Herwald Ramsbotham, 1st Viscount SoulburyGCMG GCVO OBE MC PC DL (6 March 1887 – 30 January 1971) was a BritishConservative politician. He served as a government minister between 1931 and 1941 and served asGovernor-General of Ceylon between 1949 and 1954.
Ramsbotham was the son of Herwald Ramsbotham, of Crowborough Warren,Crowborough,East Sussex,JP for Sussex (son of James Ramsbotham, ofTodmorden,Lancashire,JP, and wife JaneFielden), and Ethel Margaret Bevan.[1]
He went toUppingham School, Uppingham, Rutland, England.
Ramsbotham was commissioned a Temporary Lieutenant in 1915 and was promoted to temporary Captain later the same year. He was promoted to temporary Major by 1918 and received theMilitary Cross. He was appointed anOBE in 1919 and relinquished his commission that year.[citation needed]
Ramsbotham was electedMember of Parliament (MP) forLancaster in 1929.[2] In 1931 he was appointedParliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education byRamsay MacDonald, a post he retained whenStanley Baldwin became Prime Minister in June 1935, and then served asParliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries between November 1935 and July 1936.[3] In September 1936 he was madeMinister of Pensions by Baldwin.[4] He continued in this office whenNeville Chamberlain became Prime Minister in May 1937. In June 1939 he was appointedFirst Commissioner of Works[5] and sworn of thePrivy Council.[6]
Ramsbotham entered the Cabinet (but not the small innerWar Cabinet) in April 1940 asPresident of the Board of Education. He remained in this office afterWinston Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940. In June 1940CardinalArthur Hinsley, leader of the English Catholic Church, led a deputation to Ramsbotham to demand financial support for Catholic schools. Ramsbotham acknowledged that in principle the Catholic schools needed help but made no firm commitment, and stressed that greater state control over their schools, which the Catholic hierarchy did not want, would be thequid pro quo.[7]
Ramsbotham spoke to theLancashireNUT in Morecambe (reported inThe Times on 17 March 1941). He wanted the school leaving age raised from 14 to 15, and thereafter to 16, as soon as possible, and day continuation classes up to the age of 18 (classes of this kind had been proposed in the1918 Fisher Act and in subsequent reform proposals, but had not been implemented due to cost constraints - the same was true of the raising of the leaving age). All depended on how quickly schools could be repaired (both from war damage, and the previous poor state of many church schools), which would mean competing with housing for building priorities.[8]
Ramsbotham's department produced a set of proposals for reform, called “The Green Book” after its cover, in June 1941.[9][10] The Green Book was supposedly confidential but was widely distributed among opinion formers, as Lester Smith put it, “in a blaze of secrecy”, and was later used as the basis for talks withLocal Education Authorities (LEAs) and teaching unions.[11][12] Paragraph 137 proposed compensating for greater state control ofchurch schools by partially lifting the1870 Forster Act's ban on denominational instruction instate schools, to allow such teaching from the age of 11. Paradoxically this was not good enough for the churches, as the proposal for separate state schools from the age of 11 wouldreduce their control over children aged 11–14, who up until that time had been educated in church schools.[13]R. A. Butler later wrote in his memoirs that the Green Book failed on the issue of denominational teaching in state schools.[14] The Roman Catholic hierarchy rejected the Green Book out of hand.[15] The Green Book was soon overshadowed by the Five Points, the Protestant Churches' proposals on Religious Education in state schools which had been issued in February.[16]
Although many of Ramsbotham's proposals would later be incorporated into Butler's1944 Act, Churchill nursed memories of the controversy over the1902 Act and did not favour major education reform at this stage. He used the March speech as an excuse to remove him – he was succeeded by Butler in July 1941 and sent to the House of Lords as a viscount.[17]
In August Ramsbotham was raised to the peerage asBaron Soulbury, of Soulbury in the County of Buckingham,[18] and made Chairman of theAssistance Board, a post he held until 1948.[19] Chairman of theSoulbury Commission 1944–45. Between 1949 and 1954 he served asGovernor-General of Ceylon. He was appointed aGCMG in 1949 and aGCVO on 20 April 1954. On 10 June of that year, he was further honoured when he was createdViscount Soulbury, of Soulbury in the County of Buckingham.[20]
Lord Soulbury died in January 1971 at the age of 83.
He was succeeded in the viscountcy by his elder sonJames Ramsbotham, 2nd Viscount Soulbury. His younger son,Sir Peter Ramsbotham, notably served asBritish Ambassador to the United States from 1974 to 1977.[citation needed]
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| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forLancaster 1929–1941 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education 1931–1935 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries 1935–1936 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Pensions 1936–1939 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | First Commissioner of Works 1939–1940 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the Board of Education 1940–1941 | Succeeded by |
| Government offices | ||
| Preceded by | Governor-General of Ceylon 1949–1954 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Viscount Soulbury 1954–1971 | Succeeded by |
| Baron Soulbury 1941–1971 | ||
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