travel guide, Touring in Sikkim and Tibet, where, after a quick presentation of the two regions, he describes the routes allowing to gain Gyantsé in Tibet while passing by Sikkim (at the time British protectorate) then the Tibetan valley of Chumbi, all with practical information for travelers of the time.

Two years later, he published Twenty Years in Tibet, a book in which he recounts the events that marked the first quarter of the 20th century in the border regions northeast of India, whose military Younghusband Expedition to Lhasa in 1904, the flight of 13th Dalai Lama in India in 1910 and his return to Lhasa in 1912 41.

Because of his knowledge of Tibetan spoken as literary Tibetan, Macdonald was entrusted by the British Tibetanist Charles Alfred Bell to proofread and correct his English-Tibetan Colloquial Dictionary published in 1920 42.

In addition to the Tibetan from Lhasa, Macdonald also mastered dzongkha, Bengali, lepcha, Nepali and Hindi. He was in contact with the promoters of the "Gazetteer of Sikkim" (Sikkim Gazetteer), the "Survey of Indian languages" (Linguistic Survey of India (in)) and the "Tibetan translation of the New Testament (Tibetan Translation of the New Testament)43.

Publications

• (en) The Land of the Lama: a description of a country of contrasts & of its cheerful, happy-go-lucky people of hardy nature & curious customs; their religion, ways of living, trade, and social life, With a foreword by the Earl of Ronaldshay , Seeley, Service & Co., 1929, 283 p. (reissued under the title Cultural Heritage of Tibet in 1963 by Light-Life Publishers, then in 1978 in New Delhi)
• (fr) Mœurs et coutumes des Thibétains , preface by the Earl of Ronaldshay, French translation by R. Bilot, Payot, 1930, 262 p. (French translation of the previous one)
• (en) Touring in Sikkim and Tibet , Kalimpong, 1930 (reissued in 1999 by Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 142 p.)
• (en) Tibetan Tales , foreword by L. Austin Waddell, in Folklore , vol. 42, 1931 (English translation of 9 Tibetan tales)
• (en) Twenty Years in Tibet: intimate & personal experiences of the closed land among all classes of its people from the highest to the lowest, with a foreword by the Earl of Lytton , Seeley, Service & Co., London, 1932, 312 p.
• (en) Preface (with Canon CE Tyndale-Biscoe) of the book by Edwin Gilbert Schary, In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet , Seeley, Service & co., 1937, viii + 294 p.
• (in) Tibet , H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1945, 31 p.

Notes and references

1. (in) Tim Myatt, Trinkets, Temples, and Treasures: Tibetan Material Culture and the 1904 British Mission to Tibet, in Revue Tibetan Studies, Number 21, October 2011, p. 123-153, p. 137: " [...] David Macdonald (1870–1962) [...]".
2. (in) Peter Bishop , The myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, travel writing, and the western creation of sacred landscape, University of California Press, 1980, 308 p., P. 195: " The lineage of British officers responsible for Tibetan affairs -- Bell, Macdonald, Richardson, Bailey, Weir, Williamson, Gould -- provided the backbone around which British contact with Tibet was organized."
3. Jeanne Masedo de Filipis, Tibet and the West, in Lhasa, place of the divine, ss the dir. by Françoise Pommaret, Olizane, 1997, pp. 19-34, p. 32: "This is how David Macdonald and Sir Charles Bell, the only foreigners admitted to live in Lhasa in 1921, became fine observers of the culture of Tibet, which through their publications they finally made accessible to Europeans."
4. (in) H. Louis Fader, Called from obscurity: the life and times of a true son of Tibet, God's humble servant from Poo, Gergan Dorje Tharchin: with particular attention given to his good friend and illustrious co-laborer in the Gospel Sadhu Sundar Singh of India, Volume 2 , Tibet Mirror Press, 2004 ( ISBN 9993392200 and 9789993392200), p. 54: "Macdonald [...] had not always been an adherent of the Christian faith. In fact, early in his primary education at Darjeeling, where he was born in 1873, he was first introduced [...] the religious "tenets" and "form of Buddhism, known as Lamaism, which is practiced in the Eastern Himalayas. [...] Tharchin himself, commenting much later in the 1970s, provides some interesting background information on Macdonald's subsequent Christian "missionary" activity and service. He, along with David Woodward, could report that Macdonald was led to Christ ... by Fredrik Franson of the Scandinavian Alliance Mission."
5. (in) David B. Woodward, Have a Cup of Tea Tibetan, 2003: "Yatung, Tibet, and as a Christian he started a small church there."
6. (in) Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier framework, 1904-1947, Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "Macdonald's Father, a Scottish tea-planter, had left India when Macdonald was six years old. He did, however, leave Macdonald's mother, a Lepcha, well provided-for, with the then-generous sum of twenty rupees a month for David's education."
7. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "She dressed him as a Tibetan in order to enroll him in the Bothia boarding school in Darjeeling."
8. (in) Introducing Twenty Years in Tibet [archive], on the site indiaclub.com: "He joined the Dept. Immunization under the Govt. of Bengal and his duties entailed making regular tours of the villages in the Darjeeling Dist. The twelve years that the author thus spent gave him a comprehensive insight into the manners and customs, and everyday lives, of the peasantry of this part in the Himalayas."
9. (in) Foreword to Tibetan Tales, in Folklore, Vol. 42, No. 2, Jun. 30, 1931, p. 178: "I have known Mr. Macdonald intimately ever since, over forty years ago, he was a Dux boy in the Government High School in Darjeeling, and was recommended to me by the Headmaster, through his training in literary Tibetan and knowledge of the Tibetan vernacular, as a promising assistant in my researches into the great body of the Tibetan sacred canonical books and commentaries, and into Tibetan customs, floating traditions, and superstitions. Latterly, he was my official assistant, in the Lhasa Mission of 1904 in the task of collecting, classifying, and cataloging for the British National Libraries the greatest collection of Tibetan books, sacred and secular, that ever reached Europe before or since that expedition. As a result of this unusual acquaintance with the Tibetan religion, language and customs, and his business ability."
10. (in) Peter Richardus Alex McKay, Tibetan lives: Himalayan three autobiographies, Routledge, 1998, p 223, p. xviii: "David Macdonald, who had become a devout Christian".
11. (in) Alexander McLeish, The Frontier Peoples of India [archive], Mittal Publications, 1984, p. 183.
12. (in) Jina Prem Singh, "AH Francke's contribution in the Cultural History of Ladakh," pp. 43-52 in Jina Prem Singh (ed.), Recent Researches on the Himalaya, New Delhi, Indus Publishing, 1997, p. 44.
13. (in) Michael Carrington, Officers, Gentlemen and Thieves: The Looting of Monasteries During the 1903/4 Younghusband Mission to Tibet in Modern Asian Studies, 37, 1 (2003), pp. 81–109: “[L. Austin] Waddell then, would be the perfect man for the job of Chief Medical Officer to the Tibet mission and after representations to the Government of India was chosen to be the official collector of materials for the British Museum. He was to be assisted by David Macdonald, an employee of the Government of India, Macdonald was the son of a Scot with a Sikkimise mother and he would be extremely useful as he spoke fluent Tibetan."
14. (in) Tim Myatt, Trinkets, Temples, and Treasures: Tibetan Material Culture and the 1904 British Mission to Tibet, op. cit., p. 137: "[...] David Macdonald (1870–1962) 71 who writes,"in January 1905 I was sent to Calcutta to categorize books and treasures, which others and I gathered in Tibet and were brought back using more than 400 mules. They included Buddhist classics, statues of Buddha, religious works, helmets, weapons, books, and ceramics. The bulk of ceramics were sent to specialists for examination. All these treasures were formerly preserved in the India Museum, where I worked, and later in the British Museum, the Indian Museum, the Bodleian Library and the Indian Administrative Library.”
15. (in) Peter Richardus Alex McKay, Tibetan lives: Himalayan three autobiographies, Routledge, 1998, p 223, p. xvi: "Macdonald first served as a translator on the Younghusband mission."
16. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: " Macdonald became favorably known to most of the significant figures involved in the expedition, both British and Tibetan, and avoided being identified with either of the factions that developed among its officers."
17. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: "Clearly a capable and talented man, Macdonald attracted the favor of a number of senior British officials, of whom Bell was to be the most significant. Being of mixed race, Macdonald was in particular need of this patronage to overcome the Raj's prejudice against 'Anglo-Indians'."
18. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 44: "Bell offered the position to the Anglo-Sikkimese David Macdonald, a quiet and modest man [...]."
19. (in) Barbara Crossette, The great hill station of Asia, Vol. 1938, 1998, 259 p. : "David Macdonald, who for twenty years in the first quarter of the twentieth century was the British trade agent in Tibet and later the empire's representative in Sikkim [...]."
20. (in) Himalayan Hotel Kalimpong [archive], on the website India Travelite: "Prior à son retirement he served as Briefly Britain's Political Officer in Sikkim, in support of Britain's relationship with Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim. "
21. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 232: " D. Macdonald takes up post July 1909. Macdonald then served at Yatung, without official leave, until his retirement in October 1924."
22. (in) Alex McKay, The History of Tibet: The modern period: from 1895 to 1959, the encounter with modernity, 1904-1947 , pp. 417: "he became Yatung Trade Agent in 1909, and remained serving there and in Gyantse until 1924. He was Political Officer [in] Sikkim for four months in 1921."
23. Joëlle Désiré-Marchand, Alexandra David-Néel, life and travel: geographic routes, 2009, 700 p., P. 445.
24. Jean Chalon, The Luminous Destiny of Alexandra David-Néel, Perrin Academic Bookstore, 1985.
25. Biography (part 6 [archive], on the alexandra-david-neel.org website
26. (in) Peter Bishop, The myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, travel writing, and the western creation of sacred landscape, University of California Press, 1980, 308 p., P. 201: "In 1925 Edwyn Schary, an American struggled desperately across Tibet in search of the famed Mahatmas. Macdonald, the British trade agent at Gyantse, described his arrival: 'One evening at dusk, a begrimed and filthily clad figure covered with festering sores crawled up to the main gate of the Gyantse fort -- he was really in a terrible condition, verminous, ill-nourished, and really very ill.'"
27. (in) Edwin Gilbert Schary, In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet, Seeley, Service & Co., 1937, viii + 294 pp., Preface by David Macdonald (with Canon CE Tyndale Biscoe).
28. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ..., op. cit., p. 100: "Perry's problems inevitably began to involve his father-in-law [...]. News emerged that Macdonald had written to the Dalai Lama in 1923 asking him to employ Perry in the newly-formed Lhasa Police Force. [...] he was censured for his attempt to find Perry work with the Lhasa Police and it was decided to reintroduce the system of having separate agents at Yatung and Gyantse, with Macdonald reverting to the lower ranked post at Yatung."
29. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ... , op. cit., p. 132: “Early in May 1924, 'Derrick' Williamson arrived in Gyantse to replace the long-serving David Macdonald, who was retiring. But six weeks passed before Macdonald could hand-over to his successor, who was suffering from a near-fatal fever. "
30. (in) The Spectator, Vol. 142, 1929: "Lord Ronaltlshay tells us in a preface that Mr. David Macdonald, the author of The Land of the Lama (Seeley, Services, 21 s.), Saved the Dalai Lama's life in 1909 [...]"
31. (en) C. Mabel Rickmers, The Land of the Lama, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, January 1930, 62, 180-182: "When compelled to flee to India in 1909, it was to Macdonald that His Holiness owed his safe passage over the frontier, a fact he has never forgotten."
32. (in) Ngawang Lobsang Thupten Gyatso [archive]
33. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier cadre, 1904-1947, op. cit., p. 68: "Bell did invite David Macdonald to join him in Lhasa for Christmas 1920, without asking permission from Delhi. Macdonald spent a month in Lhasa and had several meetings with the Dalai Lama. But the Government of India was reluctant to allow too many officials to visit the Tibetan capital. When they discovered where Macdonald was, he was ordered to return to Yatung."
34. (en) Robert Croston, Robert Roaf, in British Medical Journal , 2007: "[Sikkim, 1936] Kalimpong, where they put up at the Himalayan Hotel -- the family house of David Macdonald, now an old man and former Trade Agent Gyantse, Tibet."
35. History of the Himalayan Hotel [archive]: "The Himalayan Hotel, whose building was built in the style of English cottages [...]. David Macdonald erected the main building in 1925."
36. Himalayan Hotel Kalimpong, op. cit.: "After he retired, with his large family grown up, Macdonald turned the family home into a Hotel, and it has remained in the Macdonald family ever since. [...] The great names of the region have all been guests here. [...] it has also played host to Mme Alexandra David-Neel, Charles Bell, and many of the other British officials who traveled to Tibet in the first half of the twentieth century, as well to other Tibetologists such as Prince Peter of Greece, Rinchen Dolma Taring, authoress of “Daughter of Tibet”, Dr. Joseph Rock, Heinrich Harrer, author of “Seven Years in Tibet”, Sir Basil Gould, formerly Political Officer, Sikkim [...]."
37. Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj ..., op. cit., p. 134: "Macdonald [...] made several attempts in the 1930's and '40's to return to Tibet in an official capacity. [...] Macdonald recalled that in 1931, when he asked for permission to visit Gyantse, Weir replied that [...] he could not see his way to giving me permission."
38. (in) Toni Schmid, David Macdonald, in Ethnos, volumes 28 to 29, Routledge On Behalf of the National Museum of Ethnography, 1963, p. 254: “Friday July 6th 1962 David Macdonald died at Darjeeling. He was 89. His was a remarkable life. His ancestry was Scotch-Lepcha, and he married Alice Curtis, who was of English-Sherpa origin."
39. (in) Alex McKay, Tibet and the British Raj: the frontier framework, 1904-1947, Routledge, 1997, 293 p., P. 44: "David (born Dorje) Macdonald became Christian under the influence of his wife, the Anglo-Nepalese Alice Curtis, and entered local government service."
40. (in) Preface of Cultural heritage of Tibet, Light & Life Publishers, 1978, 267 pages, p. xv: “However his magnum opus was the 'Land of the Lama'. It deals with the country and its people in all its physical, social, cultural, historical, administrative and economic aspects. It is in fact an encyclopaedia on Tibet which has been freely used by the later writers."
41. Michael Buckley, in his tourist guide (in) Shangri-la: A Travel Guide to the Himalayan Dream (.. Bradt Travel Guides, 2008, p 191, p 127) hypothesizes that Heinrich Harrer, who stayed at Macdonald Darjeeling, was inspired by the title Twenty Years in Tibet for his own book Seven Years in Tibet: "Heinrich Harrer started writing his text, Seven Years in Tibet, after he departed Tibet in 1950 (see pages 92-3). He might have got the idea for the title from a book on the shelves [at Himalaya Hotel]: Twenty Years in Tibet, by David Macdonald, who was the British Agent in Tibet in the early 20th century."
42. (en) English Tibetan Colloquial Dictionary, 1920, preface: "And most of all are my thanks due to Mr. David McDonald, who has revised this book throughout and to whose unrivalled knowledge of both colloquial and literary Tibetan are largely due."
43. (en) Presentation of a reprint of Twenty Years in Tibet [archive]: “Having spent two decades in Tibet as British Trade Agent from 1905 to 1925, he gained the expertise of several languages., Viz. Bhutanese, Sikkimese, Bengali, Lepcha, Nepali and Hindi. [...] Macdonald had academic links with Sikkim Gazetteer, the Linguistic Survey of India and Tibetan Translation of the New Testament."

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Frederick Williamson
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/1/20



Frederick Williamson CIE
Frederick Williamson (closest to right)
Born 31 January 1891
Died 1935
Nationality United Kingdom
Known for Founding member of the Himalayan Club

Frederick Williamson CIE (1891-1935) was a British Political Officer stationed in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet in the 1930s.[1][2][3] He was an explorer and a founding member of the Himalayan Club.[3] It was 'largely owing to his influence and the esteem in which he was held in Lhasa' that Tibet permitted the 1935 and 1936 Mount Everest Expeditions.[3] His life was cut short by a chronic illness which occurred in Lhasa during November 1935 on a mission to negotiate a settlement between Tibet and Thubten Choekyi Nyima, 9th Panchen Lama.[3] On the announcement of his death, the Government of India stated that 'it robbed the Government of a most valuable officer'.[3]

Life

Williamson was born on 31 January 1891 and educated at Bedford Modern School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge.[2] He entered the Indian Civil Service in 1914, serving in Bihar and Orissa.[2] At the outbreak of World War I, he saw military duty with the Gurkha Rifles in India (1915–16) and Mesopotamia (1916–18) where he was wounded.[2] He saw service in Palestine and Egypt (1918–19) where he was mentioned in despatches.[2]

After World War I he held appointments in Bihar (1919–22), was Secretary to the British Resident of Mysore (1922), and was Secretary to the British Resident of Hyderabad (1923).[2] He later became the British Trade Agent at Gyantse (1924) and Assistant to the Political Officer in Sikkim.[2][3] His obituary in The Times states that he 'quickly felt the attraction of the romance and mystery' of those lands, and 'in his close study of the customs, folklore, and languages of the people followed in the footsteps of Sir Charles Bell'.[3]


Kula Kangri from Moenla Karchung 1933

In 1926, Williamson was made Officiating Political Officer in Sikkim and, in 1927, Consul-General to Kashgar, a position he held until 1930.[3] In 1931, Williamson returned to Gangtok as Political Officer in Sikkim. His brief life was cut short by a chronic illness which occurred in Lhasa during November 1935 on a mission to negotiate a settlement between Tibet and Thubten Choekyi Nyima, 9th Panchen Lama.[3] On the announcement of his death, the Government of India stated that 'it robbed the Government of a most valuable officer'.[3] His obituary in The Times states that he may well 'have wished nothing better than to end his days where his heart was—amid the eternal snows of Tibet'.[3]

In 1933, Williamson married Margaret Dobie Marshall who had accompanied him on his travels.[3] Margaret Williamson wrote a memoir of their life in Tibet, Sikkim, and Bhutan.[3]

Explorer


The Trapchi Regiment

A keen explorer, Williamson was a founder member of the Himalayan Club.[3] In Kashgar and Gangtok he explored unknown routes[3] and in 1928 established a new route from Yarkand to the Kara-Tash Valley by way of Kichik Karaul.[4] In 1933 he travelled in Bhutan with his wife, crossing the Great Himalayan range into Tibet via Mon-La-Kar-Chung La, the difficult glacier pass.[3]

It was 'largely owing to his influence and the esteem in which he was held in Lhasa' that Tibet permitted the 1935 and 1936 Mount Everest Expeditions.[3]

On his travels, Williamson and his partner and future wife were prolific photographers.[5] Between December 1930 and August 1935, they took approximately 1700 photographs throughout the Himalayan region.[5] The photographs they took are at the University of Cambridge and are described as 'providing an unusually well-preserved and well-catalogued insight into social life in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet during the 1930s'.[5]

References

1. Obituary in The Times, Mr Frederick Williamson, 19 November 1935, p.19
2. Who's Who, 1935, Published by A&C Black Limited 1935
3. "In Memoriam". himalayanclub.org. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
4. Himalayan Journal, vol. iii, 1931, p. 36
5. "Digital Himalaya: Williamson Collection". digitalhimalaya.com. Retrieved 8 July 2015.

Further reading

• Williamson, Margaret D. (1987). Memoirs of a Political Officer's Wife in Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan. London: Wisdom. ISBN 978-0-86171-056-0.

External links

• The Williamson Collection

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The Himalayan Club
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/1/20

The Himalayan Club is an organization founded in India in 1928 along the lines of the Alpine Club. The stated mission of the organization was “to encourage and assist Himalayan travel and exploration, and to extend knowledge of the Himalaya and adjoining mountain ranges through science, art, literature and sport.” The Club publishes a journal, the Himalayan Journal and has a library.

History

The idea to start such an organization was proposed in 1866 by Mr. F. Drew and Mr. W. H. Johnson to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Twenty years later Emil Bos, president of the Alpine Club and Douglas Freshfield of the Royal Geographic Society wrote in the Alpine Journal that “the formation at Calcutta or Simla of an Himálayan Club, prepared to publish ‘Narratives of Science and Adventure’ concerning the mountains, would be the most serviceable means.” The organization was finally established on 17 February 1928 in the office of Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood. A library was established at Shimla.[1] The founding members [of the Himalayan Club] were:[2]

• Sir Geoffrey Latham Corbett, Secretary for Commerce and Industry;
• Major Kenneth Mason of the Survey of India
• Mr. T. E. T. Upton, Solicitor to the Government of India
• Major General Walter Kirke, acting Chief of the General Staff
• Brigadier Edward Aldborough Tandy, Surveyor General of India
• The Viceroy, Lord Irwin [Lord Halifax]
• Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood, Commander in Chief
• Sir Malcolm Hailey, Governor of the Punjab
• Sir Edwin Pascoe, Director of the Geological Survey of India
• Major General Kenneth Wigram
• Brigadier William Louis Oberkirch Twiss
• Mr. G. Mackworth Young, Army Secretary
• Mr. James Glasgow Acheson, Deputy Foreign Secretary
• Major Edward Oliver Wheeler of the Survey of India
• Captain Charles Granville Bruce, 6th Gurkhas

The membership of the organization grew from 250 in 1928 to 572 in 1946. A library was initially established in Shimla at United Service Institution of India but moved to the Survey of India and in 1932 to New Delhi. In 1947, most of the British members left India but continued to be members. With more members in Calcutta, it was managed from there and the library moved from the Army headquarters to the Calcutta Light Horse Club in 1948. In 1958 the library moved to the Geological Survey of India and in 1966 it moved to the National Library of India in Calcutta. In 1971, it moved back to New Delhi where it was housed in the Central Secretariat and before moving to the Indian International Centre in 1976 where it continues to be located.[2]

References

1. Corbett, G.L. (1929). "The founding of the Himalayan Club". The Himalayan Journal. 1: 1–3.
2. Flora, Nirmolini V (2003). "The Library of the Himalayan Club, a Unique Cultural Institution in Simla, 1928-1946". Libraries & the Cultural Record. 38 (4): 289. doi:10.1353/lac.2003.0062.

External links

• Official website

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The Founding of the Himalayan Club
by G. L. Corbett
Himalayan Journal 01 (1929)


K2 FROM THE NORTH EAST.

MR. DOUGLAS FRESHFIELD tells me that the idea of a Himalayan Club goes back so far as 1866, when it was formally suggested to the Asiatic Society of Bengal by Mr. F. Drew and Mr. W .H. Johnson. And Mr. Fresh field himself, writing in The Alpine Journal in 1884, advised that our knowledge of the Himalaya might thus be extended. " The formation at Calcutta or Simla," he said, " of an Himalayan Club, prepared to publish Narratives of Science and Adventure' concerning the mountains, would be the most serviceable means to this end." The idea must have recurred to many, but it never took shape, not because a Club was not wanted, but because in this land of endlessness it is only now and then that the two or three are gathered together. The thing had hung in the balance for years when a chance talk at Simla tipped the beam, and the Himalayan Club was born on the path behind Jakko on the afternoon of the 6th October, 1927.

I wrote first to Major Kenneth Mason of the Survey of India, who also had long cherished the hope of a Club; to Major-General Walter Kirke, then acting as Chief of the General Staff; and to Brigadier E. A. Tandy, Surveyor General of India. I was diffident, for there seemed no reason why the time should now be fulfilled. Mason replied that he was with me heart and soul; Kirke that he would do anything he could to help; Tandy that he would help in any way he could. So encouraged, I went ahead. The Viceroy, Lord Irwin, the Commander-in-Chief, Field-Marshal Sir William Birdwood, and Sir Malcolm Hailey, then Governor of the Punjab, were among the first to whom I told our plans. Others were Mr. T. E. T. Upton, Solicitor to the Government of India; Sir Edwin Pascoe, Director of the Geological Survey of India; Major-General Kenneth Wigram and Brigadier W. L. 0. Twiss who still, they say, count for something among Gurkhas; Mr. G. Mackworth Young, Army Secretary; and Mr J. G. Acheson, Deputy Foreign Secretary. Mason meanwhile had consulted Major E. O. Wheeler of the Survey of India, and Captain J. G. Bruce, 6th Gurkhas. These were the founders of the Himalayan Club, and it is to their confidence and sound judgment that the Club owes its constitution. There were three others who had no claim to be members of the Club, but whose interest and advice meant much to us: the Foreign Secretary, Sir Denys Bray; the Education Secretary Mr. J. W. Bhore, who included in his Department the Survey of India; and the Private Secretary to the Viceroy, Mr George Cunningham. It was Denny Bray who determined the quality of our founder members: What you want," he said, "is a solid core of men who have done things."

We proceeded deliberately, remembering always that it's the first step that counts. There were three things to be decided: What should the Club be called? What should be its objects? Who should be asked to become founder members? The name of the Club was soon settled. "The Alpine Club of India" had been suggested, but seemed likely to scare those whose interest was not high mountaineering; nor had we need to look for a name beyond our own great range. Almost from the first we thought of ourselves as "The Himalayan Club. It was agreed that our objects should be based on the famous definition in the Rules of the Alpine Club. But it is shikar that first impels nine-tenths of those who go to the Himalaya; and though we were unwilling to admit shikar as a specific object of the Club we thought that our objects should recognise that knowledge of the Himalaya is extended through " sport," which would cover mountain climbing and ski-running as well as shikar. In this way we arrived at our definition:-

"To encourage and assist Himalayan travel and exploration, and to extend knowledge of the Himalaya and adjoining mountain ranges through science, art, literature and sport."

The list of those who should be asked to become founder members, was anxiously and carefully compiled. Our intention was to include everyone who had "done things in the Himalaya; and if anyone was inadvertently omitted, I hope he will forgive and join us now. On the 20th December, 1927, Mason and I sent out our circular letter, and then we waited apprehensively for the replies. We had never dared to hope for such a response. From all over India and beyond, and from the back of beyond, from Europe, Africa and America, replies came welcoming the Club and making varied and valuable suggestions. Almost everyone replied, and almost everyone who replied became a founder member. Our 127 founder members contribute to the objects of the Club much that there is of Himalayan knowledge and experience. The Club was formally inaugurated at a meeting held in Field-Marshal Sir William Birdwood's room at Army Headquarters, Delhi, on the 17th February, 1928.

While we were still intent on our first step, we learnt that "The Mountain Club of India" had been formed at Calcutta on the 23rd September, 1927. Mason and I took an early opportunity to meet Mr. W. Allsup, its moving spirit, and it was agreed that the two Clubs should go forward with mutual good-will, and that the question of fusion should be considered later. At the inaugural meeting of the Himalayan Club it was decided to ask the Mountain Club whether it would be willing to amalgamate. A general meeting of the Mountain Club on the 14th December, 1928, agreed to amalgamate "for the benefit of the common aims of the two Clubs," and we are now one strong and united organisation. Allsup to our regret has now left India, but the combined Club will not forget how selflessly he advocated amalgamation.

We owe much too to the Alpine Club, and in particular to Colonel E. L. Strutt, the Editor of the Alpine Journal, who is also one of our founder members, and to Mr. Sydney Spencer, the Honorary Secretary. From the first and throughout I have been in close correspondence with them, and their ungrudging help and wise advice have never failed me. Members of the Alpine Club who come to the Himalaya may be sure of a warm welcome and all the assistance that the Himalayan Club can give.

And so the Himalayan Club is founded, and we hope great things of it: the geographer that the blank places on his map may be filled in; the scientist that our knowledge of the Himalaya, its rocks and glaciers, its animals and plants, its peoples and their way of living, may continually expand; the artist that its glories may inspire fine pictures. The mountaineer may dream of the first ascent of a thousand unclimbed peaks, the shikari of record heads shot in nalas yet unknown. My own hope is that it may help to rear a breed of men in India, hard and self-reliant, who will know how to enjoy life on the high hills.

G. L. Corbett.

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Geoffrey Corbett
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/1/20

The founding members [of the Himalayan Club] were:[2]

• Sir G. L. Corbett, Secretary for Commerce and Industry

-- The Himalayan Club, by Wikipedia

Sir Geoffrey Latham Corbett KBE CIE (9 February 1881 – November 1937) was a British member of the Indian Civil Service and a mountaineer. He held senior positions in the Governments of British India and the Kingdom of Egypt.

Early life

The son of Frederick Corbett, of Chaddesley Corbett, Worcestershire,[1] Corbett was educated at Bromsgrove School[2] and was already a climber while still there. In 1898, when he was seventeen, he made his first climbing trip to Switzerland, visiting the central Alps and climbing the Grand Muveran, the Dent de Morcles, and peaks around Zermatt.[3] In 1899 arrived as a classical scholar at Hertford College, Oxford,[2] and in 1901 he made a second trip to the Alps, when he made a traverse of the Aiguilles Rouges, among other routes. While at Oxford he also climbed in Yorkshire and the Lake District, usually with his friend Alfred Barran.[3] However, after taking a double first in Classics he entered the Indian Civil Service in 1904[1] and was lost to serious climbing for some years.

Career

Corbett achieved fast promotion in India, with periods of leave which he used for climbing. In 1916 he was elected to the Alpine Club. In 1918, the last year of the Great War, he was appointed Director of Industries and Controller of Munitions in the Central Provinces. While there he explored the Satpuras and also visited Kashmir and Ladakh.[3] In 1919 he was appointed as Deputy Secretary to the Government of India for Commerce and Industry, then went to Calcutta as Director-General of Commercial Intelligence.[1] He attended the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921–22, was sent on a mission to Fiji later in 1922, attended the Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva in 1929, and was Secretary of the British Indian delegation to the Round Table Conferences of 1930 to 1932.[3] In 1931 he was a temporary member of the Viceroy's Executive Council.[1]

In 1921 he made a climbing trip to Switzerland with Henry Hayden and returned in 1922, 1925, and 1928, usually climbing with local guides.[3] He also took up big game hunting.[1]

In 1926 Corbett was at Simla as Secretary for Commerce and Industry in the Government of India, and his windows looked north towards the Himalayas. He began to plan the establishment of a Himalayan Club, an idea which was far from new, but he got the support of several important men. These included Lord Irwin, the Viceroy of India, who agreed to be a founder member, Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood, the Commander-in-Chief, India, who eventually became the first President; and Sir Malcolm Hailey, Governor of the Punjab. The Club was formally created in Birdwood's meeting room at Army Headquarters, Delhi, on 17 February 1928, with 127 founder members, and with Corbett himself as the first Honorary Secretary.[3]

Due to a collapse in his health, Corbett left India in 1932 and returned to Oxford as Reader in Indian History, also becoming the Himalayan Club's representative on the Mount Everest Committee.[3]

After Oxford, Corbett was appointed as Adviser to the Kingdom of Egypt's Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Cairo. In 1936 and 1937, he made expeditions to Switzerland, but died suddenly in Cairo in November 1937.[3] At his own request he was buried at sea.[1]

Private life

In 1912, Corbett married Gladys Kate Bennett, who like him was from Worcestershire, and they had one son. Their home in England was at Bonson, Nether Stowey, Somerset. His nephew was the acclaimed British film director Michael Powell[4]

Honours

• Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire[1]
• Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire[1]
• Grand Cordon of the Order of the Nile[5]

Notes

1. 'Sir G. L. Corbett' in The Times, issue 47832 dated 3 November 1937, p. 16
2. 'University Intelligence' in The Times, issue 35975 dated 1 November 1899, p. 10
3. Kenneth Mason, IN MEMORIAM GEOFFREY LATHAM CORBETT 1881-1937 from Himalayan Journal, vol. 10 (1938), online at himalayanclub.org
4. The Lady's Who's Who (1938), p. 100
5. London Gazette dated 5 November 1937, p. 6,890

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Round Table Conferences (India)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/1/20

The three Round Table Conferences of 1930–32 were a series of peace conferences organized by the British Government and Indian national congress was participant to discuss constitutional reforms in India. These started in November 1930 and ended in December 1932. They were conducted as per the recommendation of Jinnah to Viceroy Lord Irwin and Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald,[1][2] and by the report submitted by the Simon Commission in May 1930. Demands for Swaraj, or self-rule, in India had been growing increasingly strong. B. R. Ambedkar, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Mahatma Gandhi, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan and Mirabehn are key participants from India. By the 1930s, many British politicians believed that India needed to move towards dominion status. However, there were significant disagreements between the Indian and the British political parties that the Conferences would not resolve. The key topic was about constitution and India which was mainly discussed in that conference. There were three Round Table Conferences from 1930 to 1932.

First Round Table Conference (November 1930 – January 1931)

The Round Table Conference officially inaugurated by His Majesty George V on November 12, 1930 in Royal Gallery House of Lords at London[1] and chaired by the Prime Minister. Ramsay MacDonald was also chairman of a subcommittee on minority representation, while for the duration his son, Malcolm MacDonald, performed liaison tasks with Lord Sankey's constitutional committee.[3] One of the foremost advisers was Lord Hailey, an Indian civil servant with thirty years experience. The leading Liberal on the committee, Lord Reading was "well aware of the troubles which might arise if an when India became independent."[4] Yet Attlee, who served on the Simon Commission, wanted an early resolution but was baulked by the Conservatives in government until 1945. Sir Samuel Hoare wrote the cabinet a memo recommending a federal formula for the Government of India to "make it possible to give a semblance of responsible government and yet retain the realities and verities of British control."[5] The idea was proposed by the princely states and other Liberal Indian leaders including Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru would welcome it. The minority Labour government hoped to win the support of Liberal and Conservative colleagues in parliament for a "responsive" Indian government at central and provincial levels and a conservative legislature.

The three British political parties were represented by sixteen delegates. There were fifty-eight political leaders from British India and sixteen delegates from the princely states. In total 74 delegates from India attended the Conference. However, the Indian National Congress, along with Indian business leaders, kept away from the conference. Many of them were in jail for their participation in Civil Disobedience Movement.[6] Lord Irwin made a controversial statement declaring that India should be eventually granted Dominionship. After a discussion in Delhi in December 1929, Gandhi had refused to attend the London meetings. In accordance with the law the Viceroy arrested Gandhi sending him to prison. However the Mahatma's presence would prove vital for the conference success. The culmination of events were settled by the Gandhi–Irwin Pact (1931). A chastised Gandhi wanted the peaceful end to civil disobedience demanded by the Viceroy and his Council. Lord Irwin was triumphant but the pathetic Simon Commission had failed to gauge the determination of Indian opinion to ultimately bring independence.[7] The Conservatives were disgusted: "the whole conference was manipulated and manoeuvred by the Socialist Party, said Churchill, "to achieve the result they had set before themselves from the beginning, namely the conferring of responsible government at the centre upon Indians."[8]

Participants

• British Representatives:
• Labour: Ramsay MacDonald, Lord Sankey, Wedgwood Benn, Arthur Henderson, J. H. Thomas, William Jowitt, Hastings Lees-Smith, Earl Russell
• Conservative: Earl Peel, Marquess of Zetland, Samuel Hoare, Oliver Stanley
• Liberal: Marquess of Reading, Marquess of Lothian, Sir Robert Hamilton, Isaac Foot
• Muslim League: Aga Khan III (leader of British-Indian delegation), Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Muhammad Shafi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, A. K. Fazlul Huq, Hafiz Ghulam Hussain Hidayat Ullah, Dr. Shafa'at Ahmad Khan, Raja Sher Muhammad Khan of Domeli,Nilay A. H. Ghuznavi [9]
• Indian States' Representatives: Maharaja of Alwar, Maharaja of Baroda, Nawab of Bhopal, Maharaja of Bikaner, Rana of Dholpur, Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja of Nawanagar, Maharaja of Patiala (Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes), Maharaja of Rewa, Chief Sahib of Sangli, Sir Prabhashankar Pattani (Bhavnagar), Manubhai Mehta (Baroda), Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmed Khan (Gwalior), Akbar Hydari (Hyderabad), Mirza Ismail (Mysore), Col. Kailas Narain Haksar (Jammu and Kashmir)
• British-Indian Representatives:
• Hindus: B. S. Moonje, M. R. Jayakar, Diwan Bahadur Raja Narendra Nath
• Liberals: J. N. Basu, Tej Bahadur Sapru, C. Y. Chintamani, V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad
• Justice Party: Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar, Bhaskarrao Vithojirao Jadhav, Sir A. P. Patro
• Depressed Classes: B. R. Ambedkar, Rettamalai Srinivasan
• Sikhs: Sardar Ujjal Singh, Sardar Sampuran Singh
• Parsis: Phiroze Sethna, Cowasji Jehangir, Homi Mody
• Indian Christians: K. T. Paul
• Europeans: Sir Hubert Carr, Sir Oscar de Glanville (Burma), T. F. Gavin Jones, C. E. Wood (Madras)
• Anglo-Indians: Henry Gidney
• Women: Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz, Radhabai Subbarayan
• Landlords: Maharaja Kameshwar Singh of Darbhanga (Bihar), Muhammad Ahmad Said Khan Chhatari (United Provinces), Raja of Parlekhmundi (Orissa), Provash Chandra Mitter
• Labour: N. M. Joshi, B. Shiva Rao
• Universities: Syed Sultan Ahmed, Bisheshwar Dayal Seth,
• Burma: U Aung Thin, Ba U, M. M. Ohn Ghine
• Sindh: Shah Nawaz Bhutto, Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah
• Other Provinces: Chandradhar Barua (Assam), Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum (NWFP), S. B. Tambe (Central Provinces)
• Government of India: Narendra Nath Law, Bhupendra Nath Mitra, C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, M. Ramachandra Rao
• Officials attending in consultative capacity: W. M. Hailey, C. A. Innes, A. C. MacWatters, Sir Henry G. Haig, L. W. Reynolds
• Indian States Delegation Staff:
• Hyderabad: Sir Richard Chenevix-Trench, Nawab Mahdi Yar Jung, Ahmed Hussain, Nawab Sir Amin Jung Bahadur, Sir Reginald Glancy
• South Indian States: T. Raghavaiah
• Baroda: V. T. Krishnamachari
• Alwar: Fateh Naseeb Khan
• Orissa States: K. C. Neogy
• Nominated by the Chamber of Princes Special Organisation: L. F. Rushbrook Williams, Qazi Ali Haidar Abbasi, Jarmani Dass, A. B. Latthe, D. A. Surve
• Secretariats: S. K. Brown, V. Dawson, K. S. Fitze, W. H. Lewis, R. J. Stopford, John Coatman, Marmaduke Pickthall, K. M. Panikkar, N. S. Subba Rao, Geoffrey Corbett, A. Latifi, Girija Shankar Bajpai
• Secretariat-General: R. H. A. Carter, Mian Abdul Aziz, W. D. Croft, G. E. J. Gent, B. G. Holdsworth, R. F. Mudie, G. S. Rajadhya

Proceedings

The conference started with six plenary meetings where delegates put forward their issues nine sub-committees were formed to deal with several different matters including federal structure, provincial constitution, province of Sindh and NWFP, defense services and minorities e.t.c.[9] These were followed by discussions on the reports of the sub-committees on Federal Structure, Provincial Constitution, Minorities, Burma, North West Frontier Province, Franchise, Defense services and Sindh. These were followed by 2 more plenary meetings and a final concluding session.[6] It was difficult for progress to be made in the absence of the Indian National Congress but some advances were made. The Prime Minister wrote his diary "India has not considered. It was communalism and proportions of reserved seats" that exposed the worst side of Indian politics.[10]

The idea of an All-India Federation was moved to the centre of discussion by Tej Bahadur Sapru.[11] All the groups attending the conference supported this concept. The princely states agreed to the proposed federation provided that their internal sovereignty was guaranteed. The Muslim League also supported the federation as it had always been opposed to a strong Centre. The British agreed that representative government should be introduced on provincial level.

Second Round Table Conference (September 1931 – December 1931)

The Congress, which had killed and boycotted the first conference, was requested to come to a settlement by Sapru, M. R. Jayakar and V. S. Srinivasa Sastri. A settlement between Mahatma Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Irwin not true the Congress to the second session of Round Table Conference, which opened on 7 September. Although MacDonald was still Prime Minister of Britain, he was by this time heading a coalition Government (the "National Government") with a Conservative majority, including Sir Samuel Hoare as a new Secretary of State for India. On 7 November 1931, Gandhi secretly met with Malcolm MacDonald in his rooms at Balliol College, Oxford. He took the opportunity to gain publicity from a tour of the East End and visit to Lancashire cotton mills, but could not persuade the government to grant self-rule: of more urgency was the gathering Agrarian Crisis and Congress newest campaign for a Fair rent.

The discussion led to the passing of the Government of India Act of 1935, yet the Governor of United Provinces was happy to be rid of the Mahatma's campaigns "playing havoc with six or seven million tenants in the UP."[12] When Nehru decried that the famine relief program was pitiful He was already asking for a kisan rent strike, and Patel called for a satyagraha. When quizzed in London about his intentions for the conference, Gandhi averred he could nothing about agrarian problems from England. Little was achieved other than the Government realised they had to tackle absentee landlordism in India to avert disaster.

Participants[13]

• British Representatives:
o Labour: Ramsay MacDonald, Wedgwood Benn, Arthur Henderson, William Jowitt, Hastings Lees-Smith, F. W.hick-Lawrence, Lord Sankey, Lord Snell, J. H. Thomas
o Conservative: Viscount Hailsham, Samuel Hoare, Earl Peel, Oliver Stanley, Marquess of Zetland
o Scottish Unionist: Walter Elliot
o Liberal: Isaac Foot, Henry Graham White, Robert Hamilton, Marquess of Lothian, Marquess of Reading,
• Indian States' Representatives: Maharaja of Alwar, Maharaja of Baroda, Nawab of Bhopal, Maharaja of Bikaner, Maharao of Kutch, Rana of Dholpur, Maharaja of Indore, Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja of Kapurthala, Maharaja of Nawanagar, Maharaja of Patiala, Maharaja of Rewa, Chief Sahib of Sangli, Raja of Korea, Raja of Sarila, Sir Prabhashankar Pattani (Bhavnagar), Manubhai Mehta (Baroda), Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmed Khan (Gwalior), Sir Muhammad Akbar Hydari (Hyderabad), Mirza Ismail (Mysore), Col. K.N. Haksar (Jammu and Kashmir), T. Raghavaiah (Travancore), Liaqat Hayat Khan (Patiala)
• Muslim Representatives: Allama Iqbal joined in with other Muslim leaders
• British-Indian Representatives:
o Government of India: C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, Narendra Nath Law, M. Ramachandra Rao
o Indian National Congress: Mahatma Gandhi (He was the sole representative of the Congress).
o Muslims: Aga Khan III, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, A. K. Fazlul Huq, SirMuhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Shafi, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, Sir Syed Ali Imam, Maulvi Muhammad Shafi Daudi, Raja Sher Muhammad Khan of Domeli, A. H. Ghuznavi, Hafiz Hidayat Hussain, Sayed Muhammad Padshah Saheb Bahadur, Dr. Shafa'at Ahmad Khan, Jamal Muhammad, khaja Mian Rowther, Nawab Sahibzada Sayed Muhammad Mehr Shah
o Hindus: M. R. Jayakar, B. S. Moonje, Diwan Bahadur Raja Narendra Nath
o Liberals: J. N. Basu, C. Y. Chintamani, Tej Bahadur Sapru, V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad
o Justice Party: Raja of Bobbili, Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar, Sir A. P. Patro, Bhaskarrao Vithojirao Jadhav
o Depressed Classes: B. R. Ambedkar, Rettamalai Srinivasan,
o Sikhs: Sardar Ujjal Singh, Sardar Sampuran Singh.
o Parsis: Cowasji Jehangir, Homi Mody, Phiroze Sethna.
o Indian Christians: Surendra Kumar Datta, A. T. Pannirselvam.
o Europeans: E. C. Benthall, Sir Hubert Carr, T. F. Gavin Jones, C. E. Wood (Madras)
o Anglo-Indians: Henry Gidney
o Women: Sarojini Naidu, the Nightingale of India;Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz, Radhabai Subbarayan
o Landlords: Muhammad Ahmad Said Khan Chhatari (United Provinces), Kameshwar Singh of Darbhanga (Bihar), Raja of Parlakimedi (Orissa), Sir Provash Chandra Mitter
o Industry: Ghanshyam Das Birla, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, Maneckji Dadabhoy
o Labour: N. M. Joshi, B. Shiva Rao, V. V. Giri
o Universities: Syed Sultan Ahmed, Bisheshwar Dayal Seth
o Burma: Sir Padamji Ginwala
o Sindh: Shah Nawaz Bhutto, Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah
o Other Provinces: Chandradhar Barua (Assam), Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum (NWFP), S. B. Tambe (Central Provinces)
• Indian States Delegation Staff: V. T. Krishnamachari (Baroda), Richard Chenevix-Trench (Hyderabad), Nawab Mahdi Yar Jung (Hyderabad), S. M. Bapna (Indore), Amar Nath Atal (Jaipur), J. W. Young (Jodhpur), Ram Chandra Kak (Jammu and Kashmir), Sahibzada Abdus Samad Khan (Rampur), K. C. Neogy (Orissa states), L. F. Rushbrook Williams, Jarmani Dass, Muhammad Saleh Akbar Hydari, K. M. Panikkar, N. Madhava Rao
• British Delegation Staff: H. G. Haig, V. Dawson, K. S. Fitze, J. G. Laithwaite, W. H. Lewis, P. J. Patrick, John Coatman, G. T. Garratt, R. J. Stopford
• British Indian Delegation Staff: Geoffrey Corbett, A. Latifi, Girija Shankar Bajpai, Benegal Rama Rau, Syed Amjad Ali, Prince Aly Khan, A. M. Chaudhury, Mahadev Desai, Govind Malaviya, K. T. Shah, P. Sinha
• Secretariat-General: R. H. A. Carter, K. Anderson, C. D. Deshmukh, J. M. Sladen, Hugh MacGregor, G. F. Steward, A. H. Joyce, Syed Amjad Ali, Ram Babu Saksena.

Proceedings

The second session opened on September 7, 1931. There were three major differences between the first and second Round Table Conferences. By the second:


The Second Round Table Conference (September 7, 1931)

• Congress Representation — The Gandhi-Irwin Pact opened the way for Congress participation in this conference. Mahatma Gandhi was invited from India and attended as the sole official Congress representative accompanied by Sarojini Naidu and also Madan Mohan Malaviya, Ghanshyam Das Birla, Muhammad Iqbal, Sir Mirza Ismail (Diwan of Mysore), S.K. Dutta and Sir Syed Ali Imam. Gandhi claimed that the Congress alone represented political India; that the Untouchables were Hindus and should not be treated as a “minority”; and that there should be no separate electorates or special safeguards for Muslims or other minorities. These claims were rejected by the other Indian participants. According to this pact, Gandhi was asked to call off the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and if he did so the prisoners of the British government would be freed except the criminal prisoners, i.e. those who had killed British officials. He returned to India, disappointed with the results and empty-handed.
• National Government — two weeks earlier the Labour government in London had fallen. Ramsay MacDonald now headed a National Government dominated by the Conservative Party.
• Financial Crisis – During the conference, Britain went off the Gold Standard further distracting the National Government.

At the end of the conference Ramsay MacDonald undertook to produce a Communal Award for minority representation, with the provision that any free agreement between the parties could be substituted for his award.

Gandhi took particular exception to the treatment of untouchables as a minority separate from the rest of the Hindu community. Other important discussions were the responsibility of the executive to the legislature and a separate electorate for the Untouchables as demanded by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.[14] Gandhi announced that henceforth he would work only on behalf of the Harijans: he reached a compromise with the leader of depressed classes, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, over this issue; the two eventually resolved the situation with the Poona Pact of 1932.[15] But not before the conference of All-India Depressed Classes had specifically 'denounced the claim made by Gandhi.'[16]

Third Round Table Conference (November – December 1932)

The third and last session assembled on November 17, 1932. Only forty-six delegates attended since most of the main political figures of India were not present. The Labour Party from Britain and the Indian National Congress refused to attend.

From September 1931 until March 1933, under the supervision of the Secretary of State for India, Sir Samuel Hoare, the proposed reforms took the form reflected in the Government of India Act 1935.

Participants[17]

• Indian States' Representatives: Akbar Hydari (Dewan of Hyderabad), Mirza Ismail (Dewan of Mysore), V. T. Krishnamachari (Dewan of Baroda), Wajahat Hussain (Jammu and Kashmir), Sir Sukhdeo Prasad (Udaipur, Jaipur, Jodhpur), J. A. Surve (Kolhapur), Raja Oudh Narain Bisarya (Bhopal), Manubhai Mehta (Bikaner), Nawab Liaqat Hayat Khan (Patiala), Fateh Naseeb Khan (Alwar State), L. F. Rushbrook Williams (Nawanagar), Raja of Sarila (small states)
• British-Indian Representatives: Aga Khan III, B. R. Ambedkar (Depressed Classes), Ramakrishna Ranga Rao of Bobbili, Sir Hubert Carr (Europeans), Nanak Chand Pandit, A. H. Ghuznavi, Henry Gidney (Anglo-Indians), Hafiz Hidayat Hussain, Muhammad Iqbal, M. R. Jayakar, Cowasji Jehangir, N. M. Joshi (Labour), Narasimha Chintaman Kelkar, Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar, Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz (Women), A. P. Patro, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Dr. Shafa'at Ahmad Khan, Sir Shadi Lal, Tara Singh Malhotra, Sir Nripendra Nath Sircar, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan.

References

1. Wolpert, Stanley (2013). Jinnah of Pakistan (15 ed.). Karachi, Pakistan: University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-19-577389-7.
2. Wolpert, Stanley (2012). Shameful Flight (1st ed.). Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-19-906606-3.
3. Ramsay Macdonald, The Awakening of India (1909) advocated progress towards Indian self-government.
4. MacDonald Papers file 112/1/67, C Sanger, Malcolm MacDonald: End of Empire (1995), p.79.
5. 12 December 1930, Carl Bridge, Holding India to the Empire: the British Conservative Party and the 1935 Constitution (new Delhi: Sterling, 1988). Hoare was in direct correspondence with Viceroy Lord Irwin and Sir Malcolm Hailey, Governor of United Provinces, where Gandhi lived.
6. Indian Round Table Conference Proceedings. Government of India. 1931.
7. Christopher Lee (2018), Viceroys: the creation of the British(London: Constable)
8. Speech March 1931, Constitutional Club, W S Churchill
9. Prof M. Ikram, Rabbani. Pakistan studies (2nd ed.). Lahore, Pakistan: Caravan Book house. pp. 100–101.
10. 15 December 1930, Macdonald Diary; David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (London: Jonathan Cape, 1977)
11. Menon, V.P. (1957). Transfer of Power in India. Orient Longman Ltd. p. 44. ISBN 9788125008842. Retrieved 2015-05-29.
12. Robert D Pearce, The Turning Point in Africa: British Colonial Policy 1938-1948 (London: Cass, 1982), p.43.
13. Indian Round Table Conference (Second Session) Proceedings of the Plenary Sessions (PDF). 1932.
14. "mr Gandhi demanded that as one of the conditions for his accepting their fourteen points, they should oppose the claims of the Depressed Classes, and the smaller minorities." Dr.Ambedkar letter to The Times of India, 12 October 1931.
15. Collected Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, 51.; Robin J.Moore, The Crisis of Indian Unity 1917-1940, p.289.
16. C.Keer, Dr Ambedkar: Life and Mission, (1971) p.178-9.
17. "ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE (DELEGATES). (Hansard, 31 October 1932)".

Further reading

• Beatty, Michael J.; Behnke, Ralph R.; Banks, Barbara Jane (1979). Elements of dialogic communication in Gandhi's second round table conference address. p. 386–398.
• Menon, V. P. (1995). Integration of the Indian States. Orient Longman Ltd.
• Ball, Stuart, ed. (2014). Conservative Politics in National and Imperial Crisis, Letters from Britain to the Viceroy of Indian 1926-1931. Ashgate publishing.
• Mount, Ferdinand (2015). The Tears of the Rajas. London: Simon & Schuster.
• Nehru, Jawaharlal (1936). Autobiography (2nd, Delhi: OUP, 1980 ed.). London: Bodley Head.
• Wood, Edward (1932). Indian Problems. London: Allen & Unwin.

External links

• Essay on Indian Constitutional Round Table Conferences, London 1931–1933

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Kenneth Mason (geographer)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/1/20

The founding members [of the Himalayan Club] were:[2]

• Major Kenneth Mason of the Survey of India

-- The Himalayan Club, by Wikipedia

Lieut-Colonel Kenneth Mason MC
Kenneth Mason
Born 10 September 1887
Sutton, Surrey
Died 2 June 1976 (aged 89)
Nationality British
Alma mater Royal Military Academy, Woolwich
Occupation Soldier, explorer, Professor

Lieut-Colonel Kenneth Mason MC (10 September 1887 – 2 June 1976) was a British soldier and geographer notable as the first statutory professor of Geography at the University of Oxford.[1] His work surveying the Himalayas was rewarded in 1927 with a Royal Geographical Society Founder's Medal, the citation reading for his connection between the surveys of India and Russian Turkestan, and his leadership of the Shaksgam Expedition.[2]

Personal life

Kenneth Mason was born at Sutton, Surrey, the son of timber broker Stanley Engledue Mason and his wife Elizabeth Martin Turner.[3] He was educated first at Cheltenham College and then the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.[4]

Mason married Dorothy Helen Robinson in 1917 and they had two sons and one daughter.

Devoted to the Drapers' Company, Mason became its Master in 1949.

Military service

Mason was commissioned in the Royal Engineers. There, he helped to pioneer stereoscopic techniques that were to revolutionise cartography using aerial and land-based photogrammetry.

In 1914, Mason's First World War service took him to France (the Neuve Chapelle sector and Loos) before, in January 1916, he landed at Basra, Iraq. In action connected to the relief of Kut, he led a night march to the flank of the Dujailah redoubt, and was subsequently awarded the Military Cross. He entered Baghdad as Intelligence Officer with the Black Watch. He was promoted to Brevet-Major and three times mentioned in dispatches. Following the Armistice he was the first to take cars across the Syrian Desert.

Career as a Geographer

In 1909, Mason sailed for Karachi and was posted to the Survey of India. 1910-1912 saw him engaged on triangulation in Kashmir, where he learned climbing techniques, taught himself to ski and went on to make a stereographic land survey.





Mason returned to India after the First World War and began preparing for his most important scientific project, the exploration of the Shaksgam Valley, in 1926.[5] At that time the only westerner to see the valley had been Francis Younghusband, whose book The heart of a continent : a narrative of travels in Manchuria, across the Gobi Desert, through the Himalayas, the Pamirs, and Chitral, 1884-1894[6] had first inspired Mason as a schoolboy to pursue a career in geography. Now, Younghusband encouraged Mason to follow in his footsteps.

Mason began a survey using a photo-theodolite and stereographic techniques, laboriously collecting great quantities of data. His results, plotted in Switzerland using what, at the time, was the world's most advanced Stereoplotter, were acclaimed as brilliantly successful, winning him the award of the 1927 Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Gold Medal.

In 1928, Mason and Geoffrey Corbett convened a group to co-found The Himalayan Club, "To encourage and assist Himalayan travel and exploration, and to extend knowledge of the Himalaya and adjoining mountain ranges through science, art, literature and sport."[7] Mason edited the club's journal until 1940.

Mason was elected as the first statutory professor of Geography at the University of Oxford in 1932, becoming a Fellow of Hertford College. His academic work, linked to the Himalayan Journal which he had founded in 1929, addressed the challenge of naming ranges in the Karakoram region (specifically, the Baltoro Muztagh).[8][9]

In 1940 Mason was contacted by Ian Fleming (who later wrote the famous James Bond stories) and Rear Admiral John Henry Godfrey about the preparation of reports on the geography of countries involved in military operations. These reports were the precursors of the Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series produced between 1941 and 1946. Mason directed a team of academics at Oxford who contributed around half of what was, at the time, one of the largest geographic projects ever attempted.[10]

Kenneth Mason retired from his Chair at Oxford in 1953 but continued to write and give lectures on topics relating to the exploration of the Himalaya into his retirement.[11] His final major work, Abode of Snow, was written shortly after the triumph of the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition and presents a comprehensive history of Himalayan exploration up to the first confirmed ascent of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.[/size][/b]

Works

• Exploration of the Shaksgam Valley and Aghil Ranges, 1926 (1928)
• French West Africa British Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series (1943)
• Italy British Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series (1944)
• Iraq and the Persian Gulf British Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series (1944)
• Western Arabia and the Red Sea British Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series (1946)
• Abode of Snow (1955)
Mason also contributed obituaries for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for two fellow explorers:
• Charles Granville Bruce
• Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen

References

1. "Mason, Kenneth (1887–1976), geographer and mountaineer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Archived from the original on 28 January 2016. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
2. "List of Past Gold Medal Winners" (PDF). Royal Geographical Society. Archived from the original(PDF) on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
3. Morris, J (3 June 1976). "In memoriam: Lieut-Colonel Kenneth Mason". The Times.
4. "Obituary: Kenneth Mason". The Geographical Journal. 142 (3): 566–567. November 1976.
5. Mason, Kenneth (1928). Exploration of the Shaksgam Valley and Aghil ranges, 1926. p. 72. ISBN 9788120617940.
6. Younghusband, Francis (1896). The heart of a continent : a narrative of travels in Manchuria, across the Gobi Desert, through the Himalayas, the Pamirs, and Chitral, 1884-1894. London: John Murray. Archived from the original on 2009.
7. Corbett, GL (1929). "The Founding of the Himalayan Club". The Himalayan Journal.
8. Muir Wood, Robert (6 November 1980). "Science Goes to the Karakorum". New Scientist: 374–377.
9. Mason, Kenneth (January 1930). "The Proposed Nomenclature of the Karakoram-Himalaya". Geographical Journal: 38–44.
10. Clout, Hugh; Gosme, Cyril (April 2003). "The Naval Intelligence Handbooks: a monument in geographical writing". Progress in Human Geography. 27 (2): 153–173 [156]. doi:10.1191/0309132503ph420oa. ISSN 0309-1325.
11. Mason, Kenneth (1956). "Great figures of nineteenth‐century Himalayan exploration". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society: 167–175.

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Worshipful Company of Drapers
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/1/20


Worshipful Company of Drapers
Motto Unto God Only be Honour and Glory
Location Drapers' Hall, Throgmorton Avenue, City of London
Date of formation 1361
Order of precedence 3rd
Master of company Tim Orchard (2019-20)
Website http://www.thedrapers.co.uk

The Worshipful Company of Drapers is one of the 110 livery companies of the City of London. It has the formal name The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Drapers of the City of London. More usually known simply as the Drapers' Company, it is one of the historic Great Twelve Livery Companies and was founded during the Middle Ages.[1]

The livery companies of the City of London, currently 110 in number, comprise London's ancient and modern trade associations and guilds, almost all of which are styled the 'Worshipful Company of...' their respective craft, trade or profession.[1][2] London's livery companies play a significant part in City life, not least by providing charitable-giving and networking opportunities. Liverymen retain voting rights for the senior civic offices, such as the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs and City of London Corporation, its ancient municipal authority with extensive local government powers.[2]

The term livery originated in the specific form of dress worn by retainers of a nobleman and then by extension to special dress to denote status of belonging to a trade. Livery companies evolved from London's medieval guilds, becoming corporations under Royal Charter responsible for training in their respective trades, as well as for the regulation of aspects such as wage control, labour conditions and industry standards. Early guilds often grew out of parish fraternal organizations, where large groups of members of the same trade lived in close proximity and gathered at the same church.[3] Like most organisations during the Middle Ages, these livery companies had close ties with the Catholic Church (before the Protestant Reformation), endowing religious establishments such as chantry chapels and churches, observing religious festivals with hosting ceremonies and well-known mystery plays. Most livery companies retain their historical religious associations, although nowadays members are free to follow any faith or none. Companies often established a guild or meeting hall, and though they faced destruction in the Great London Fire of 1666 and during World War II, thirty-nine companies maintain their sometimes elaborate and historic halls.[3]

Most livery companies still maintain contacts with their original trade, craft or professional roles. Some still exercise powers of regulation, inspection and enforcement, while others are awarding bodies for professional qualifications. The Scriveners' Company admits senior members of legal and associated professions, the Apothecaries' Society awards post-graduate qualifications in some medical specialties, and the Hackney Carriage Drivers' Company comprises licensed taxi drivers who have passed the "Knowledge of London" test. Several companies restrict membership only to those holding relevant professional qualifications, eg. the City of London Solicitors' Company and the Worshipful Company of Engineers. Other companies, whose trade died out long ago, such as the Longbow Makers' Company, have evolved into being primarily charitable foundations.[2]

After the Carmen received City livery status in 1848 no new companies were established in London for 80 years until the Master Mariners in 1926 (granted livery in 1932).[2] Post-1926 creations are known as modern livery companies. The Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars, the newest, was granted livery status on 11 February 2014, making it the 110th City livery company in order of precedence.[4] The Honourable Company of Air Pilots is exceptional among London's livery companies in having active overseas committees in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand and North America.

-- Livery company, by Wikipedia

History


Drapers' Hall Garden, 1860

An informal association of drapers had organized as early as 1180, and the first (Lord) Mayor of London in 1189, Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone, was believed to have been a Draper. The organisation was formally founded in 1361; it received a Royal Charter three years later. It was incorporated as a company under a Royal Charter in 1438 and was the first corporate body to be granted a coat of arms. The charter gave the company perpetual succession and a common seal. Over the centuries the original privileges granted by Royal Charter have been confirmed and amended by successive monarchs. The acting charter of today is that granted by James I in 1607, amended by four supplemental charters, most recently in 2008.

The brotherhood of drapers, a religious fraternity attached to the church of St Mary Bethlehem in Bishopsgate, was founded in honour of the Virgin Mary by "good people Drapers of Cornhill and other good men and women" for the amendment of their lives. The majority of drapers lived in and around Cornhill, Candlewick Street (now Cannon Street) and Chepe (Cheapside). Possibly it was for this reason that their allegiance was transferred to St Mary le Bow in Cheapside and later to St Michael, Cornhill, where the company continues to worship today. Despite these changes, the drapers retain the Blessed Virgin Mary as their patron saint.

Originally, the organisation was a trade association of wool and cloth merchants. It has been one of the most powerful companies in London politics. Over one hundred Lord Mayors have been members of the company; the first, Henry Fitz-Ailwyn, is thought to have been a draper. During the Plantation of Ulster, the company held land around Moneymore and Draperstown in County Londonderry.

Amongst the royalty who have been members of the company, four had not been expected to become a monarch at the time of their birth but were later crowned:

• Prince William of Orange, later King William (III & II) of England, Scotland, France and Ireland
• Prince Carl of Denmark, later King Haakon VII of Norway
• Prince Albert, Duke of York, later George VI, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India
• Princess Elizabeth of York, later Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Other well-known members have included Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Lord Nelson and Grinling Gibbons.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (who was elected to the Court of Assistants in 2017, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of her membership of the Company), King Harald V of Norway, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Gloucester, Admiral Lord Boyce, and Lady Victoria Leatham (who was elected the first female Master of the company in 2012) are among the many distinguished current members of the company.

Present


Queen Elizabeth's College (almshouses)

Today, the company operates as a charitable, ceremonial and educational institution. This has included providing the site and some of the buildings of Queen Mary University of London, the library at Bangor University, and the site and the original nineteenth-century buildings of Bancroft's School. It also administers three almshouses: Queen Elizabeth College Greenwich, Edmanson's Close Tottenham and Walter's Close Southwark. It provides the chairman and four other governors of Bancroft's School, who use the Drapers' coat of arms and motto. It is the co-sponsor of Drapers' Academy, which uses a similar logo. The Company founded two girls' schools: in Llandaff and Denbigh, Wales, using the endowment of Welsh merchant Thomas Howell, who bequeathed a sum of money to the foundation. Both schools were independent and separate institutions but the Company still has a representative in the governing body of the former. The company also has close links with some eighteen other educational establishments, ranging from Oxbridge colleges to a primary school. It administers charitable trusts relating to relief of need, education and almshouses; it provides banqueting and catering services; and it fosters its heritage and traditions of good fellowship. The Court of Assistants is its governing body.[2]

The Drapers' Company continues to play a role in the life of the City. Its liverymen carry out important functions in the elections of the governance of the City and its offices.

Livery hall


Administration entrance to Drapers' Hall pictured in 2012.

The Drapers' Company is based at Drapers' Hall located in Throgmorton Street, near London Wall. The company has owned the site since 1543, when it purchased the London mansion of Thomas Cromwell, of Austin Friars, from King Henry VIII. Cromwell had been attainted and executed in 1540.

The building was destroyed in the Great Fire of London and rebuilt to designs by Edward Jarman. After another fire in 1772, it was rebuilt again. This time the architect was John Gorham. Further extensive alterations were made in the 19th century. The hall survived the Blitz during the Second World War.

The hall includes four finely decorated main rooms used for the company's functions. The largest room is the Livery Hall, which can accommodate up to 276 guests for dinner.[3] These rooms are also available for hire[4] and have often been used for film locations, including for The King's Speech, GoldenEye, The Lost Prince and Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London.[5][6] Groups may book a guided tour of Drapers' Hall; a donation to the company's charitable work is requested.

Church

• St Michael's Cornhill [7]

Collections

The company's archives, works of art, silver and artefacts are in the care of the archivist. The document collection has items dating to the 13th century, including charters and coats of arms, charity records and records of the company's landholdings, including the Londonderry estates. The silver collection includes an ancient Celtic decorative collar found on the Londonderry estate and pieces of the company's own silverware from the 16th century onwards. There is also a collection of paintings, mostly of former members. Researchers may view its collections by appointment.

See also

• Coat of arms of the Drapers' Company
• Drapers' Gardens
• Sukiennice, or Drapers' Hall, Renaissance landmark of Kraków, Poland

References

1. W. Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 2 vols (Author, London 1834), I, pp. 389-495.
2. [1]
3. "The Livery Hall". Drapers' Company. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
4. London Venues, Drapers' Hall.
5. On the set of 'The King's Speech' Archived 18 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Time Out
6. "Location of the Month", March 2004, Film London
7. "Drapers' Company - Livery Companies of the City of London". liverydatabase.liverycompanies.info. Retrieved 8 October 2019.

External links

• The Drapers' Company

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General Sir Walter Mervyn St George Kirke
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/1/20

The founding members [of the Himalayan Club] were:[2]

• Major General Walter Kirke, acting Chief of the General Staff

-- The Himalayan Club, by Wikipedia

Sir Walter Kirke
Gen. Sir Walter Kirke
Born: 19 January 1877
Died: 2 September 1949 (aged 72)
Allegiance: United Kingdom
Service/branch: British Army
Years of service: 1896–1940
Rank: General
Commands held 5th Infantry Division
Western Command
Territorial Army
Home Guard
Battles/wars: First World War; Second World War
Awards: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath; Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
Distinguished Service Order

General Sir Walter Mervyn St George Kirke GCB CMG DSO (19 January 1877 – 2 September 1949) was the Commander in Chief of the British Home Forces during the Second World War.

Military career

Born the second son of Colonel St. George Mervyn Kirke RE and his wife Sarah, Walter Kirke was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1896.[1] He served in Waziristan on the North West Frontier of India between 1901 and 1902.[1]

He served in the First World War as a General Staff Officer at GHQ in France and Belgium.[1] In 1918 he became Deputy Director of Military Operations at the War Office and was then moved to Aldershot in 1922.[1] In 1924 he was appointed Head of the British Military Mission to Finland and in 1925 President of Inter-Allied Commission of Investigation for Hungary.[1]

Then in 1926 he became Deputy Chief of the General Staff for India moving on to be General Officer Commanding 5th Division in 1929.[1] In 1933 he was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Western Command and in 1936 he became Director-General of the Territorial Army.[1]

He served in the Second World War initially as Inspector-General of Home Defence and then as Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces.[2] in that role he always thought that the threat of a German invasion was exaggerated.[3] He retired in 1940.[1]

He was also an Aide-de-Camp General to the King from 1937 to 1940.[4]

References

1. Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
2. World War II: Great Britain at War Daily Telegraph, 4 September 1939
3. The home guard: a military and political history By S. P. Mackenzie, Page 19. Oxford University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-19-820577-7
4. Army List July 1940

Further reading

• Private Papers of General Sir Walter Kirke GCB CMG DSO can be found in the Imperial War Museum, Documents and Sound section, ref: Documents.20171 (82/28/1 & Con Shelf).

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Part 1 of 2

Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax [Lord Halifax] [Lord Irwin] [Baron Irwin]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/1/20

The founding members [of the Himalayan Club] were:[2]

• The Viceroy, Lord Irwin [Lord Halifax]

-- The Himalayan Club, by Wikipedia

In general, I have undoubtedly made mistakes in my lists of members, but the mistakes, such as they are, are to be found rather in my attribution of any particular person to the outer circle instead of the inner core, rather than in my connecting him to the Group at all. In general, I have attributed no one to the inner core for whom I do not have evidence, convincing to me, that he attended the secret meetings of the Group. As a result, several persons whom I place in the outer circle, such as Lord Halifax, should probably be placed in the inner core.

-- The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden, by Carroll Quigley

The Right Honourable
The Earl of Halifax
KG OM GCSI GCMG GCIE TD PC
The Earl of Halifax in 1947
20th Viceroy and Governor-General of India
In office
3 April 1926 – 18 April 1931
Monarch George V
Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin
Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by The Earl of Reading
Succeeded by The Earl of Willingdon
Secretary of State for War
In office
7 June 1935 – 22 November 1935
Monarch George V
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by The Viscount Hailsham
Succeeded by Duff Cooper
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office
21 February 1938 – 22 December 1940
Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Preceded by Anthony Eden
Succeeded by Anthony Eden
British Ambassador to the United States
In office
23 December 1940 – 1 May 1946
Monarch George VI
President
Franklin Roosevelt
Harry Truman
Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Clement Attlee
Preceded by The Marquess of Lothian
Succeeded by The Lord Inverchapel
Leader of the House of Lords
In office
22 November 1935 – 21 February 1938
Monarch
George V
Edward VIII
George VI
Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin
Neville Chamberlain
Preceded by The Marquess of Londonderry
Succeeded by The Earl Stanhope
In office
3 October 1940 – 22 December 1940
Monarch George VI
Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Preceded by The Viscount Caldecote
Succeeded by The Lord Lloyd
Lord President of the Council
In office
28 May 1937 – 9 March 1938
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald
Succeeded by The Viscount Hailsham
Lord Privy Seal
In office
22 November 1935 – 28 May 1937
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by The Marquess of Londonderry
Succeeded by The Earl De La Warr
Chancellor of the University of Oxford
In office
1933–1959
Preceded by The Viscount Grey of Fallodon
Succeeded by Harold Macmillan
Personal details
Born Edward Frederick Lindley Wood
16 April 1881
Powderham Castle, Devon, England
Died 23 December 1959 (aged 78)
Garrowby Hall, Yorkshire, England
Nationality British
Spouse(s) Lady Dorothy Onslow (m. 1909)
Children
Anne Duncombe, Countess of Feversham
Lady Mary Wood
Charles Wood, 2nd Earl of Halifax
Major Hon Francis Wood
Richard Wood, Baron Holderness
Parents
Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax
Lady Agnes Courtenay
Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford

Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, KG, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, TD, PC (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), styled The 1st Baron Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and The 3rd Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a senior British Conservative politician of the 1930s. He held several senior ministerial posts during this time, most notably those of Viceroy of India from 1925 to 1931 and of Foreign Secretary between 1938 and 1940. He was one of the architects of the policy of appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1936–38, working closely with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. However, after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 he was one of those who pushed for a new policy of attempting to deter further German aggression by promising to go to war to defend Poland.

On Chamberlain's resignation early in May 1940, Halifax effectively declined the position of Prime Minister as he felt that Churchill would be a more suitable war leader (his membership of the House of Lords was given as the official reason). A few weeks later, with the Allies facing apparently catastrophic defeat and British forces falling back to Dunkirk, Halifax favoured approaching Italy to see if acceptable peace terms could be negotiated. He was overruled by Churchill after a series of stormy meetings of the War Cabinet. From 1941 to 1946, he served as British Ambassador in Washington.

Early life and education

Wood was born on 16 April 1881 at Powderham Castle in Devon, home of his maternal grandfather William Courtenay, 11th Earl of Devon. He was born into a Yorkshire family, the sixth child and fourth son of Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax (1839–1934), and Lady Agnes Elizabeth Courtenay (1838–1919). His father was President of the English Church Union, which pushed for ecumenical reunion, in 1868, 1919, and 1927–1934. His great-grandfather was Earl Grey, the Prime Minister who introduced the Great Reform Act of 1832.[1]

Between 1886 and 1890, Wood's three older brothers died young, leaving him, at the age of nine, heir to his father's fortune and seat in the House of Lords.[2] He was brought up in a world of religion and hunting. His religiosity as a devout Anglo-Catholic like his father earned him the nickname, possibly coined by Churchill, of the "Holy Fox". He was born with an atrophied left arm and no left hand, which did not stop him from enjoying riding, hunting and shooting.[1] He had an artificial left hand with a spring-operated thumb, with which he could hold reins or open gates.[3]

Wood's childhood was divided mainly between two houses in Yorkshire: Hickleton Hall, near Doncaster, and Garrowby.

Halifax attended St David's Prep School from September 1892 and Eton College from September 1894. He was not happy at school as he was not talented either at sport or classics. He went up to Christ Church, Oxford, in October 1899. He took no part in student politics but blossomed academically, graduating with a first class degree in Modern History.[1]

From November 1903 until 1910, he was a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.[1] After a year at All Souls, he went on a Grand Tour of South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand with Ludovic Heathcoat-Amory. In 1905, he returned to England for two years of study at All Souls.[4] He visited Canada in 1907.[5] He wrote a short biography of the Victorian cleric John Keble (1909).[4]

Early political career and war service

Wood had not stood in the 1906 general election, at which the Liberals won a landslide victory, choosing to devote his energies to his All Souls Fellowship. By 1909 the political tides had turned enough for Wood to put himself forward for the Conservative candidacy at Ripon in Yorkshire, and he was easily selected through local influence.[6] Ripon had gone Liberal in 1906; Wood won it with a 1,000 vote majority in January 1910 and held it with a reduced majority in December 1910. He remained Member of Parliament for Ripon until his elevation to the Lords in 1925.[4] He was a Ditcher (i.e. opposed to the bitter end and ready to "die in the last ditch" to defend the House of Lords' right to veto legislation) in the disputes over the Parliament Act 1911 but really made little impact on politics before 1914. He was vigorously opposed to Welsh Disestablishment.[4]

Before the First World War he was already a captain in the Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons, a West Riding yeomanry regiment. He made a rare intervention in debate, urging that conscription be introduced immediately. He was sent to the front line in 1916. In January 1917 he was Mentioned in dispatches ("Heaven Knows What For" he wrote). He rose to the rank of major. He was then Deputy Director of Labour Supply at the Ministry of National Service from November 1917 to the end of 1918. He was initially sympathetic to Lord Lansdowne's proposal for a compromise peace, but ultimately demanded all-out victory and a punitive peace.[4]

Wood was unopposed in the general elections of 1918, 1922, 1923 and 1924. He was a signatory to the April 1919 Lowther Petition calling for harsh peace terms against Germany in the Treaty of Versailles then being negotiated. In the 1918–1922 Parliament, Wood was an ally of Samuel Hoare, Philip Lloyd-Greame and Walter Elliot, all ambitious younger MPs in favour of progressive reform.[4]

In 1918, he and George Ambrose Lloyd (later Lord Lloyd) wrote "The Great Opportunity", a tract aiming to set an agenda for a revived Conservative and Unionist Party following the end of the Lloyd George coalition. They urged the Conservative Party to concentrate on the welfare of the community rather than the good of the individual. With the Irish War of Independence then in progress Wood urged a federal solution. At this time he concentrated on housing and agriculture and Ireland.[7]

Early ministerial career

In May 1920, he accepted the Governor-Generalship of South Africa, but the offer was withdrawn after the South African government announced that it wanted a Cabinet minister or a member of the Royal Family.[7]

In April 1921, he was appointed Under-Secretary for the Colonies, under Churchill who was initially reluctant to meet him (on one occasion he stormed into Churchill's office and told him that he "expected to be treated like a gentleman"). In the winter of 1921–1922, Wood visited the British West Indies and wrote a report for Churchill.[7]

On 16 October 1922, Wood attended the meeting of the junior ministers who expressed disquiet at the Lloyd George Coalition. On 19 October 1922, he voted at the Carlton Club meeting for the Conservatives to fight the next election as an independent force. The Coalition ended and Bonar Law formed a purely Conservative government. Wood was promoted to the Cabinet on 24 October 1922 as President of the Board of Education. Some saw this as an improvement in the moral character of the government. Austerity policies left no room for constructive policies. Wood, who spent two days hunting each week, was neither interested nor particularly effective in the job but saw it as a stepping stone to greater things. He was not happy about Stanley Baldwin's adoption of tariffs in December 1923, which saw the Conservatives lose their majority and give way to a minority Labour government.[7]

When the Conservatives were returned to power, on 6 November 1924, Wood was appointed Minister for Agriculture, a more onerous job than Education had been. He took an Agriculture and Tithes Bill through the Commons.[7]

Viceroy of India

Appointment

In October 1925, Lord Birkenhead, Secretary of State for India, offered Wood the job of Viceroy of India at the suggestion of King George V. His paternal grandfather Sir Charles Wood had been Secretary of State for India in 1859–1865. He almost declined, as he had two sons of school age and his aged father seemed unlikely to live until 1931 when his term was due to end. He accepted on the advice of his father (who in the event lived to see him return). He was created Baron Irwin, of Kirby Underdale in the County of York. He left for India on 17 March 1926,[7] and arrived in Bombay on 1 April 1926.

Irwin was honoured with the GCSI and GCIE in 1926.[8]

Irwin relished the pomp of the Viceroyalty. He was an able horseman, and stood 6' 5". He had a "Cecilian stoop and sympathetic kindly eyes" and gave an impression of a Prince of the Church (R. Bernays Naked Fakir 1931). Several attempts were made to assassinate him. He was more sympathetic to Indians than his predecessors had been, although he had no compunctions about signing death warrants when he thought them justified. He wanted Indians to be more united and friendly to the UK; his first major speech as Viceroy, and several more throughout his term of office, urged an end to communal violence between Hindus and Muslims.[7]

Simon Commission

The 1919 Government of India Act had incorporated the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms ("Diarchy" - shared rule between British and Indians at the local level) and had promised that after ten years there would be a commission to inquire about a new constitution and to advise on whether further reforms were needed. Irwin accepted that greater self-government was necessary, as Indian national aspirations had grown since 1919. Birkenhead brought forward the date of the commission, and put it under Sir John Simon. Irwin recommended an all-British inquiry, as he thought that the Indian factions would not agree among themselves but would fall into line behind the results of the inquiry.[7] David Dutton believes that this was "the most fateful mistake of his viceroyalty, and one he came bitterly to regret".[8]

In November 1927, the composition of the Simon Commission was announced. All the leading Indian parties, including the Indian National Congress, boycotted it. Irwin assured Birkenhead that Simon could win over moderate Indian opinion. Simon arrived in Bombay on 3 February 1928. He achieved some limited successes, but Irwin became convinced that a new gesture would be necessary.[8]

Indian responses to Simon's arrival included the All-Parties Conference, a committee of which produced the Nehru Report (May 1928), advocating dominion status for India. However, there was also violence, including the death of Lala Lajpat Rai in November 1928 and the revenge attack of Bhagat Singh in December 1928. Other responses included the Muslim League leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah's 14 points (March 1929).

The Irwin Declaration

In June 1929, a new Labour government took office in the UK, with Ramsay MacDonald Prime Minister for the second time and William Wedgwood Benn as Secretary of State for India. On 13 July 1929, Irwin arrived in the UK on leave, bringing with him a "suggested" draft exchange of letters between MacDonald and Simon. His plan was for Simon to write proposing a Round Table Conference to discuss the findings of the Commission, and that MacDonald would then reply pointing out that the 1917 Montagu Declaration implied a commitment to dominion status (i.e. that India should become completely self-governing, like Canada or Australia). Simon saw the drafts and had serious misgivings about the planned Round Table Conference. The exchange of letters did not mention Dominion Status as the other Commissioners did not favour it, although Simon did not report the depth of their feeling, which he came to share, that such a declaration would undermine the findings of the Commission and that Dominion Status would now become a minimum demand for the Indian leaders rather than an ultimate goal. The author David Dutton finds it "curious" that Irwin, who had believed that Simon would not object to Dominion Status, did not understand this.[8]

The Irwin Declaration of October 1929 committed Britain to eventual Dominion Status for India. Despite such a policy having been implicit for a decade, the Declaration was denounced by many on the Tory Right. Lord Reading (Irwin's predecessor as Viceroy) denounced it, and Simon made his displeasure known. There was brief hope of a breakthrough in Anglo-Indian relations, but the New Delhi Conference of December 1929 between Irwin and the Indian leaders failed to reach agreement. Gandhi now began a campaign of civil disobedience with a view to achieving complete independence. He walked for 24 days to the sea, where he proceeded to make salt, in breach of the government's historic monopoly. Irwin had all the Congress leaders put behind bars, including Gandhi eventually.[8]

Some criticism of Irwin may have been unfair, but he had made an error and the consequences were serious and unrest grew. Irwin's position was seen as excessively lenient by London but as half-hearted in India. With little room for manoeuvre, Irwin resorted to repression using his emergency powers to ban public gatherings and crush rebellious opposition. Gandhi's detention, however, only made matters worse.

Agreement with Mahatma Gandhi

In November 1930, King George V opened the First Round Table Conference in London; no Congress delegates took part because Gandhi was in gaol.[8]

In January 1931, Gandhi was released and at Irwin's invitation they had eight meetings together. Irwin wrote to his aged father that "it was rather like talking to someone who had stepped off another planet onto this for a short visit of a fortnight and whose mental outlook was quite other to that which was regulating most of the affairs on the planet to which he had descended". But they had mutual respect based on their respective religious faiths.[8]


The First Round Table Conference was inaugurated by King George-V on Nov.12, 1930 in London, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Delegate, seen in the left row (9th)

The fortnight-long discussions resulted in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 5 March 1931, after which the Civil Disobedience Movement and the boycott of British goods were suspended in exchange for a Second Round Table Conference that represented all interests.[8]

The salient points were:

• The Congress would discontinue the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• The Congress would participate in the Round Table Conference.
• The Government would withdraw all ordinances issued to curb the Congress.
• The Government would withdraw all prosecutions relating to offences not involving violence.
• The Government would release all persons serving sentences of imprisonment for their activities in the civil disobedience movement.

It was also agreed that Gandhi would join the Second Round Table Conference as the sole representative of the Congress.

On 20 March 1931, Irwin paid tribute to Gandhi's honesty, sincerity and patriotism at a dinner given by ruling princes.

Assessments

A month following the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Lord Irwin's term ended and he left India. On Irwin's return to England in April 1931, the situation was calm, but within a year the conference collapsed and Gandhi was again arrested.

Despite the mixed outcomes, Irwin was overall a successful Viceroy; he had charted a clear and balanced course and had not lost the confidence of his home government. He had demonstrated toughness and independence. His successful term as Viceroy ensured that he returned to British politics with significant prestige.

British politics 1931–1935

Irwin returned to the UK on 3 May 1931. He was honoured with the KG (he became chancellor of the order in 1943). In 1931 he declined the Foreign Office in the new National Government, not least because the Tory Right would not have liked it. Officially, he declared that he wanted to spend time at home. He went to Canada, at the invitation of Vincent Massey, to speak at the University of Toronto.[8]

He was still a firm protégé of Stanley Baldwin. In June 1932, on the sudden death of Sir Donald Maclean, he returned to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Education, for the second time, having been apparently genuinely reluctant to accept. His views were somewhat old-fashioned: he declared: "We want a school to train them up to be servants and butlers".[8]

Irwin became Master of the Middleton Hunt in 1932 and was elected as Chancellor of Oxford University in 1933. In 1934 he inherited the title Viscount Halifax on the death of his 94-year-old father.[9]

He helped Hoare draft what became the Government of India Act 1935, the largest single piece of legislation of the 1931–1935 government.[9]

In June 1935, Baldwin became Prime Minister for the third time, and Halifax was appointed Secretary of State for War. He was pleased to give up the Education job. He felt the country was unprepared for war, but he resisted the Chiefs of Staffs' demands for rearmament.[9]

In November 1935, after the general election, Halifax became Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords.[9]

Foreign policy

Colleague of Eden

By this time, Halifax was becoming increasingly influential in foreign affairs.[9] Cabinet met on the morning of 18 December 1935 to discuss the public outcry over the Hoare–Laval Pact. Halifax, who was due to make a statement in the Lords that afternoon, insisted that the Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare must resign to save the government's position, causing J. H. Thomas, William Ormsby-Gore and Walter Elliott also to come out for his resignation. Anthony Eden was appointed Foreign Secretary in Hoare's place.[10] The following year, Halifax said the provisions of the Pact "were not so frightfully different from those put forward by the Committee of Five [of the League]. But the latter were of respectable parentage: and the Paris ones were too much like the off-the-stage arrangements of nineteenth-century diplomacy".[11]

Effectively, although not formally, Halifax was deputy Foreign Secretary to Eden. In general they got on well.[9] Halifax and Eden were in agreement about the direction of foreign policy (and in line with prevailing opinion throughout Britain) that Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland, its "own backyard", would be difficult to oppose and should be welcomed insofar as it continued Germany's seeming progress towards normality after the tribulations of the post-First World War settlement.[citation needed]

In 1936, Neville Chamberlain recorded that Halifax was always saying he wanted to retire from public life.[12] In May 1937, when Neville Chamberlain succeeded Baldwin as Prime Minister, Halifax became Lord President of the Council, as well as remaining Leader of the House of Lords.[9] Chamberlain began increasingly to intervene directly in foreign policy, activity for which his background had not prepared him, and which caused increasing tension with Eden.[citation needed]


Lord Halifax with Hermann Göring at Schorfheide, Germany, 20 November 1937.

In his capacity as Master of the Middleton Hunt, Halifax accepted an invitation from Hermann Göring to go to a hunting exhibition in Berlin and hunt foxes in Pomerania in November 1937. Halifax later put it on the record that, far from this being an attempt by Chamberlain to bypass the Foreign Office, Eden had pressed him to accept. Halifax was not keen about the way the meeting was arranged.[9] Göring was a passionate hunter and gave Halifax the nickname Halalifax, after Halali!, a German hunting call, but Halifax was publicly and correctly regarded as acting on behalf of the British government to renew dialogue with the German government.[13]

On being taken to meet Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Halifax almost created an incident by nearly handing his coat to him, believing him to be a footman:

"As I looked out of the car window, on eye level, I saw in the middle of this swept path a pair of black trousered legs, finishing up in silk socks and pumps. I assumed this was a footman who had come down to help me out of the car and up the steps and was proceeding in leisurely fashion to get myself out of the car when I heard von Neurath or somebody throwing a hoarse whisper at my ear of Der Führer, der Führer; and it then dawned upon me that the legs were not the legs of a footman, but of Hitler."[14]

A long and barbed meeting with the Führer then ensued.[14] In discussions with Hitler, Halifax spoke of "possible alterations in the European order which might be destined to come about with the passage of time". Ignoring Eden's reservations, he did not object in principle to Hitler's designs on Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland, although he stressed that only peaceful processes of change would be acceptable.[9] Writing to Baldwin on the subject of the conversation between Karl Burckhardt (the League of Nations' Commissioner of Danzig) and Hitler, Halifax said:

"Nationalism and Racialism is a powerful force but I can't feel that it's either unnatural or immoral! I cannot myself doubt that these fellows are genuine haters of Communism, etc.! And I daresay if we were in their position we might feel the same!"[15]

Halifax and Winston Churchill in 1938. Note Halifax's artificial left hand, concealed under a black glove.

In December 1937, Halifax told the Cabinet that "we ought to get on good terms with Germany", as despite the best efforts of Eden and Chamberlain, Britain was still faced with the prospect of war with Germany, Italy and Japan.[9]

By February 1938, Halifax warned Chamberlain of strains in the Cabinet, and tried to broker a deal between Chamberlain and Eden. Eden resigned as Foreign Secretary on 20 February, in protest at Chamberlain's wish to make further concessions to Benito Mussolini, whom Eden regarded as an untrustworthy gangster, without gestures of good faith on his part. Halifax was appointed Foreign Secretary on 21 February 1938, despite some criticism from Labour and elsewhere that so important a job was being given to a peer.[9]

Halifax commented "I have had enough obloquy for one lifetime" (i.e., as Viceroy of India) before accepting appointment as Foreign Secretary.[16] Chamberlain preferred him to the excitable Eden: "I thank God for a steady unruffled Foreign Secretary."[9]

Foreign Secretary

Analysis

Halifax's political line as Foreign Secretary must be seen in the context of existing British foreign policy, which was predicated on a broad consensus that in none of the democracies was there popular support for war, military pressure, or even rearmament. There was debate about the extent to which the dictatorships' very separate interests could be teased apart. It was clear that an alignment of Germany and Italy would divide Britain's forces in any general war and that, without at least a neutral Italy, Britain would be unable to move large naval forces east to confront Japan, given America's refusal to help. For many, especially in the Foreign Office, appeasement was a necessary compromise to buy time for rearmament, a process to which Britain was already heavily committed.[17] Others, especially Churchill, hoped that a strong military alliance with France would permit a more robust foreign policy towards the dictators. Many shared Churchill's confidence in the large French Army, although fewer shared his belief that France would be a resilient ally.

Chamberlain embraced the policy of appeasement as a moral force for good, as did many others who were deeply opposed to war and defence spending. By comparison, Halifax's policy appears more pragmatic, like that of Samuel Hoare, coupled to a firm commitment to rearmament, albeit unenthusiastically. All parties recognised the hostility of public opinion to war or military preparations, and the difficulty of acting without a readiness on the part of America or the Soviet Union to play their part (the Labour Party opposed rearmament until well after the Munich Agreement). Nonetheless, Halifax was criticised as an appeaser, along with Chamberlain, Hoare, and twelve others, in the anonymous 1940 book Guilty Men.

Munich


Adolf Hitler greets British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on the steps of the Berghof, 15 September 1938 during the crisis over Czechoslovakia. Joachim von Ribbentrop stands on the right.

Hitler's annexation of Austria in March 1938 made Halifax keener on rearmament. Czechoslovakia was clearly next on the agenda, but neither Britain nor France believed they had the military capacity to support her, and in the summer of 1938, Halifax still wanted to urge the Czechs in private to make concessions to Germany, which was making demand about the status of the Sudeten Germans.[18]

Halifax remained in London and did not accompany Chamberlain on his dramatic flights to Germany in the autumn of 1938. This was once seen as a sign of Chamberlain's dominance of his Cabinet.[18]

It appears that a frank conversation with his pugnacious Permanent Secretary, Sir Alexander Cadogan, brought Halifax to the sharp realisation that the road to appeasement had taken Britain into a series of concessions that were unwise and that were unlikely to secure the necessary pacification of Germany.

On 25 September 1938, Halifax spoke out in Cabinet against the inflated demands presented by Hitler in the Godesberg Memorandum after his second summit meeting with Chamberlain.[19] It is now known that Halifax, under Cadogan's influence, persuaded the Cabinet to reject the Bad Godesberg terms. Britain and Germany came close to war until Chamberlain flew to Munich. Chamberlain could hardly afford to lose a second Foreign Secretary, and his dominance of his Cabinet was never so overwhelming again.[18]

The eventual Munich Agreement, signed after Chamberlain's third summit meeting with Hitler, was apparently popular around the world and humiliating to many in the British government, but it was short of Hitler's desires (and of Chamberlain's proposed concessions) and increased Hitler's determination to return to destroy Czechoslovakia in the spring.

On 3 October 1938, Halifax defended the Munich Agreement in the House of Lords, in much more measured terms than the Prime Minister had done, not as a triumph but as the lesser of two evils.[18]

The Munich crisis had seen Halifax begin to take a stronger line than Chamberlain against further concessions to Germany. Andrew Roberts argues that from this point on, Halifax set his face firmly towards a policy of deterrence. He hoped that increased rearmament—including strengthening of alliances with and economic support to the countries of Eastern Europe, and the reintroduction of conscription—coupled with a firmer line towards Germany, Italy, and Japan would reduce the risks of those three hostile powers acting in combination. (It is of note that, when war did begin, neither Japan nor Italy was prepared to join in until the pendulum had swung much further in Germany's favour.)