Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Apprenticeship in Education
- 2 The Board School Teacher, 1882–1892
- 3 The Schoolmaster
- 4 The London School Board, 1894–1897
- 5 President of the NUT
- 6 The London School Board, 1897–1900
- 7 Parliament, 1900–1902
- 8 The 1902 Education Act
- 9 The End of the London School Board
- 10 The Decline of the Unionist Government, 1903–1905
- 11 Outside and Inside the Government, 1905–1908
- 12 Financial Secretary to the Admiralty I: 1908–1914
- 13 Financial Secretary to the Admiralty II: 1914–1920
- 14 Minister of Labour
- 15 Exclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
13 - Financial Secretary to the Admiralty II: 1914–1920
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Apprenticeship in Education
- 2 The Board School Teacher, 1882–1892
- 3 The Schoolmaster
- 4 The London School Board, 1894–1897
- 5 President of the NUT
- 6 The London School Board, 1897–1900
- 7 Parliament, 1900–1902
- 8 The 1902 Education Act
- 9 The End of the London School Board
- 10 The Decline of the Unionist Government, 1903–1905
- 11 Outside and Inside the Government, 1905–1908
- 12 Financial Secretary to the Admiralty I: 1908–1914
- 13 Financial Secretary to the Admiralty II: 1914–1920
- 14 Minister of Labour
- 15 Exclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
When war began, on 4 August 1914, Macnamara had spent six years and nearly four months as Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty. A further five years and seven months in the post lay before him. It was to be the longest continuous tenure of one office by a member of the House of Commons since the Reform Act of 1832.
Two opportunities for promotion came and went. In February 1914, the post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury (which Lloyd George had sought for him in 1908) had fallen vacant, but Asquith had preferred Edwin Montagu, his former Private Secretary. A year later, the unfortunate C. F.G. Masterman, obliged to undergo re-election on appointment as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was rejected by his constituents. He failed to find a safe haven elsewhere and was obliged to resign. ‘There is real trouble about Macnamara’, Asquith wrote to Venetia Stanley on 28 January 1915:
When he was passed over for the Assyrian, he was assured that his ‘political future’ would not be prejudiced. He is a popular man in the party, having been for many years a keen wire-puller and favourite platform orator … Winston thinks he will be mortally stricken if Montagu – much his junior – is now preferred to him for the Cabinet. LIG and I pointed out that, not only would he be of no real use in the Cabinet, but that it would look bad for him to leave his post at the Admiralty in the middle of the war. […]
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- Dr Macnamara 1861-1931 , pp. 278 - 307Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1999