Dawson was succeeded as editor in 1944 by R. M. Barrington-Ward, whose brother
was a Fellow of All Souls and son-in-law of A. L. Smith. Laurence Rushbrook Williams,
who functions in many capacities in Indian affairs after his fellowship in All Souls (1914-
1921), also joined the editorial staff in 1944. Douglas Jay, who graduated from New
College in 1930 and was a Fellow of All Souls in 1930-1937, was on the staff of The
Times in 1929-1933 and of the Economist in 1933-1937. He became a Labour M.P. in
1946, after having performed the unheard-of feat of going directly from All Souls to the
city desk of the Labour Party's Daily Herald (1937-1941). Another interesting figure on
The Times staff in the more recent period was Charles R. S. Harris, who was a Fellow of
All Souls for fifteen years (1921-1936), after graduating from Corpus Christi. He was
leader-writer of The Times for ten years (1925-1935) and, during part of the same period,
was on the staff of the Economist (1932-1935) and editor of The Nineteenth Century and
After (1930-1935). He left all three positions in 1935 to go for four years to the Argentine
to be general manager of the Buenos Aires Great Southern and Western Railways. During
the Second World War he joined the Ministry of Economic Warfare for a year, the
Foreign Office for two years, and the Finance Department of the/War Office for a year
(1942-1943). Then he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel with the military
government in occupied Sicily, and ended up the war as a member of the Allied Control
Commission in Italy. Harris's written works cover a range of subjects that would be
regarded as extreme anywhere outside the Milner Group. A recognized authority on Duns
Scotus, he wrote two volumes on this philosopher as well as the chapter on "Philosophy"
in The Legacy of the Middle Ages, but in 1935 he wrote Germany's Foreign Indebtedness
for the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Harris's literary versatility, as well as the large number of members of All Souls who
drifted over to the staff on The Times, unquestionably can be explained by the activities
of Lord Brand. Brand not only brought these persons from All Souls to The Times, but
also brought the Astors to The Times. Brand and Lord Astor were together at New
College at the outbreak of the Boer War. They married sisters, daughters of Chiswell
Dabney Langhorne of Virginia. Brand was apparently the one who brought Astor into the
Milner Group in 1917, although there had been a movement in this direction considerably
earlier. Astor was a Conservative M.P. from 1910 to 1919, leaving the Lower House to
take his father's seat in the House of Lords. His place in Commons has been held since
1919 by his wife, Nancy Astor (1919-1945), and by his son Michael Langhorne Astor
(1945- ). In 1918 Astor became parliamentary secretary to Lloyd George; later he held
the same position with the Ministry of Food (1918-1919) and the Ministry of Health
(1919-1921). He was British delegate to the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1931,
chairman of the League Committee on Nutrition (1936-1937), and chairman of the
council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (since 1935). With help from
various people, he wrote three books on agricultural problems: Land and Life (1932), The
Planning of Agriculture (1933), and British Agriculture (1938). Both of his sons
graduated from New College, and both have been Members of Parliament, the older in
the period 1935-1945, and the younger since 1945. The older was secretary to Lord
Lytton on the League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into the Manchurian Episode
(1932) and was parliamentary private secretary to Sir Samuel Hoare when he was First
Lord of the Admiralty and Home Secretary (1936-1939).
Lord Astor's chief importance in regard to The Times is that he and his brother became
chief proprietors in 1922 by buying out the Harmsworth interest. As a result, the brother,
Colonel John Jacob Astor, has been chairman of the board of The Times Publishing
Company since 1922, and Brand was a director on the board for many years before 1944.
Colonel Astor, who matriculated at New College in 1937, at the age of fifty-one, was
military aide to the Viceroy of India (Lord Hardinge) in 1911-1914, was a Member of
Parliament from 1922 to 1945, and is a director of both Hambros' and Barclay's Banks.
This connection between the Milner Group and The Times was of the greatest
importance in the period up to 1945, especially in the period just before the Munich
crisis. However, the chief center of gravity of the Milner Group was never in The Times.
It is true that Lord Astor became one of the more important figures in the Milner Group
after Milner's death in 1925, but the center of gravity of the Group as a whole was
elsewhere: before 1920, in the Round Table Group; and after 1920, in All Souls. Lord
Astor was of great importance in the later period, especially after 1930, but was of no
significance in the earlier period—an indication of his relatively recent arrival in the
Group.
The Times has recently published the first three volumes of a four-volume history of
itself. Although no indication is given as to the authorship of these volumes, the
acknowledgments show that the authors worked closely with All Souls and the Milner
Group. For example, Harold Temperley and Keith Feiling read the proofs of the first two
volumes, while E. L. Woodward read those of the third volume.
While members of the Milner Group thus went into The Times to control it, relatively
few persons ever came into the Milner Group from The Times. The only two who readily
come to mind are Sir Arthur Willert and Lady Lugard. (4)
Arthur Willert (Sir Arthur since 1919) entered Balliol in 1901 but did not take a
degree until 1928. From 1906 to 1910 he was on the staff of The Times in Paris, Berlin,
and Washington, and was then chief Times correspondent in Washington for ten years
(1910-1920). During this period he was also secretary to the British War Mission in
Washington (1917-1918) and Washington representative of the Ministry of Information.
This brought him to the attention of the Milner Group, probably through Brand, and in
1921 he joined the Foreign Office as head of the News Department. During the next
fifteen years he was a member of the British delegations to the Washington Conference
of 1922, to the London Economic Conference of 1924, to the London Naval Conference
of 1930, to the World Disarmament Conference of 1932-1934, and to the League of
Nations in 1929-1934. He retired from the Foreign Office in 1935, but returned to an
active life for the duration of the Second World War as head of the southern region for
the Ministry of Information (1939-1945). In 1937, in cooperation with H. V. Hodson
(then editor of The Round Table) and B. K. Long (of the Kindergarten), he wrote a book called The Empire in the World. He had previously written Aspects of British Foreign
Policy (1928) and The Frontiers of England (1935).
The second person to come into the Milner Group from The Times was Lady Lugard