1923 followed roughly the lines between the Milner Group and the Cecil Bloc.
It should perhaps be pointed out that the Cecil Bloc was a social rather than a partisan
group—at first, at least. Until 1890 or so it contained members of both political parties,
including the leaders, Salisbury and Gladstone. The relationship between the two parties
on the topmost level could be symbolized by the tragic romance between Salisbury's
nephew and Gladstone's niece, ending in the death of the latter in 1875. After the split in
the Liberal Party in 1886, it was the members of the Cecil Bloc who became Unionists—
that is, the Lytteltons, the Wyndhams, the Cavendishes. As a result, the Cecil Bloc
became increasingly a political force. Gladstone remained socially a member of it, and so
did his protege, John Morley, but almost all the other members of the Bloc were
Unionists or Conservatives. The chief exceptions were the four leaders of the Liberal
Party after Gladstone, who were strong imperialists: Rosebery, Asquith, Edward Grey,
and Haldane. These four supported the Boer War, grew increasingly anti-German,
supported the World War in 1914, and were close to the Milner Group politically,
intellectually, and socially.(7)
Socially, the Cecil Bloc could be divided into three generations. The first (including
Salisbury, Gladstone, the seventh Duke of Devonshire, the eighth Viscount Midleton,
Goschen, the fourth Baron Lyttelton, the first Earl of Cranbrook, the first Duke of
Westminster, the first Baron Leconfield, the tenth Earl of Wemyss, etc.) was not
as"social" (in the frivolous sense) as the second. This first generation was born in the first
third of the nineteenth century, went to both Oxford and Cambridge in the period 1830-
1855, and died in the period 1890-1915. The second generation was born in the second
third of the nineteenth century, went almost exclusively to Oxford (chiefly Balliol) in the
period 1860-1880, and died in the period 1920-1930. This second generation was much
more social in a spectacularly frivolous sense, much more intellectual (in the sense that
they read books and talked philosophy or social problems) and centered on a social group
known at the time as "The Souls." The third generation of the Cecil Bloc, consisting of
persons born in the last third of the nineteenth century, went to Oxford almost exclusively
(New College or Balliol) in the period 1890-1905 and began to die off about 1940. This
third generation of the Cecil Bloc was dominated and organized about the Milner Group.
It was very serious-minded, very political, and very secretive.
The first two generations did not regard themselves as an organized group but rather
as "Society." The Bloc was symbolized in the first two generations in two exclusive
dining clubs called "The Club" and "Grillion's." The membership of the two was very
similar, with about forty persons in each and a total of not over sixty in both together.
Both organizations had illustrious pasts. The Club, founded in 1764, had as past members
Joshua Reynolds (founder), Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, James
Boswell, Edward Gibbon, Charles Fox, David Garrick, Adam Smith, Richard B.
Sheridan, George Canning, Humphry Davy, Walter Scott, Lord Liverpool, Henry Hallam,
Lord Brougham, T. B. Macauley, Lord John Russell, George Grote, Dean Stanley, W. E.
H. Lecky, Lord Kelvin, Matthew Arnold, T. H. Huxley, Bishop Wilberforce, Bishop
Stubbs, Bishop Creighton, Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Balfour, John Morley, Richard
Jebb, Lord Goschen, Lord Acton, Lord Rosebery, Archbishop Lang, F. W. Pember
(Warden of All Souls), Lord Asquith, Edward Grey, Lord Haldane, Hugh Cecil, John
Simon, Charles Oman, Lord Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, Gilbert Murray, H. A. L.
Fisher, John Buchan, Maurice Hankey, the fourth Marquess of Salisbury, Lord
Lansdowne, Bishop Henson, Halifax, Stanley Baldwin, Austen Chamberlain, Lord
Carnock, and Lord Hewart. This list includes only members up to 1925. There were, as
we have said, only forty members at any one time, and at meetings (dinner every
fortnight while Parliament was in session) usually only about a dozen were present.
Grillion's was very similar to The Club. Founded in 1812, it had the same members
and met under the same conditions, except weekly (dinner when Parliament was in
session). The following list includes the names I can find of those who were members up
to 1925: Gladstone, Salisbury, Lecky, Balfour, Asquith, Edward Grey, Haldane, Lord
Bryce, Hugh Cecil, Robert Cecil, Curzon, Neville Lyttelton, Eustace Percy, John Simon,
Geoffrey Dawson, Walter Raleigh, Balfour of Burleigh, and. Gilbert Murray.(8)
The second generation of the Cecil Bloc was famous at the time that it was growing
up (and political power was still in the hands of the first generation) as "The Souls," a
term applied to them partly in derision and partly in envy but used by themselves later.
This group, flitting about from one great country house to another or from one
spectacular social event to another in the town houses of their elders, has been preserved
for posterity in the autobiographical volumes of Margot Tennant Asquith and has been
caricatured in the writings of Oscar Wilde. The frivolity of this group can be seen in
Margot Tennant's statement that she obtained for Milner his appointment to the
chairmanship of the Board of Inland Revenue in 1892 merely by writing to Balfour and
asking for it after she had a too brief romantic interlude with Milner in Egypt. As a
respected scholar of my acquaintance has said, this group did everything in a frivolous
fashion, including entering the Boer War and the First World War.
One of the enduring creations of the Cecil Bloc is the Society for Psychical Research,
which holds a position in the history of the Cecil Bloc similar to that held by the Royal
Institute of International Affairs in the Milner Group. The Society was founded in 1882
by the Balfour family and their in-laws, Lord Rayleigh and Professor Sidgwick. In the
twentieth century it was dominated by those members of the Cecil Bloc who became
most readily members of the Milner Group. Among these we might mention Gilbert
Murray, who performed a notable series of experiments with his daughter, Mrs. Arnold J.
Toynbee, in the years before 1914, and Dame Edith Lyttelton, herself a Balfour and
widow of Arthur Balfour's closest friend, who was president of the Society in 1933-
1934.
The third generation was quite different, partly because it was dominated by Milner,
one of the few completely serious members of the second generation. This third
generation was serious if not profound, studious if not broadly educated, and haunted
consistently by the need to act quickly to avoid impending disaster. This fear of disaster
they shared with Rhodes and Milner, but they still had the basic weakness of the second
generation (except Milner and a few other adopted members of that Group), namely that
they got everything too easily. Political power, wealth, and social position came to this
third generation as a gift from the second, without the need to struggle for what they got
or to analyze the foundations of their beliefs. As a result, while awake to the impending
disaster, they were not able to avoid it, but instead tinkered and tampered until the whole
system blew up in their faces.
This third generation, especially the Milner Group, which formed its core, differed
from its two predecessors in its realization that it formed a group. The first generation had
regarded itself as"England," the second regarded itself as "Society," but the third realized