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The Kimberley Memoir

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2009

Abstract

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Appendix
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1997

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References

1 On the nature and preparation of the Memoir, see above, 7–13.

2 According to Bateman in 1883, Kimberley owned 11,147 acres valued at £25,000; Rosebery 32,411 acres valued at £36,479. The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn, London, 1883), 251, 386Google Scholar. After Rosebery's marriage to Hannah Rothschild in 1878, his annual income increased by more than £100,000 pounds. James, R. Rhodes, Rosebery (London, 1963), 84.Google Scholar

3 Memoir, Kimberley, 488Google Scholar, below.

4 Memoir, Kimberley, 503Google Scholar, below.

5 Rosebery, to Kimberley, , 7 04, 24 06 1895Google Scholar, RsP, 10070, ff. 33, 157.

6 See Liberal by Principle, 247–8, 251–2, 267–8, 273.Google Scholar

7 See below, p. 487–8; Gladstone-Granville Conesp. 2, II, 421–2.Google Scholar

8 There is no record of anyone other than Rosebery having been allowed to see the Memoir, and the lack of any reference to it in the successive divisions of the Kimberley Papers suggests, as has been rumoured, that it may have been burned along with other papers shortly after the second world war.

9 Rosebery to 2nd Earl of Kimberley, 26 Oct. 1906, RSP 10120, ff. 33–4.

10 Kimberley's loquaciousness was legendary. Edward Grey recalled a typical experience while serving as undersecretary to Kimberley at the Foreign Office: ‘In conversation, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say in talk, Lord Kimberley was the most copious of men … When the Under-Secretary went to ask him to read and approve drafts and answers to questions that were to be asked in the House of Commons in a quarter of an hour's time it was sometimes embarrassing that he would embark on an account of the ravages wrought among trees by a great gale in Norfolk; though the weather and the trees were topics not uncongenial to the Under-Secretary.’ Twenty-Five Years, 1892–1916 (2 vols., New York, 1925), I, 1718Google Scholar. See Liberal by Principle, 44.Google Scholar

11 Cf. Gladstone's surprise at Kimberley's refusal of the Indian viceroyalty in 1880. Gladstone Diaries, IX, 508–9.Google Scholar

12 Labouchere, for instance, complained that of the 33 Gladstonian Lords, ‘30 are more or less codgers after place or office.’ Labouchere to Dilke, 12 Nov. [?1891], DkP, Add. MS 43892, 163.

13 A writer for the Eastern Daily Press noted that Kimberley's ‘home life was simple. He did not entertain largely, but gave occasional shooting parties over his well preserved woods’. 9 04 1902, p. 2Google Scholar. Kimberley was well read in the classics, having taken a first in literae humaniores at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1847. However, thereafter he in fact read more generally, focusing on history, biography, contemporary issues and, later in life, German and Spanish literature.

14 . Duff, M. Grant, Notes from a Diary, 1886–1888 (London, 1900), 131–2Google Scholar; DD3, 216Google Scholar and n. 30.

15 Ripon appears to have wavered. Cf. Sandiford, , Great Britain and the Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1848–64, 78, 112, 146.Google Scholar

16 Thomas Erskine Perry (1806–82), Lib. MP for Devonport, 1854–9; member of the Council of India, 1859–82.

17 7 December 1865.

18 For Kimberley's apologia see Kimberley to Currie, 31 May 1866, KP1 3/1; Kimberley to Anne Wodehouse, 31 May 1866, KP1 15/K2/18.

19 Thomas Baring (1799–1873), financier and Con. MP for Great Yarmouth, 1831–7, and Huntingdon, 1844–73.

20 Seat of the Duke and Duchess of Cleveland, County Durham. According to Robert Rhodes James, Raby was ‘grandiose, bleak, and freezing cold in winter’. Rosebery, 42.Google Scholar

21 Richard Southwell Bourke, 6th Earl Mayo (1822–72), ch. sec. for Ireland, 1852, 1858–9, 1866–8; Viceroy of India, 1868–72. Cf. Kimberley's annotation of 1877, JE, 27Google Scholar; Duff, Grant, Notes from a Diary, 1896–1901, (2 vols., London, 1905) I, 189–90.Google Scholar

22 On Westbury's recollection, see The Life of Richard, Lord Westbury (2 vols., London, 1888), II, 201–2.Google Scholar

23 François Achille Bazaine, Marshall of France from 1864, and Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Guard.

24 In a similar vein, Lady Kimberley urged her daughter not to read ‘any French novels. I assure you they do more harm than you imagine. Their tone is false and their sentiment bad. Moral and principle they have none …’5 Sept. [1872], DE 1749, PkP 38/3. Cf. 2 Nov. 1870, JE, 19.

25 See Temmel, M.R., ‘Gladstone's Resignation of the Liberal Leadership, 1874–1875’, Journal of British Studies 16 (Fall 1976), 153–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 MP for Wolverharapton, 1835–98.

27 Kimberley to Granville, GrP, 30/29/135, ff. 1–2. On Portuguese opposition, see Minutes, 10 July 1880, on FO to CO, 8 June 1880, CO 179/136. Also, Kimberley, to Gurdon, William, 26 05 1881Google Scholar, CwP, HA54 970/2713.

28 Kimberley consistently maintained this line and probably referred to his correspondence when preparing statements thereafter. See Kimberley, to Ripon, , 12 04 1881Google Scholar, in Liberal by Principle, 153–4Google Scholar. Cf. the wording of Rosebery's summary with Kimberley to H. Gladstone, 25 November 1899, GP, Add. MS 46057, ff. 218–20; also Kimberley, to Gladstone, Herbert, 30 11 1899Google Scholar, HGP Add. MS 46057, f. 223.

29 For a fuller account see Duff, Grant, Notes from a Diary, 1896–1901, I, 210–11.Google Scholar

30 The Queen confided to Ponsonby that she ‘utterly despised’ Derby, who had ‘no feeling for the honour of England’. Queen Victoria: Letters and Journals, ed. Hibbert, C. (New York, 1985), 278Google Scholar. He was finally invested with the garter in 1884.

31 Wolseley finally was created viscount in 1885.

32 Cf. Disraeli's response to Gladstone's letter of sympathy on the death of his wife: ‘Marriage is the greatest earthly happiness when founded on complete sympathy. That hallowed lot was mine …’ Bassett, A., The Gladstone Papers (London, 1930), 112Google Scholar. The truth of Disraeli's attitude is surely somewhere between these extremes. See Blake, R., Disraeli (London, 1967), 160–1.Google Scholar

33 Cf. Feuchtwanger, E.J., Gladstone (London, 1978), 229Google Scholar; contrast EHJI, II, 894.Google Scholar

34 Cf. Edward Hamilton's report of 5 April 1885: ‘Rosebery puts down Childers and Lefevre as “lag choices” (to use an Eton phrase). Lord Kimberley strikes him as being a stronger man than he ever imagined.’ EHJI, I, 830.

35 See p. 366, above.

36 On the perception of Gladstone's Old fault – impatience', see Florence Arnold-Forster's Irish Journal, ed. Moody, T. W. and Hawkins, R. (Oxford, 1988), 479.Google Scholar

37 Remembered perhaps because it concurred with Kimberley's own longstanding view. See Childe-Pemberton, W. S., Life of Lord Norton, 1814–1905 (London, 1909), 278.Google Scholar

38 See entry for 13 April 1891.

39 Gladstone nevertheless devilishly wondered aloud to Algernon West if Harcourt might not succeed Lansdowne as Viceroy in India. West, Diaries, 183.Google Scholar

40 He did, however, remark upon it at the time in a letter to Spencer. 3 Dec. 1892, SP, K336.

41 Formally, the Local Government Act, creating almost 7,000 elective parish councils with wide-ranging but underfunded authority. For a summary of this complex bill, see Lipman, V. D., Local Government Acts, 1834–1945 (Oxford, 1949), 156–64Google Scholar. For Spencer's assessment see 3 Hansard 106 (15 04 1902), 263–4Google Scholar. On Kimberley's parliamentary reputation, EHJ2, 116Google Scholar; Bishop of Limerick to Kimberley, 25 February 1894, KP1, 15/K2/24; ‘The Crisis in Foreign Affairs’, ‘Eighty Club’ Yearbook, 1899, 6.Google Scholar

42 Cf. Journal entry for 25 Feb. 1894.

43 Rosebery protected himself by reticence from the most extreme forms of criticism. Gladstone's comment upon his tenure at the Foreign Office is a classic of perverse praise: ‘Considering what followed I have great satisfaction in recording on his behalf his rather determined resistance.’ Prime Ministers' Papers: Gladstone, I, 135Google Scholar. Hamilton observed that ‘throughout the crisis [Kimberley] behaved like a real gentleman always thrusting his own claims in the background’. EHJ2, 117.Google Scholar

44 See Kimberley, to Rosebery, , 19 02 1895Google Scholar, in Liberal by Principle, 228.Google Scholar

45 Rosebery recorded this entry separately, outside the notebook, along with the annotation: ‘Feb 19. 1895. Under this date Kimberley notes in his journal that I made the “amazing announcement” that I must resign as I was not properly supported in the House of Commons. His amazement shows that the device was successful. It would of course not have been possible for me to resign. But it was the only way in which I could restore any discipline, or deal with the open and insulting disloyalty of one member of the cabinet at least. This shameful exhibition had excited just comment, for the silence of the Govt. under such circumstances was much more damaging than the attacks of my foes. So I called a cabinet to play the last card left to me, and on the whole it succeeded.’ RsP, 10147, ff 159, 161.