Sir Horace Plunkett | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Seanad Éireann | |
| In office 11 December 1922 – 14 November 1923 | |
| Leader of the Irish Dominion League | |
| In office 1919–1921 | |
| Irish Convention | |
| In office 1917–1918 | |
| MP for South Dublin | |
| In office 1892–1900 | |
| Preceded by | Sir Thomas Esmonde |
| Succeeded by | John Joseph Mooney |
| Congested Districts Board for Ireland | |
| In office 1891–1918 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1854-10-24)24 October 1854 Sherborne, Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | 26 March 1932(1932-03-26) (aged 77) |
| Political party | |
| Education | Eton College |
| Alma mater | University College, Oxford |
Sir Horace Curzon PlunkettKCVO PC (Ire) JP DL FRS (24 October 1854 – 26 March 1932), was anAnglo-Irish agricultural reformer, pioneer ofagricultural cooperatives,UnionistMP, supporter ofHome Rule,Irish Senator and author.
Plunkett, a younger brother ofJohn Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany, was a member of theCongested Districts Board for Ireland for over 27 years, founder of the Recess Committee and theIrish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS), vice-president (operational head) of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI) for Ireland (predecessor to the Department of Agriculture) from October 1899 to May 1907,Unionist MP forSouth Dublin in theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1892 to 1900, and Chairman of theIrish Convention of 1917–18.[1] An adherent of Home Rule, in 1919 he founded theIrish Dominion League, still aiming to keep Ireland united, and in 1922 he became a member of the first formation ofSeanad Éireann, the upper chamber in the Parliament of the newIrish Free State. He has been described as aChristian socialist.[2]
Plunkett was born inSherborne, Gloucestershire, England, the third son ofAdmiral Edward Plunkett, the 16thBaron of Dunsany, ofDunsany Castle,Dunsany, nearDunshaughlin,County Meath, and the Honourable Anne Constance Dutton (d. 1858; daughter ofJohn Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne). Raised in County Meath, Plunkett wasAnglo-Irish, being of AnglicanIrish unionist background, educated atEton College andUniversity College, Oxford, of which he became an honorary fellow in 1909.[3]
His older brother wasJohn Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany and a distant cousin was the Roman CatholicGeorge Noble Plunkett, aPapal Count and father ofJoseph Plunkett, one of the signatories of theProclamation of the Irish Republic and a leader of theEaster Rising of 1916.[4]
Threatened by lung trouble in 1879, Horace Plunkett sought health in ranching for ten years (1879–1889) in theBighorn Mountains ofWyoming, where he acquired, together with a substantial fortune, extensive agricultural and business experience that proved invaluable in the work of agricultural education, improvement and development.[5] On visits back to Ireland, and for much of the time when he returned, he devoted himself to these topics.[4]
Never marrying, he poured his tremendous energy into agricultural and rural development, politics and diplomacy, public administration and economics. As visible testimony to his endeavours, he left as his main legacies the Irishcooperative movement, which grew to encompass vast creamery and food ingredient businesses such as Avonmore and Kerry Group, what is now Ireland'sDepartment of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Plunkett Foundation and to some extent both theIrish Countrywomen's Association and theWomen's Institutes of the UK.[4]
Although a Unionist, Plunkett resolved to bring together people of all political views for the promotion of the material prosperity of the Irish people.[5] In 1891 he was appointed to the newly establishedCongested Districts Board and learned at first-hand about the wretched conditions of the rural population, especially west of theRiver Shannon. The experience hardened his conviction that the one remedy for social and economic ills was cooperative self-help. The Congested Districts Board were a major plank of the ultimately failedConservative policy ofConstructive Unionism or"killingHome Rule with kindness".[6]
Around him, he saw a troubled economy, racked with dissension, denuded by emigration, impoverished in its countryside and economically stagnant in its towns.[7]
Before going to America he had become an enthusiast for theRochdale principles of Consumer cooperatives and in 1878 had set a store up on the family estate.[3]
Plunkett took a leading part in developingagricultural co-operation in Ireland, of which he had learned from isolated American farmers, taking account of Scandinavian models of cooperation and the invention of the steam-powered cream separator. Working with a few colleagues, including two members of the clergy, and advocating self-reliance, he set his ideas into practice first among dairy farmers in the south of Ireland, who established Ireland's first cooperative atDoneraile,County Cork. He also opened the first creamery inDromcollogher,County Limerick, now the site of the National Dairy Cooperative Museum.[8]
In the setting up of creameries, the cooperative movement experienced its greatest success. Plunkett got farmers to join to establish units to process and market their own butter, milk and cheese to standards suitable for the profitable British market, rather than producing unhygienic, poor-quality output in their homes for local traders. This enabled farmers to deal directly with companies established by themselves, which guaranteed fair prices without middlemen absorbing the profits.[citation needed]
Plunkett believed that theIndustrial Revolution needed to be redressed by an agricultural revolution through cooperation, and proclaimed his ideals under the slogan "Better farming, better business, better living". (US presidentTheodore Roosevelt adopted the slogan for his conservation and country life policy.)[citation needed]
Gifford Pinchot, Theodore Roosevelt's head of theBureau of Forestry introduced Plunkett to Roosevelt in 1906. Roosevelt had recently set up theNational Conservation Commission and was also interested in Irish cooperatives. Arguing that it was not enough to conserve natural resources without tackling the problems of rural life, Plunkett and Pinchot helped draft Roosevelt's letter recommending the Commission on Country Life's report to congress. TheDictionary of Irish Biography credits Plunket with persuading Roosevelt to establish the commission as a complement to the conservation work.[3]
Public opinion, initially lukewarm, grew hostile in some sectors as the cooperative movement developed, and shopkeepers, butter-buyers and sections of the press led a campaign of virulent opposition. Cooperatives and Plunkett were denounced for supposedly ruining the dairy industry but the movement caught hold, with the mass of farmers benefitting. Plunkett and his colleagues including the poet and painterGeorge William Russell ("Æ") made a good working team, writing widely on economic and cultural development, and on the role of labour.
As early as 1894, when his campaign reached a size too big to be directed by a few individuals, Plunkett founded theIrish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS), withLord Monteagle,Thomas A. Finlay[9] and others. Robert A. Anderson acted as secretary,[10][11] with Æ and PJ Hannon his assistants. IAOS soon became the powerhouse of cooperation, with 33 affiliated dairycooperative societies andcooperative banks, introducing cooperation among Irish farmers by proving the benefits obtainable through more economical and efficient management. The following year he and Russell began publishing its journalThe Irish Homestead to spread information on farming. Four years later there were 243 affiliated societies. Within a decade 800 societies were in existence, with a trade turnover of three million pounds sterling (over 300 million sterling in today's money, and the turnover of the resulting companies is in excess of a billion euro).
Plunkett's task was frustrating. He was a pioneer of the concept of systematic rural development, who, in spite of his role in Irish affairs being often overlooked, influenced many international reformers, and can be credited as one of the few who had a long-term vision for the development of rural Ireland. He was apt to remind audiences that, even if full peasant proprietorship was achieved and Home Rule was implemented, rural underdevelopment would still have to be faced. But class conflict between farmers and shopkeepers intervened to frustrate much of what he aimed to do.[12]
Before entering Parliament Plunkett had been involved in the Unionist reaction to theLiberal leaderWilliam Gladstone's conversion toHome Rule, predicting in a speech to an 1886 Unionist demonstration that Home rule would lead to "'squalid poverty and violent social disorder, which before long is almost certain to end in civil war".[13]
At the1892 general election he was elected as theIrish Unionist Alliance Member of Parliament (MP) forSouth Dublin,[14] gaining it from theAnti-Parnellite incumbentSir Thomas Esmonde against a split nationalist vote. He successfully held the seat against a sole nationalist (Parnellite Nationalist) challengerEdmund Haviland-Burke in1895.
Early in his career, Plunkett opposed home rule because of the danger of partition. In 1893 he asserted that one of the leading objections to any measure of home rule was that if it were possible to enforce it on Ulster . . . "it would intensify and perpetuate a state of things in which the Boyne seemed to be broader, deeper and stormier than the Irish Sea".[15]
He lost his seat in1900 toJohn Mooney of theIrish Parliamentary Party, after his conciliatory approach to nationalists led to hardline unionists standingFrancis Elrington Ball as an independent unionist candidate, splitting the unionist vote.[16]
.jpg)
Continuing his policy of conciliation, Plunkett suggested in a letter to the Irish press in August 1895 that a few prominent persons of various political opinions, both nationalist and unionist, should meet to discuss and frame a scheme of practical legislation for pursuing national development,[5] and to make recommendations on the Agriculture and Industries (Ireland) Bill of 1897.[citation needed]
The outcome of this proposal was the formation of the Recess Committee, with Plunkett as chairman and members of divergent views, such as theEarl of Mayo,John Redmond,The O'Conor Don,Thomas Sinclair,[5]Thomas Spring Rice, Rev Dr Kane (Grand Master of the Belfast Orangemen), FatherThomas A. Finlay, Mr John Ross, MP,Timothy Harrington MP, SirJohn Arnott, Sir William Ewart, SirDaniel Dixon (after Lord Mayor of Belfast), Sir James Musgrave (Chairman of the Belfast Harbour Board), Thomas Andrews (Chairman of the Belfast and County Down Railway).T. P. Gill acted as Honorary Secretary to the committee.[17]
In July 1896 the Recess Committee issued a report, of which Plunkett was the author, containing accounts of the systems of state aid to agriculture and technical instruction in foreign countries. This report, and the growing influence of Plunkett, who became a member of theIrish Privy Council in 1897, led to the passing in 1899 of an Act establishing the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI) for Ireland, of which theChief Secretary for Ireland was to be Presidentex officio.[5] Plunkett was appointed vice-president, a position of de facto leadership.[18] He guided the policy and administration of the DATI in its first seven critical years.[citation needed]
The DATI worked:
By 1914 the DATI had 138 instructors travelling the country, informing farmers about new methods in agriculture, horticulture and poultry-keeping. The start of the 20th century saw the high water mark in Plunket's achievements. The IAOS was flourishing and vigorous. In 1903 there were 370 dairy societies, 201 cooperative banks and 146 agricultural societies under the auspices of the IAOS, and by 1914 there were over 1,000 societies and nearly 90,000 members.[19] However, most unionists considered Plunkett too conciliatory and their hostility cost him his seat at thegeneral election in October 1900, when they put up a candidate to split the unionist vote.[20]
It had been intended that the vice-president should be responsible for the DATI in theHouse of Commons, but an extensively signed memo, supported by the Agricultural Council, prayed that Plunkett might not be removed from office, and at the government's request he continued to direct the policy of the DATI without a seat in Parliament.[5] He was createdKnight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1903 at Queenstown, on the personal initiative of the King.[citation needed]
On the accession of theLiberal Party to power in 1906James Bryce, the new Chief Secretary, asked Plunkett to remain at the head of the department he had created.[5]
Having sat in the House of Commons as a Unionist, attitudes among the nationalist party were exacerbated by the opinions in his book,Ireland in the New Century (1904). Here he described the economic condition and needs of the country, and the nature of the agricultural improvement schemes he had promoted.[5] Plunkett put forth the view that economics was more important than politics for the future of Ireland, classed the huge sums invested in the building of Catholic churches as "uneconomic" and remarked negatively on the power of the Catholic hierarchy.
John Redmond, leader of theIrish Parliamentary Party, turned against Plunkett for suggesting that anything but Home Rule might be the answer to Ireland's problems,[21] and other mainstream nationalists, led byJohn Dillon, rejected economic development, whether through Plunkett's agricultural cooperatives,William O'Brien's tenant land purchase orD. D. Sheehan's housing of rural labourers, in advance of "national development".
Ultimately the DATI ceased to work harmoniously with the IAOS, wrecking Plunkett's hopes, and the Irish Parliamentary Party made a determined effort to drive him from office, moving a resolution to that effect in the House of Commons in 1907. The government gave way, and although Plunkett was re-elected president of the IAOS in the summer of 1907, he retired from office in the DATI. From the year 1900 the DATI had made an annual grant of about £4,000 to the IAOS, but in 1907 the new vice-president of the DATI,TW Russell, who had previously been a member of the Unionist administration, withdrew it.[5] Nonetheless, many continued to be inspired by Plunkett's vision and to establish creamery cooperatives around the country.
In 1908 public appreciation of Plunkett's service was marked by the purchase and gift to him of 84 Merrion Square, Dublin, which became the headquarters of the IAOS,[22] under the name The Plunkett House.[23]
The Irish Homestead had frequently drawn attention to the status of women in rural Ireland (its assistant editor wasSusan L. Mitchell), and in 1910 Plunkett helped to found the United Irishwomen to improve their domestic economy, welfare and education, withEllice Pilkington andAnita Lett. This would develop in the 1930s into the powerfulIrish Countrywomen's Association. It also inspired the foundation of the Women's Institutes in the UK.
Having previously focused his attention pragmatically on economic factors, Plunkett now began to reorient to political and social issues. The failure of theIrish Council Bill in 1907 made him realise the critical importance of self-government and by 1912 he was a convinced Home Ruler. He spent the first half of 1914 in negotiations intended to prevent partition and the exclusion ofUlster, to no avail.Hitherto he had been regarded as a moderate Unionist, but this suggestion rendered him suspect in Ulster eyes, and the suspicion was confirmed when he published in the third week of July a pamphlet entitled The Better Way: an Appeal to Ulster not to Desert Ireland, in which he announced his conversion to Home Rule and appealed to Ulster to give Home Rule a chance, re-stating the arguments of his previous letter, and suggesting a conference of Irishmen on the bill. This was his attempt to avert civil war; but the situation was revolutionized by the outbreak of theFirst World War.[24]
During the war the cooperatives were severely hit as farmers avoided their high standards, supplying inferior produce directly to Britain, where food shortages led to a boom period for Irish agriculture.Much of Plunkett's time was spent as an unofficial envoy between Britain and the United States. After theEaster Rising of 1916, when he heard of executions, he sought clemency for its remaining leaders, including Constance Markievicz, except for anyone involved in regular crime.
Once again, in 1917, he took the lead in an honest attempt to solve the Irish question. WhenLloyd George set up a convention of Irishmen to consider the suspendedThird Home Rule Act 1914, and report their conclusions, there was great difficulty in finding a suitable chairman; but the first meeting unanimously chose Sir Horace for the post. He was himself sanguine, and worked at his task with singular devotion until May 1918; but the absence ofSinn Féin from the gathering, and the impossibility of reconciling the views of the Ulstermen and the southern Unionists, prevented the adoption of any report with unanimity.[24] He may have lost what would have been a historic deal in January 1918 by diverting the debate to the issue of land purchase.[25]
Until 1922 Plunkett worked to keep Ireland united within theBritish Commonwealth, founding theIrish Dominion League and a weekly journal, theIrish Statesman, to advance that aim, for which he was rejected by those working for an Irish Republic.
In 1922, after theAnglo-Irish Treaty was implemented, Plunkett was nominated to the firstSeanad Éireann, the upper chamber of the parliament of the new Irish state. In recognition of his contributions and ideas, he was one of those appointed for a term of 12 years. As a senator he metMichael Collins, whom he described as "simple yet cunning".[26]
His work on cooperation took him abroad frequently, and when he was in the United States during theIrish Civil War in 1923, his home, Kilteragh, inFoxrock, County Dublin, was one of some 300 country housestargeted by the IRA and burned down,[27] the fire taking with it many of the records of the Plunkett family, which he had gathered to prepare a work on the subject. Plunkett wrote of his sorrow that"the healthiest house in the world, and the meeting place of a splendid body of Irishmen and friends of Ireland" had been destroyed. He resigned from the Seanad in November 1923.[28]
Plunkett moved toWeybridge, England. On 21 December 1918 he set up the Sir Horace Plunkett Foundation, which moved fully to England in 1924, and is now the charitablePlunkett Foundation.[3] The foundation launched in 1919 with £5,000 to support its work, including education, with the co-operative movement and other community organisations. As of 2022, the foundation continues its work.[29]
Plunkett continued to promote and spread his ideas for agricultural cooperatives. In 1924 he presided over a conference on agricultural cooperation in the British Commonwealth in London, and in 1925 he visited South Africa to help the movement there. As late in 1930, he was consulting with the Prime Minister of Great Britain on agricultural policy.[30]
Plunkett was close to his nephews,Edward and Reginald Dunsany, helping manage their, and their father's, affairs. He also worked to reconcile the 17th Lord Dunsany and his wife over several years.[31] He was very involved in the affairs of the 18th Lord Dunsany (Edward) until some failures of investments in the 1920s, after which their contact was more occasional but continued to near the end.[32] His dealings with Reginald were more limited in earlier years but he continued to visit him at Charborough and elsewhere, right up to the month of his death.[33][34]
He was also close friends with Elizabeth "Daisy" Burke Plunkett, Lady Fingall, the wife of his remote cousin. He became interested in aviation late in life and was still flying – presumably fromBrooklands – at least as late as 1930.
During Plunkett's last years,Gerald Heard was his personal secretary.Naomi Mitchison, who admired Plunkett and was a friend of Heard, wrote: "H.P., as we all called him, was getting past his prime and often ill but struggling to go on with the work to which he was devoted. Gerald [Heard] who was shepherding him about fairly continually, apologized once for leaving a dinner party abruptly when H.P. was suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion".[35]
Plunkett died at Weybridge on 26 March 1932 and was buried in St Mary's Churchyard in nearbyByfleet, where his gravestone survives.[citation needed]
Multiple studies of the life and work of Horace Plunkett have been published, including books:
and academic works:
and editorial gatherings and accounts:
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Plunkett, Sir Horace Curzon".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 857.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922)."Plunkett, Sir Horace Curzon".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 32 (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. p. 109.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forCounty Dublin South 1892 –1900 | Succeeded by |
