Philip Kerr (later Lord Lothian) 1882-1940 New 1897-1901 Never
Robert Henry Brand 1878-1963 New 1897-1901 1901-
(later Lord Brand)
Lionel Curtis 1872-1955 New 1891-1905 1921-
Geoffrey Dawson 1874-1944 Magdalen 1898-1905;
(until 1917 Robinson) 1893-1897 1915-1944
John Buchan 1875-1940 Brasenose Never
(later Lord Tweedsmuir) 1895-1899
Dougal Orme Malcolm 1877-1955 New 1895-1899 1899-1955
(later Sir Dougal)
William Lionel Hichens 1874-1941 New 1894-1898 Never
Richard Feetham 1874-1965 New 1893-1898 Never
John Dove 1872-1934 New 1891-1895 Never
Basil Williams 1867-1950 New 1886-1891 1924-1925
Lord Basil Blackwood 1870-1917 Balliol 1891- Never
Hugh A. Wyndham 1877- New 1896-1900 Never
George V. Fiddes 1858-1925 Brasenose Never
(later Sir George) 1880-1884
John Hanbury-Williams 1859-1946 Wellington, N. Z. Never
(later Sir John)
Main S. O. Walrond 1870- Balliol Never
Fabian Ware (later Sir Fabian) 1869–1949 Univ. of Paris Never
William Flavelle Monypenny 1866-1912 Balliol (1888-1890) Never
To these eighteen names should be added five others who were present in South
Africa between the Boer War and the creation of the Union and were members of the
Milner Group but cannot be listed under the Kindergarten because they were not
members of Milner’s civil service. (2) These five are:
Name Dates College All Souls
Leopold Amery 1873-1955 Balliol 1897-1911, 1938
1892-1896
Edward Grigg 1879-1955 New 1898-1902 Never
(later Lord Altrincham)
H. A. L. Fisher 1865-1940 New 1884-1888 Never
Edward F. L. Wood
(later Lord Irwin and Lord Halifax) 1881-1959 Christ Church 1903-1910
1899-1903
Basil K. Long 1878-1944 Brasenose Never
1897-1901
Of these twenty-three names, eleven were from New College. Seven were members of
All Souls, six as Fellows. These six had held their fellowships by 1947 an aggregate of
one hundred and sixty-nine years, or an average of over twenty-eight years each. Of the
twenty-three, nine were in the group which founded, edited, and wrote The Round Table
in the period after 1910, five were in close personal contact with Lloyd George (two in
succession as private secretaries) in the period 1916-1922, and seven were in the group
which controlled and edited The Times after 1912.
Eleven of these twenty-three men, plus others whom we have mentioned, formed the
central core of the Milner Group as it has existed from 1910 to the present. These others
will be discussed in their proper place. At this point we should take a rapid glance at the
biographies of some of the others.
Two members of the Kindergarten, Patrick Duncan and Richard Feetham, stayed in
South Africa after the achievement of the Union in 1910. Both remained important
members of the Milner Group and, as a result of this membership, rose to high positions
in their adopted country. Patrick Duncan had been Milner's assistant on the Board of
Internal Revenue from 1894 to 1897 and was taken with him to South Africa as private
secretary. He was Treasurer of the Transvaal in 1901, Colonial Secretary of the Transvaal
in 1903-1906, and Acting Lieutenant Governor in 1906. He remained in South Africa as a
lieutenant to Jan Smuts, becoming an advocate of the Supreme Court there, a member of
the South African Parliament, Minister of Interior, Public Health, and Education (1921-
1924), Minister of Mines (1933-1936), and finally Governor-General of South Africa
(1936-1946). He frequently returned to England to confer with the Croup (in September
1932, for example, at Lord Lothian's country house, Blickling).
Richard Feetham was made Deputy Town Clerk and later Town Clerk of
Johannesburg (1902-1905). He was legal adviser to Lord Selborne, the High
Commissioner, in 1907 and a member of the Legislative Council of the Transvaal later
(1907-1910). He was chairman of the Committee on Decentralization of Powers in India
in 1918-1919; a King's Counsel in Transvaal (1919-1923); a judge of the Supreme Court
of South Africa (1923-1930); chairman of the Irish Boundary Commission (1924-1925);
chairman of the Local Government Commission in Kenya Colony (of which Edward
Grigg was Governor) in 1926; adviser to the Shanghai Municipal Council (1930-1931);
chairman of the Transvaal Asiatic Land Tenure Commission (1930-1935); Vice-
Chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1938); and has been a
judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa since 1939. Most of these positions, as we
shall see, came to him as a member of the Milner Group.
Hugh A. Wyndham also remained in South Africa after 1910 and was a member of the
Union Parliament for ten years (1910-1920). He had previously been secretary to Milner.
In spite of the prominence of his family and his own position as heir presumptive to the
third Baron Leconfield, it is difficult to obtain any adequate information about him. His
biography in Who's Who does not mention his experiences in South Africa or his other
connections with the Milner Group. This is obviously the result of a deliberate policy,
since editions of Who's Who of thirty-five years ago do mention the South African
connection. Wyndham wrote Problems of Imperial Trusteeship (1933); Britain and the
World; and the chapter on "The Formation of the Union of South Africa, 1901-1910" in
volume VIII of the Cambridge History of the British Empire (1936). He was, like all the
members of the Milner Group, a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
wrote many book reviews for its Journal, and at the outbreak of war in 1939 became the
usual presiding officer at its meetings (in the absence of Lord Astor). When publication
of the Journal was resumed after the war, he became chairman of its editorial board, a
position he still holds. Married to Maude Lyttelton, daughter of Viscount Cobham, he is
also a brother-in-law of Sir Ivor Maxse (the brother of Lady Milner) and a nephew of
Lord Rosebery.
Dougal Malcolm (Sir Dougal since 1938), a grandson of Lord Charles Wellesley,
joined the Colonial Office in 1900 and served there under Chamberlain and Alfred
Lyttelton for several years. In 1905 he went to South Africa as private secretary to Lord
Selborne and remained there until Union was achieved. He was secretary to Lord Grey,
Governor-General of Canada, during the last year of his tenure (1910-1911); an official
of the British Treasury for a year; and, in 1913, became a director of the British South
Africa Company (president since 1938). He is also vice-president of the British North
Borneo Company, of which his brother-in-law, General Sir Neill Malcolm, is
president.(3) Sir Dougal wrote the biographies of Otto Beit, of Dr. Jameson, and of J.
Rochford Maguire for the Dictionary of National Biography.