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The Lord Kennet | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Minister of Health | |
| In office 5 November 1931 – 7 June 1935 | |
| Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald |
| Preceded by | Neville Chamberlain |
| Succeeded by | Sir Kingsley Wood |
| Financial Secretary to the Treasury | |
| In office 21 April 1921 – 19 October 1922 | |
| Prime Minister | David Lloyd George |
| Preceded by | Stanley Baldwin |
| Succeeded by | John Hills |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1879-03-20)20 March 1879 |
| Died | 11 July 1960(1960-07-11) (aged 81) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet |
| Relatives | Sir George Young, 4th Baronet, brother Geoffrey Winthrop Young, brother |
Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet (20 March 1879 – 11 July 1960) was a British politician and writer.
Young was the youngest son ofSir George Young, 3rd Baronet (seeYoung baronets), a noted classicist and charity commissioner.[1] Sir George's paternal great-grandmother was Emily Baring of theeponymous merchant banking dynasty.[2] Hilton's mother, formerly Alice Eacy Kennedy, was ofDublinIrish Protestant background and had previously lived inIndia as Lady Lawrence, wife of Sir Alexander Lawrence, Bt, nephew to theViceroy,Lord Lawrence. Widowed when Sir Alexander died in a bridge collapse, Alice returned to England, marrying Sir George in 1871.[3] Hilton was the youngest of three sons and one daughter (who died aged 14) born to the couple. The oldest brother, also George, would become a diplomat and Ottoman scholar. The next brother,Geoffrey Winthrop Young, became a noted educator and mountaineer. Their childhood was spent at the family's Thames-side 'Formosa' estate, atCookham, Berkshire. On visits to their London house near Sloane Square, Hilton would often play in Kensington Gardens with the children of Sir George's friend, SirLeslie Stephen.[4] In this way, he commenced a close friendship with his contemporaryThoby Stephen, and became acquainted with Thoby's siblings,Vanessa,Virginia, andAdrian.
At his preparatory school,Northaw Place, in 1892 Young took pity on nine-year-oldClement Attlee on the latter's first day at school, offering the newcomer jam from his own pot.[5] His secondary schooling commenced atMarlborough but incessant bullying saw him transferred toEton where he joined the army stream which emphasised science rather than the classics. After two terms studying chemistry atUniversity College London, he went up toTrinity College, Cambridge in October 1897, graduating in 1900 with a 'first' in natural sciences and having achieved the office ofpresident of theUnion Society.[6][7]
Post-Cambridge he read for the Bar and was called by theInner Temple in 1904. However, after receiving few briefs and suffering a nervous breakdown, he transferred to financial journalism. In 1908 he was appointed assistant editor ofThe Economist, resigning in 1910 to become city editor ofThe Morning Post.[7] His 1912 workForeign Companies and Other Corporations combined his legal and financial knowledge to examine the status of companies created in one national jurisdiction which operate in other jurisdictions.[8]
At Cambridge, throughThoby Stephen, he became acquainted with key members of what would become known as the ‘Bloomsbury group’. He attended the group's early gatherings atGordon Square andFitzroy Square, and became attracted toVirginia Stephen, to whom he proposed on a punt on theCam in May 1909, only to be rejected.[9] Another Cambridge friendship, made through his brother Geoffrey, was withG. M. Trevelyan and in Spring 1906 he accompanied the historian during a retracement of the route ofGaribaldi's retreat which became the basis for Trevelyan's Garibaldi trilogy.[10] The second work in the trilogy—Garibaldi and the Thousand—was dedicated to the Young brothers and contained 15 photographs taken by Hilton.[11]
Enlisting in theRoyal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 22 August 1914 and commissioned in September,[12] he served in a wide variety of theatres and actions in theFirst World War, including theGrand Fleet atScapa Flow.[13]
He served onHMSCyclops thenHMS Iron Duke from September 1914. That autumn he wrote to his brother that it was “really rather wonderful” to be serving onAdmiral Jellicoe's flagship. In a letter in October he mentioned a sailors’ entertainment for “the admiral’s” benefit including some sailors dancing thecan-can. However, by February 1915 he was chafing at the “inoccupation” of the Grand Fleet, in the absence of any major sea battle.[14]
A literary consequence of his war service wasA Muse at Sea, a compilation of his poems initially published in theDucal Weekly (theIron Duke's newspaper), and also in theMorning Post, theCornhill Magazine and theNation.[15] He also rendered other types of service to his friendsLytton Strachey andClive Bell during the War. In 1908 he had bought a thatched cottage for weekend use, The Lacket,[16] atLockeridge near Marlborough.[17] During 1914–15 he rented the cottage to Strachey who drafted the first two chapters of hisEminent Victorians there.[18]
While on active service onIron Duke, in February 1915 he was elected unopposed as aLiberal MP at aby-election for the seat ofNorwich.
In April 1915 he received a letter from Vanessa Bell, in response to his request for a letter making no mention of the war, telling him of the doings of the Bloomsbury Set, including“Bertie” Russell, Lytton Strachey andOttoline Morrell.[19] In May 1915, while still serving on HMSIron Duke, the first edition of hisSystem of National Finance appeared.[20] Through further editions in 1924 and 1936, it remained the standard work on Westminster's budgetary processes until well into the 1950s.[21]
In September 1915 he took partAdmiral Troubridge's mission to theDanube, whose aim was to stop the Austro-Hungarians sending supplies via theBlack Sea toGallipoli (in the absence of a direct land link, asBulgaria did notjoin the Central Powers until October). The following month he heard his first shot fired in anger when an Austrian sentry fired a rifle at his ship.[22]
Later in the war Young served on Harwich light cruisers, naval siege guns atFlanders, theZeebrugge Raid in which, commanding a rear gun onHMS Vindictive, he was severely wounded, necessitating the amputation of his right arm, and, finally, in theRussian campaign, commanding an armoured train on the line south ofArchangel.[23]
His war service brought the awards of theDistinguished Service Order,Distinguished Service Cross andBar, FrenchCroix de guerre, and the Serbian Silver Medal.[24] He recounted his war experiences in his 1920 memoir,By Sea and Land.[25]
Post-war he started his rise up the political ladder in February 1919 when he was appointedParliamentary Private Secretary toH.A.L. Fisher, President of the Board of Education.[26] In April 1921 he was promoted toFinancial Secretary to the Treasury. In this capacity he was the link between the government and the 'Geddes Axe', the committee of business experts established by Lloyd George in the aftermath of the First World War to undertake a fundamental review of government expenditure in the hope of identifying major savings.[27]
In March 1922 Young married sculptorKathleen Scott, née Bruce, widow of CaptainRobert Falcon Scott.[28] With the marriage he became stepfather to Kathleen's son, the future naturalist and yachtsman,Peter Scott. In August 1923 Kathleen, aged 45, gave birth to their sonWayland Young, who became a writer andLabour politician.[29]
Through Cambridge and Bloomsbury, Young had a long-standing friendship withE.M. Forster. Suffering writer's block while working onA Passage to India, the novelist was Young's guest at The Lacket in early May 1922. Shortly afterwards he wrote to Young declaring, "an unfinished novel’s before me now, and sometimes I work at it with distaste and despair…You certainly have done more than any individual I know to help me by direct remarks. Your knowledge of the business of creating seemed to me profounder than that possessed by so-called artists."[30] These comments suggest that Young gave Forster significant advice and encouragement at a crucial stage on work on the latter's eventual masterpiece.
Out of office with the advent of Bonar Law's Conservative administration (following theCarlton Club meeting in October 1922), he becameChief Whip for theLloyd George Liberals and aPrivy Counsellor. Speaking at theGresham's School prize-giving on 13 July 1923, Young "...recommended the boys to go in for great risks and dangerous deeds. Let them have adventure, and the madder the adventure, the better."[31] He lost his Norwich seat at theDecember 1923 General Election. Although he won the seat back at theOctober 1924 General Election, he devoted the rest of the 1920s to furthering his business interests.
In the City of London, Young became editor of theFinancial News, 1926–29, when he introduced an Arts page which was continued by theFinancial Times when they were merged in 1946. He also joined the boards of theSouthern Railway,English Electric, andHudson's Bay Company. For Westminster he became a peripatetic financial- and political-troubleshooter, undertaking inter alia financial missions to Poland (1922–3)[32] and Iraq (1925,[33] 1930[34]) intended to stabilise the financial positions of these countries, the former recreated and he latter newly created after World War I. The 1930 Iraq mission saw him recommend the establishment of an Iraq Currency Board to issue a national currency, thedinar, to replaceIndian rupees issued as temporary currency when British forces displaced the Ottomans from the formerMesopotamia during the First World War. The Iraqi government accepted Young's recommendations in relation to the nation's currency and he became the inaugural chairman of the Iraq Currency Board on 11 June 1931.[35] He also chaired the 1925–6 Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance (at which his friendMaynard Keynes was a key witness)[36] and the 1927–8 East African Commission on Closer Union.[37]
Young joined theConservative Party in 1926 during his term as MP forNorwich. He served as a delegate to the Assembly of theLeague of Nations, 1926 and 1927. In 1927 he was appointedKnight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE). He became MP forSevenoaks in 1929 and served asMinister for Export Credits from 1929 andMinister of Health between 1931 and 1935. The health portfolio also included responsibility for housing, includingslum clearance and rehousing. Key items of legislation to which he contributed in this period were: theTown and Country Planning Act 1932 (which applied to all 'developable' land), theHousing Act 1935 (which laid down standards of accommodation)[38] and theRestriction of Ribbon Development Act 1935 (which sought to consolidate urban development and restrict ribbon sprawl along major highways).[39] He retired from politics in July 1935 and was createdBaron Kennet.
Away from politics, he could now resume his life in business. By 1940, Lord Kennet was either chairman or a director of eight listed companies, which apart from the Southern Railway and timber merchants, Denny, Mott and Dickson Ltd, were engaged in the financial services and property sectors.[40] In May 1940 he resumed his former role as chairman of the Iraq Currency Board when Leo Amery, who had replaced him as chairman in 1932, resigned on becoming a member of the wartime government.[41] His political and financial experience made him a natural choice to chair the Capital Issues Committee during 1937–59. Responsible for advising the Chancellor of the Exchequer "on applications to issue capital for any purpose anywhere", this committee was particularly important during World War II when it had to approve all issues of shares and securities with face values exceeding £10,000.[42]
Although he never regretted his support for the two World Wars fought - as he saw it - to resist German aggression, after the Second World War he became a pacifist, feeling that nuclear weapons meant that the cost of any future war outweighed any possible benefit.[43]
He died at the Lacket on 11 July 1960 and was succeeded to the Kennet peerage by his son Wayland.
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| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forNorwich 1915–1923 With:George Roberts | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forNorwich 1924–1929 With:J. Griffyth Fairfax | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forSevenoaks 1929–1935 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1921–1922 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Health 1931–1935 | Succeeded by |
| Media offices | ||
| Preceded by | Editor of theFinancial News 1925–1929 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Baron Kennet 1935–1960 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
