India, in 1924; The American Revolution and the British Empire (1930); The Empire in These Days (1935); The Cripps Mission (1942); and Report on the Constitutional
Problem in India (3 parts, 1942-1943).
The Milner Group's relationships with All Souls were also strengthened after Milner
returned to England in 1905, and especially after the Kindergarten returned to England in
1909-1911. The Milner Group's strength in All Souls, however, was apparently not
sufficiently strong for them to elect a member of the Milner Group as Warden when
Anson died in 1914, for his successor, Francis W. Pember, onetime assistant legal adviser
to the Foreign Office, and a Fellow of All Souls since 1884, was of the Cecil Bloc rather
than of the Milner Group. Pember did not, however, resist the penetration of the Milner
Group into All Souls, and as a result both of his successors as Warden, W. G. S. Adams
(1933-1945) and B. H. Sumner (1945- ), were members of the Milner Group.
In general, the movement of persons was not from the Milner Group to All Souls but
in the reverse direction. All Souls, in fact, became the chief recruiting agency for the
Milner Group, as it had been before 1903 for the Cecil Bloc. The inner circle of this
Group, because of its close contact with Oxford and with All Souls, was in a position to
notice able young undergraduates at Oxford. These were admitted to All Souls and at
once given opportunities in public life and in writing or teaching, to test their abilities and
loyalty to the ideals of the Milner Group. If they passed both of these tests, they were
gradually admitted to the Milner Group's great fiefs such as the Royal Institute of
International Affairs, The Times, The Round Table, or, on the larger scene, to the ranks of
the Foreign or Colonial Offices. So far as I know, none of these persons recruited through
All Souls ever reached the inner circle of the Milner Group, at least before 1939. This
inner circle continued to be largely monopolized by the group that had been in South
Africa in the period before 1909. The only persons who were not in South Africa, yet
reached the inner circle of the Milner Group, would appear to be Coupland, Lord Astor,
Lady Astor, Arnold Toynbee, and H. V. Hodson. There may be others, for it is difficult
for an outsider to be sure in regard to such a secret matter.
Of the members of All Souls who got into at least the second circle of the Milner
Group, we should mention the names of the following:
Name Birth College All Souls
Date Fellow
W. G. S. Adams 1874 Balliol, 1896-1900 1910- (Warden 1933-1945)
K. N. Bell 1884 Balliol, 1903-1906 1907-1914
I. Berlin 1909 Corpus Christi, 1928-1932 1932-1939
H. B. Butler 1883 Balliol, 1902-1905 1905-1912
R. D’O. Butler Balliol, 1935-1938 1938-
F. Clarke Balliol, 1905-1908 1908-1915
P. E. Corbett 1892 Balliol, 1919-1920 1920-1928
C. R. M. F. Cruttwell Queen’s, 1906-1910 1911-1918
H. W. C. Davis 1874 Balliol, 1891-1895 1895-1902
G. C. Faber 1889 Christ Church, 1908-1913 1919-
J. G. Foster New College, 1922-1925 1924-
M. L Gwyer 1878 Christ Church, 1897-1901 1902-1916
W. K. Hancock 1898 Balliol, 1922-1923 1924-1930, 1944-
C. R. S. Harris 1896 Corpus Christi, 1918-1923 1921-1936
H. V. Hodson 1906 Balliol, 1925-1928 1928-1935
C. S. Macartney 1896 Trinity College, Cambridge 1936-
R. M. Makins 1904 Christ Church, 1922-1925 1925-1932
J. Morley 1938 Lincoln, 1856-1859 1904-1911
C. J. Radcliffe 1899 New College, 1919-1922 1922-1937
J. A. Salter 1881 Brasenose, 1899-1904 1932-
D. B. Somervell 1889 Magdalen 1907-1911 1912-
A. H. D. R. Steel- 1876 Balliol, 1896-1900 1900-1907
Maitland
B. H. Sumner 1893 Balliol, 1912-1916 1919-1926, Warden 1945-
L. F. R. Williams 1890 University 1909-1912 1914-1921
E. L. Woodward 1890 Corpus Christi, 1908-1911 1911-1944
Of these twenty-five names, four were Fellows of Balliol during the periods in which
they were not Fellows of All Souls (Bell, David, Sumner, and Woodward).
It is not necessary to say much about these various men at this time, but certain of
them should be identified. The others will be mentioned later.
William George Stewart Adams was lecturer in Economics at Chicago and
Manchester universities and Superintendent of Statistics and Intelligence in the
Department of Agriculture before he was elected to All Souls in 1910. Then he was
Gladstone Professor of Political Theory and Institutions (1912-1933), a member of the
committee to advise the Irish Cabinet (1911), in the Ministry of Munitions (1915),
Secretary to Lloyd George (1916-1919), editor of the War Cabinet Reports (1917-1918),
and a member of the Committee on Civil Service Examinations (1918).
The Reverend Kenneth Norman Bell was lecturer in history at Toronto University
during his fellowship in All Souls (1907-1914); a director of G. Bell and Sons,
Publishers; a tutor and Fellow of Balliol (1919-1941); Beit Lecturer in Colonial History
(1924-1927); and a member of the committee for supervision of the selection of
candidates for the Colonial Administrative Service. He edited, with W. P. Morrell, Select
Documents in British Colonial History, 1830-1860 (1928).
Harold Beresford Butler (Sir Harold since 1946) was a civil servant, chiefly in the
Home Office, and secretary to the British delegation to the International Conference on
Aerial Navigation in Paris during his Fellowship at All Souls. He was subsequently in the
Foreign Trade Department of the Foreign Office (1914-1917) and in the Ministry of
Labour (1917-1919). On the Labour Commission of the Paris Peace Conference and at
the International Labor Conference in Washington (1919), he later became deputy
director (1920-1932) and director (1932-1938) of the International Labour Office of the
League of Nations. Since 1939, he has been Warden of Nuffield College (1939-1943) and
minister in charge of publicity in the British Embassy in Washington (1942-1946). He
has written a number of books, including a history of the inter-war period called The Lost
Peace (1941).
H. W. C. Davis, the famous medieval historian, became a Fellow of All Souls
immediately after graduating from Balliol in 1895, and was a Fellow of Balliol for
nineteen years after that, resigning from the latter to become Professor of History at
Manchester University (1921-1925). During this period he was a lecturer at New College
(1897-1899), Chichele Lecturer in Foreign History (1913), editor of the Oxford
Pamphlets on the war (1914-1915), one of the organizers of the War Trade Intelligence
Department of the Ministry of Blockade in the Foreign Office (1915), acting director of
the Department of Overseas Trade under Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland (1917-1919), an