Conservative History Journal

The British are famously indulgent when it comes to elderly politicians, turning them into cuddly national treasures regardless of what they did in their prime, especially if they are on the left. It happened to Tony Benn and Michael Foot, is happening to Shirley Williams and is even going to happen to Neil Kinnock.‎ Having reached the splendid age of 98 it was always going to happen to Denis Healey, but that doesn’t excuse the Sunday Times obituary by the novelist Robert Harris which described Healey’s five years at the Treasury in the 1970s as “bruising” when they were in fact catastrophic and humiliating for a western democracy.

They were the years of going cap in hand to the IMF, of the winter of discontent when the rubbish lay uncollected in the street and the dead went unburied, of the confiscatory 98 percent top rate of income tax when Healey deliberately chose to tax the rich till the pips squeaked (a phrase he unconvincingly afterwards denied using). All of these national humiliations were Healey’s fault, though you wouldn’t have guessed it from the adulatory obits on the BBC and other media.

Not by me as I did not know either of these two men each of whom, in his own way, contributed a great deal to Conservative politics.

First, the colourful and highly opinionated Lord McAlpine of West Green, known for many things such as his euroscepticism and his exceedingly successful fundraising for Thatcher, his sociable habits and his art collection, his writing and, more recently, the new business of running a hotel in Italy. There was also the question of wrongful accusations of paedophilia in 2012 by someone who ought never have been taken seriously and the story of Sally Bercow making an idiot of herself, again.

Here is a selection of articles and obituaries: Wikipedia's long biography, the BBC's reasonably fair obituary, a fascinating interview in the Guardian some years ago, a highly salacious piece in the Daily Wail that lip-smackingly brings up the accusations in great detail while piously informing us that Lord McAlpine got his apologies and damages even from the egregious Mrs Bercow, and, of course, the obituary in the Daily Telegraph.

A somewhat less controversial figure has also died, just a day after Lord McAlpine: Sir Christopher Chataway, former world record holder of the 5,000m, one of the first men to run the 4-minute mile, the BBC's first Sports Personality of the Year, TV journalist, politician, businessman and Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority. (Have I forgotten anything? Makes one tired just to list his many doings and achievements.)

The BBC, as expected gave a fulsome obituary but even the Guardian said nice things as, naturally enough, did the Telegraph.

Economic historians are not usually entertaining but David S. Landes, author of the seminal The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (it even has a Wikipedia entry all of its own) was as well as original. When he was accused of being "eurocentric" in his approach he did not deny it, pointing out that economic development that changed the world started in Europe and was based on European ideas.

There is an excellent obituary in the New York Times. His son, Richard Landes, also an historian has collected obituaries, eulogies and articles that his father had written either alone or with others, including his son. But nothing can be better than reading David S. Landes's own work.

Last night Ken Minogue and I shared the duties of the chair. I did the thanks, and Ken the introduction of Allan Meltzer, who spoke to us via teleconference. Over dinner, Ken was in great humour, telling us about the next book he was working on, etc. Earlier in the week he had given a fine paper, and yesterday afternoon he chaired a session with that fine, delicate and yet steady hand that made him so beloved to all.

This morning 8 of us were on a bus tour looking at iguanas, sea lions, birds, etc, and enjoying ourselves immensely. Then we went back to the town of San Cristobal, had sandwiches and an hour later left for the airport. Westholms, Lals, Feulners, Fr. Sirico and Ken Minogue.

After our lunch, we went to the Galapagos airport, where the group was split between two flights to Guayaquil, an easy hour-long flight back to the mainland (on an Airbus, not a small plane.) Ken and many of the others were on the other flight.

Our flight landed first at Guayaquil. The other plane ten minutes later. We were collecting our luggage when we heard the horrible news that Ken had been stricken on the plane (a heart attack, we assume). There were four MD s on the plane, including two from the MPS meeting. They tried everything, but to no avail.

Tory Historian has now been sent the full obituary of Professor John Frederic Main published by the Institute of Civil Engineering , the hero of the previous posting. He was fully as remarkable as his wife, Elizabeth and her first husband, Frederick Burnaby.

 JOHN FREDERIC MAIN.

Obituary published by the Institute of Civil Engineers, Volume 110, Issue 1892, 01 January 1892 , pages 394 –396, 

JOHN FREDERIC MAIN, son of the late Mr. David Main, Civil Engineer, was born at Greencastle, in the island of Jamaica, on the 7th of July, 1854. Taken as a child to England, he received his early education at the Southern Division Grammar School, at Southsea. 

In October, 1872, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won a mathematical scholarship, and in the Tripos of 1876 was ranked Tenth Wrangler. He was President of the Cambridge Union Society in the Easter term of that year. In January, 1872, he had matriculated seventh in honours at the University of London, where he subsequently passed the first and second examinations for the degree of Bachelor of Science, and in June, 1877, obtained that of Doctor of Science, the special subjects taken being Light, Heat and Acoustics treated mathematically, he being then barely twenty-three years of age. 

In the following October he was appointed Lecturer in Mathematics and Applied Mechanics at University College, Bristol. With characteristic energy, he sought additional qualifications for this post by obtaining practical experience during three summer vacations, which he spent respectively in carrying on experimental work at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, in practical work at Professor Stuart’s workshops, in the same place, and in the drawing office in New York, of Mr Thomas Main, who subsequently became Manager of the works of Messrs. John Roach and Sons, at Chester, Pennsylvania. 

Dr Main’s connection with University College, Bristol, lasted for four years, and proved one of importance in the history of that Institution. In the first year, his gifts as a lecturer and teacher were so signally demonstrated, that the Council of the College entrusted to him the arduous task of founding and organizing the School of Engineering, which he had induced them to try to establish, and appointed him Professor of Mathematics, Applied Mechanics and Engineering-an office he held for the following three years. Chiefly owing to his exertions, the newly-founded school gathered strength, and soon grew into one of the most promising departments of the College. The system adopted was that suggested some years before by the late Professor Rankine, and subsequently formulated by Dr. Main’s predecessor at Bristol, Mr. W. R. Bonsfield, viz., a combined practical and theoretical training, to consist of the pursuit of theoretical studies at the College during the winter months, and of practical work in engineering shops during the summer months. The course of Mechanical Engineering was arranged to extend over three years, and various manufacturing engineers in the neighbourhood consented to receive students of the College into their workshops and offices as articled pupils. 

To carry out this plan  successfully required no ordinary energy and work; those who owe their training to him could have had little knowledge of the difficulties of the task Dr. Main had undertaken; yet, with all the labour this imposed, he could find time to give several “ Gilchrist ” lectures in Bristol and the surrounding neighbourhood, and for the study of astronomy. But hard work began, after a time, to tell on a constitution which had never been robust, and in 1881 he decided to apply for the post of Assistant Professor of Applied Mechanics at the Normal School of Science (now the Royal College of Science), South Kensington, the duties of which were lighter than those of his Bristol professorship. 

Unhappily, Dr. Main’s tenure of this post proved but brief. Before he had been a year at South Kensington his health gave way, and although he struggled manfully against a severe pulmonary attack, it made such inroads on his strength as to force him to leave England in the spring of 1883, and to make his home for a time at Davos, in Switzerland. He benefited so much by his stay in the High Alps that there was for a time great hope of his complete recovery, and his post at South Kensington was kept open for more than a year. 

It was a delusive prospect, however; his health, though greatly improved, was never, during his residence in Switzerland, so far re-established as to allow him to revisit England for longer than a few weeks; and even in Switzerland he was at least once brought very near death by acute illness. It was his fate to remain in that country until late in 1887. In the last months of his residence, he contemplated, and actually made some progress towards, setting up at St Moritz a telescope of considerable power, which Sir Howard Grubb was making for him. He also made some observations and experiments in the Engadine on the viscosity of ice, an account of which was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. 

In October, 1887, his health having to a certain extent improved, Dr Main determined to go to Colorado, in the hope of regaining a still larger measure of strength. After a short stay in England, he settled in Denver at the beginning of the following year. There his expectations seemed more than realized, something of his former vigour, and a considerable amount of his old energy, were restored. 

Again his life became busy; he gave lectures, edited and wrote for a local newspaper, and frequently travelled great distances. 

In partnership with an Englishman, Mr. Thomas J Pulling, he entered into business in connection with investments and mortgages of town property in Denver. So successful were they, that towards the end of 1890 they decided to start a limited company under the style of the Denver Banking and Investment Corporation, of which he and Mr. Pulling became managers. More than half of the capital was secured in England, and when, in the spring of 1891, Dr. Main visited this country, he was apparently in excellent health. 

In the following December, however, symptoms of paralysis began to manifest themselves, and though for a time these appeared to have yielded to treatment, and even to have been entirely subdued, they were revived in a more malignant form by an attack of scarlet fever. After a brief rally, he died on the 10th of May, 1892, at Denver, at the early age of thirty-seven. 

Of the personal character of Dr. Mann, it is impossible to speak too highly, without using words which would sound like exaggeration. Possessed of intellectual powers of a high order -- a fact which was strikingly supported by his personal appearance -- he at the same time had only a frail constitution, and hence never attained that position in the world which his friends anticipated for him, and which in their opinion he was so well fitted to occupy. 

Dr. Main was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 6th of December, 1881.

The obituary does not mention his marriage but we can presume that he and Elizabet Burnaby met when he was at St Moritz and married there or, possibly, during that short trip back to England. Why he then decided to go to Colorado is slightly mysterious though it is true that the climate there would have been of great benefit to him. Nor do we find out much about the other people on the tombstone who appear to be relatives. Could they have been family members who had settled there earlier?

The death of the man whom many considered to be the finest military historian of our age was announced yesterday. Sir John Keegan, author of several books of great importance, journalist and critic, died at the age of 78 after a long illness. That it was nobly born I can testify to, having met him once and, indeed, sat next to him at dinner. All I can add to the many obituaries that will undoubtedly appear in the next several days is that the man was absolutely charming to talk to. (And yes, I am aware of the fact that many highly knowledgeable people consider his analysis of what was going on in the various wars fought at the moment was less impressive than his historical writing but it is as an historian that we honour and remember him.)

Here are two obituaries: in the Daily Telegraph whose columnist he was for so many years and in History Today.

The death of Otto von Habsburg, the oldest son of the last Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary and King of Croatia, Charles, was announced today. He was 98 so there is no tragedy involved and has led a good life - fought both Nazism and Communism. A true European unlike some other people who claim the title.

It is a curious feature of this blog that the most likely postings that other blogs might link to are those about detective stories. One posting about the clerical mysteries of D. M. Greenwood has elicited at least two links from widely differing blogs. One from the very fine Clerical Detectives and another from the slightly more dulalee Mystery Mile, whose author a soi-disant atheist who is fascinated by theology, socialist and anarchist (which two are incompatible) shows some lack of understanding of conservative thinking. Still, his own writing is interesting and a link is a link is a link.

It would be good to think that people have also linked to the posting about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his creations but, so far, no evidence of that has surfaced. We return to that subject after the sad news of the death of Edward Hardwicke, one of the best Dr Watsons to the best Holmes, played by Jeremy Brett.

One of the oddest things about Watson is how misunderstood he is by so many people. This obituary in the Telegraph, for instance, describes him as "the bumbling foil" to Holmes. As a number of comments point out, this is far from the truth. (A much better obituary in the Guardian.)

The Watson of the stories is steady, decent, intelligent though not a genius, courageous, a successful doctor, a man anyone would want to have around and one whom Holmes appreciates though when in a bad mood he does make derogatory comments. Holmes's appreciation of his friend and colleague is not the affectionate sarcasm of Poirot towards his genuinely stupid friend, Captain Arthur Hastings.

Where on earth did the myth of the stupid, bumbling Watson come from? Partly, one suspects, it is the influence of Agatha Christie's Hastings; partly it is the fault of Nigel Bruce in those execrable films with Basil Rathbone (such as The Hound of the Baskervilles).

All that began to change with Nigel Stock, in TH's opinion the best Watson, played to both Douglas Wilmer and Peter Cushing (an excellent Holmes). Jeremy Brett had two Watsons, David Burke and Edward Hardwicke who restored the original character of the sturdy, steady, perfectly presentable Watson. The most interesting interpretation was Michael Williams's on radio with Clive Merrison. Tory Historian possesses tapes of several episodes and enjoys listening to them. There seems to have been a clear decision made by the producers to make Watson's role bigger and more important - in a number of episodes he is an almost equal partner. A long way from Nigel Bruce's genuinely bumbling idiot but not too far from Edward Hardwicke's interpretation.

Tory Historian was once again taking time off and almost missed this extraordinarily witty and touching tribute in the Economist to Bill Millin, the man who piped in the D-Day landing at Sword Beach and who died on August 17, aged 88.

ANY reasonable observer might have thought Bill Millin was unarmed as he jumped off the landing ramp at Sword Beach, in Normandy, on June 6th 1944. Unlike his colleagues, the pale 21-year-old held no rifle in his hands. Of course, in full Highland rig as he was, he had his trusty skean dhu, his little dirk, tucked in his right sock. But that was soon under three feet of water as he waded ashore, a weary soldier still smelling his own vomit from a night in a close boat on a choppy sea, and whose kilt in the freezing water was floating prettily round him like a ballerina’s skirt.

But Mr Millin was not unarmed; far from it. He held his pipes, high over his head at first to keep them from the wet (for while whisky was said to be good for the bag, salt water wasn’t), then cradled in his arms to play. And bagpipes, by long tradition, counted as instruments of war. An English judge had said so after the Scots’ great defeat at Culloden in 1746; a piper was a fighter like the rest, and his music was his weapon. The whining skirl of the pipes had struck dread into the Germans on the Somme, who had called the kilted pipers “Ladies from Hell”. And it raised the hearts and minds of the home side, so much so that when Mr Millin played on June 5th, as the troops left for France past the Isle of Wight and he was standing on the bowsprit just about keeping his balance above the waves getting rougher, the wild cheers of the crowd drowned out the sound of his pipes even to himself.

Three times therefore he walked up and down at the edge of the sea. He remembered the sand shaking under his feet from mortar fire and the dead bodies rolling in the surf, against his legs. For the rest of the day, whenever required, he played. He piped the advancing troops along the raised road by the Caen canal, seeing the flashes from the rifle of a sniper about 100 yards ahead, noticing only after a minute or so that everyone behind him had hit the deck in the dust. When Lovat had dispatched the sniper, he struck up again. He led the company down the main street of Bénouville playing “Blue Bonnets over the Border”, refusing to run when the commander of 6 Commando urged him to; pipers walked as they played.

He took them across two bridges, one (later renamed the Pegasus Bridge) ringing and banging as shrapnel hit the metal sides, one merely with railings which bullets whistled through: “the longest bridge I ever piped across.” Those two crossings marked their successful rendezvous with the troops who had preceded them. All the way, he learned later, German snipers had had him in their sights but, out of pity for this madman, had not fired. That was their story. Mr Millin himself knew he wasn’t going to die. Piping was too enjoyable, as he had discovered in the Boys’ Brigade band and all through his short army career. And piping protected him.

The death has been announced of Lord Walker who, as Peter Walker, held a number of important ministerial positions in both the Heath and the Thatcher governments. Tory Historian may find the notion of a "one-nation Conservative" a little odd but at times like this, all one can do is remember.

Of course, the death of a lady who is 105, has lived a good life and died peacefully is not a tragic matter but this news saddened Tory Historian a little. Andree Peel, Agent Rose in the Resistance, who saved 100 or more Allied servicemen, survived Nazi concentration camps and escaped the firing squad, died earlier this month and is being buried today.

Tory Historian cannot help feeling that the manager of the care home where Mrs Peel had lived and died ought not to have been inteviewed if all she could come up with was a completely trite comment that makes one wonder if she actually remembers which one Mrs Peel was: "We are all a bit shell-shocked here. She was lovely - an amazing character with such a strong spirit."

Tory Historian was particularly impressed by the information that some time after her husband's death, Mrs Peel "found companionship with Brian Westaway, a fellow Lampton House resident".

Temporarily, anyway, as a trip to Central Europe is looming next week. In the meantime, it is worth noting that today is the very sad anniversary of the day when we knew that there would be no more Christies for Christmas. Dame Agatha Christie, one of the greatest and certainly the most widely read detective story writer died on January 12, 1976, having written 83 books under her own name and that of Mary Westmacott. Tory Historian has read but one short story by M Westmacott. It was very readable. The general opinion is that the Westmacott novels and plays are good middle-brow stuff and higher praise than that is difficult to find when discussing literature.

Here, incidentally, is a handy list of all Christie's detective stories that also tells you who does the detection (well, more or less).

Two Christie curiosities were published shortly before the lady's death: a Miss Marple novel, which is rather good, Sleeping Murder and a very bad Hercule Poirot one, Curtain. There is no question, she really hated Poirot by this stage. Both novels were written forty years earlier but put aside for posthumous publication, though it is not clear why that should be so with Sleeping Murder. As it happens both came out prematurely, so to speak.

Christie's books, the good, the bad and the rather weak, all stay in print. It is hard to tell what it is about her work that attracts so many people. The style is largely pedestrian but absolutely clear and correct - the books are often used for teaching English and, one must admit, often there is a good deal of light irony. She could write considerably better as she demonstrated in the delightful story of her life as Sir Max Mallowan's wife, Come Tell Me How You Live. The actual autobiography, published the following year, is far less interesting.

The stories move at a cracking pace though some of the plots creak just a tad. Others, of course, dovetail perfectly. The characters tend to be one dimensional but highly entertaining. And don't even mention time lines or dating. For someone who helped at archaeological digs she is very cavalier with dates and lapses of time in her novels. As against that, she often uses archaeology and archaeologists in the novels. When one thinks about it, the process of working out what there is in a dig and what it means is very similar to the process of working out what happened when a crime was committed.

There is a great deal more to say about Dame Agatha and no doubt Tory Historian will do so on some future occasion. Now it is time to recall the lady who has given more pleasure per page of writing to more people all over the world than anybody else.

She has also inspired books about her [scroll down]. Last year there was Elena Santangelo's Dame Agatha's Shorts (no it is not a little tale of Dame Agatha's career as a footballer) as well as Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, which proved to be less than revealing, though the book also included two hitherto unpublished and unknown Poirot short stories.

Tory Historian's favourite of these studies remains the very French and intellectual Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? by the psychoanalyst and literary critic, Pierre Bayard. Professor Bayard not only thought Poirot got it wrong but explained at great length why though there is some evidence that he might have been playing games with the reader of the kind he accuses Dame Agatha of doing.

The last surviving British veteran of the trenches has died at the age of 111. Harry Patch, whose death was announced today, fought at Passchendaele where more than 70,000 British soldiers were killed. The total number of casualties was: on the British/French/Commonwealth side 508,800 dead, wounded, missing, or captured and on the German side 348,300 dead, wounded, missing, or captured.

Tory Historian sincerely hopes that Mr Patch will not be insulted in death by the sort of silly, patronizing comments various people and politicians made after the death of Henry Allingham.

The last remaining British veteran is Claude Choules, 108, who lives in in Australia. He was a seaman and is a veteran of both World Wars.

Tory Historian is a confirmed Anglospherist, as any reader, however cursory, of this blog will know. Therefore, discussions about conservatism in other parts of the Anglosphere are of particular joy, though discussions about conservatism in other parts of the world are also of interest.

Firstly, Tory Historian would like to call the readers’ attention to an obituary by the great Claudio Véliz, author, among other things, of “The New World of the Gothic Fox – Culture and Economy in English and Spanish America” and of a superlative article in Quadrant that compares Gough Whitlam with General Perón, which explains why the wrecking of Argentina’s economic and political structure was not replicated in Australia.

The obituary is that of William F. Buckley, whose death was noted on this blog as well. The whole piece is worth reading but of particular interest are the last couple of paragraphs.

Professor Véliz suggests that Buckley’s fascination with sailing may well have given him a clearer understanding of natural rhythms in nature and society and reminds us of Edmund Burke’s comments on similar subjects:

Few activities establish a more intimate relationship between man and nature than sailing the high seas. Few contemporaries have been more happily and efficiently attuned to the rhythms, harmonies and dissonance of nature and the language of the sea than Bill Buckley, and few would have understood better what Edmund Burke had in mind when, in Reflections on the Revolution in France, he explained that:

“working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of Providence, are handed down, to us and from us, in the same course and order. [This] political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a ermanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein … the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged or young, but in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression … thus in what we improve we are never wholly new; in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete.”

Such an understanding furnishes “a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission: without at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires.”

Of course, Bill Buckley could have penned this if Edmund Burke had not done it before him. William F. Buckley Jr was a Burke for our times.