Liberal Reform and Industrial Relations: J.H. Whitley (1866-1935), Halifax Radical and Speaker of the House of Commons

John A. Hargreaves, Keith Laybourn, Richard Toye

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351866125
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

J.H. Whitley came from an established business family in Halifax, where he engaged in youth work and municipal politics before becoming MP for Halifax from 1900 to 1928. He was a Liberal Radical who worked with Labour, gave his name to the industrial councils of the First World War, was Speaker of the House of Commons 1921-28 presiding over the debates at the time of the General Strike of 1926. In 1929-31 he toured India as chairman of the Royal Commission on Indian Labour and was chairman of the BBC between 1930 and 1935.

He was thus a vitally important political figure who was active at the rise of Labour and the decline of Liberalism, involved in the Liberal reforms of the Edwardian age, and deeply concerned about industrial relations in early twentieth century Britain and beyond.

This volume brings together leading academics and provides new information and analysis on the life, work and times of J.H. Whitley, offering a study of his career in British politics and society, focusing particularly on the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth century.

1 Introduction

John A. Hargreaves, Keith Laybourn and Richard Toye

J.H. Whitley, famously Speaker of the House of Commons in the 1920s, was a vitally important figure in many other areas of politics and civic, urban and religious life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born into a mill-owning family he became an employer before entering local and civic politics in Halifax, and then representing Halifax as an MP from 1900 until 1928 before rising to national recognition as Speaker of the House of Commons. Even after his retirement as Speaker, on grounds of bad health, Whitley remained in the public eye, being drawn into Indian and Empire affairs in the early 1930s and involved in governing the BBC. His life and achievements form the basis of this book. This is not a biography of him, however, although there is much on his life, but a reflection of the developments and changes in the world in which he lived and how he influenced them. Acting the role of businessman, philanthropist, Victorian politician, Edwardian Progressive, though not New, Liberal, industrial conciliator, politician, statesman and arbiter of the age of changing communications he in many ways reflected the changing face of British society from the 1890s to the 1930s. The essays in this collection aim to reveal the diversity of his work and experiences and the way in which he captured the mood of a changing world.

Whitley was born in 1866, during the final premiership of Earl Russell. The following year, Earl Derby’s Conservative government (in which Benjamin Disraeli was the leading light) passed the Second Reform Act, which radically extended the parliamentary franchise. The year 1868 was when first Disraeli and then W.E. Gladstone each became Prime Minister for the first time. Whitley’s lifetime also witnessed the Third Reform Act (1884), the Representation of the People Act (1918) and the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act (1928). The latter measure was introduced during Whitley’s Speakership and became law a month after he had retired. Thereby was completed the process by which a polity based on a restricted, property-based, franchise for men became one in which all men and women over the age of twenty-one were allowed to vote. We must, however, be cautious about relating these events as the completion of a Whiggish narrative of progressive reform, not only because of the subsequent persistence of anomalies such as university seats but also because of the problem of the House of Lords, which to this day has never been solved.¹ It is easy to forget, moreover, that constitutional change was not as peaceable as British national mythology suggests. The South of Ireland established itself as a Free State in 1922 through violent confrontation, following decades in which successive efforts to achieve Home Rule through parliamentary methods had failed.

Undeniably, what was left of the United Kingdom was a more democratic society at the end of Whitley’s life than at the beginning. Yet it was also, to a considerable extent, a deferential and hierarchical one.

Another important political theme of Whitley’s era was the decline of the Liberal Party and the (incomplete) rise of Labour. These phenomena were of course related to the extension of the franchise, although the relationship was not as straightforward as historians once believed.² Furthermore, the Liberal trajectory was not all downhill. After 1886, Gladstone’s ascendancy was replaced by that of Lord Salisbury, which appeared confirmed by the Boer War and the ‘Khaki election’ of 1900.³ Yet the war’s troubled end and aftermath helped set the scene for a Liberal revival that was dramatically assisted by two major Unionist own goals. The first was the 1902 ‘Balfour’ Education Act, which raised Nonconformist ire by funding Church of England and Catholic schools. The second was Joseph Chamberlain’s 1903 proposals for protectionism (or ‘Tariff Reform’), which blew apart the existing consensus in favour of Free Trade and united the normally fractious Liberals in defence of the status quo. Liberal culture was thus revealed to be very vibrant and dynamic, although, after the party returned to office in 1905, its pursuit of issues such as Home Rule also generated considerable popular hostility.⁴

As Peter Clarke has recently argued, the Gladstonian mindset remained ‘a potent force’ that shaped how Britain reacted to the First World War.⁵ Indeed, the achievement for which Whitley himself is now chiefly remembered – the proposal for Joint Industrial Councils – was based on the classical Gladstonian belief that capital and labour shared fundamental interests, and that their conflicts were susceptible to resolution through processes of rational conciliation. This core assumption also underwrote the Liberal commitment to the ‘progressive alliance’ with the youthful Labour Party, of which Whitley was an advocate, but which broke down at the end of the war. Notwithstanding brief, partial revivals in 1923 and 1929, the Liberal Party was increasingly divided and, by 1931, was all but finished as an electoral force. How Whitley regarded this state of affairs was unclear because, as Speaker, he was debarred from controversial political pronouncements, which he seems to have eschewed in private too. But it is conceivable that that he looked upon it with a degree of equanimity: for although the Liberal Party was at death’s door, many of the Liberal values he held dear retained a degree of currency. Stanley Baldwin, the dominant political figure of the age, was regarded by many as ‘a sort of honorary Liberal’ and as such had considerable appeal to Nonconformist opinion.⁶ In the House of Commons in 1925 Baldwin made his famous plea for industrial harmony: ‘Give peace in our time, O Lord’.⁷ Given Baldwin’s subsequent record, some might see this remark as a masterpiece of political humbug. However, we may imagine that at the time Mr Speaker Whitley, witnessing the scene from the chair, regarded it as sincere and gave it his silent endorsement.

The essays in this book capture the changes in British society and politics through the medium of the life of J.H. Whitley. John Hargreaves reflects upon how Whitley was shaped by his Halifax roots throughout his political life and outlines his career from social reformer, to municipal councillor and MP and eventually to Speaker of the House of Commons. Religion and education were important in his life but, above all, this essay emphasises the centrality of his association with his Halifax roots, the lynchpin of his life and career. C.S. Knighton examines the educational upbringing of Whitley at Clifton College, Bristol, a college which has tolerated varied and individual opinions and has encouraged outreach work into communities. J.H. Whitley was educated there and it encouraged within him a life-long commitment to social reform and tolerance. It was an association which he did not forget and which tied him to Clifton throughout his life. Clyde Binfield enforces this commitment in his life, noting that he became the first Free Church man and the first man from an industrial background to become Speaker of the House of Commons. His upbringing as a Congregationalist ensured that his thinking and actions throughout life were cemented in religious connection, education and familial Congregationalism.

J.H. Whitley’s political career began in the radical politics of Halifax in the early 1890s when he was not yet thirty years of age. Keith Laybourn suggests that he was an unusual unifying political figure in Halifax politics and was returned as one of the two MPs for Halifax in 1900 largely because he combined his commitment to social reform with a range of Old Liberal and New Liberal values. He was from a well-established industrial family, supported Home Rule and the taxation of land values, but combined this with a fervent commitment to social welfare and a recognition of the right of trade unions and workers. These varied policies allowed him to draw support from a deeply divided Halifax Liberal Party and to also gain support from the emergent trade unions and Independent Labour Party, which meant that he was able to win a Halifax seat in the 1900 General Election and to share parliamentary representation with James Parker, the Labour MP, from 1906, in a constituency which was one of the centres of the emergent political Labour movement.

Reflecting upon the long-held Liberal belief that capital and labour were not necessarily in conflict and could be reconciled J.H. Whitley was closely associated with industrial conciliation throughout his life and particularly with a movement referred to as ‘Whitleyism’, which led to the formation of Joint Industrial Councils to facilitate industrial conciliation, and which emerged from the Whitley Report of 1917 and 1918. ‘Whitleyism’ peculiarly arose to deal with the problem of industrial conflict in Britain during the First World War and Whitley committees established themselves in the woollen and worsted textile industry, amongst civil servants, and in a small number of other industries. Nevertheless, ‘Whitleyism’ never really caught on in Britain though it did gather some limited interest in Australia, Germany, and particularly in the United States where the American Federation of Labour favoured it because it believed that it meant the legitimisation of trade unionism.

Whitley was an active MP, became a Liberal whip and rose up the political hierarchy to become Speaker of the House of Commons. Richard Toye considers him to have been at least a competent and possibly a good Speaker of the House of Commons in the 1920s, which was a period of major political upheaval and industrial conflict. This was the period which saw the emergence of the Labour Party as the party of government and Whitley chose to allow its inexperienced MPs flexibility in the House of Commons and ‘to drive them with a loose rein’. He also kept business going as usual in the House of Commons during the bitterly fought General Strike of 1926. He emerged from these events and developments as an emollient, cooperative and consensual figure who believed in progress without being a ‘hot gospeller’. Indeed, in many respects he brought many old Edwardian Liberal values to the Speakership and personally reflects the strange survival of Liberal England.

As Speaker of the House of Commons, Whitley was responsible for substantial schemes for the adornment in St. Stephen’s Hall in the Palace of Westminster. He took close personal responsibility for the commissioning of the new panels of historical events, helping to raise the money through personal contacts and through negotiating on the imperial and Whiggish British historical scenes that were depicted by the panels. Always involved, making many appeals for support, to some he was seen ‘as the greatest living patron of British pictorial art’.

From his early years as an advanced Liberal Whitley believed in the running of Empire by consent, arguing that it would not be otherwise feasible without the approval of the native peoples. He was given his opportunity to test his belief when he was appointed Chairman of the Royal Commission on Labour in India in 1929. From his India scrapbook we see him deeply involved in addressing poor factory conditions and industrial relations. The Commission he chaired made 357 recommendations to reduce factory hours and improve conditions for men, women and children largely from rural backgrounds and unused to factory conditions. These recommendations essentially depended upon the consent of Indian industrialists and Whitley, in his role, acted as a liberal imperialist leaving the destiny of India as ‘our responsibility’ rather than to the Indian people in their own name.

Despite his declining health, Whitley also became Chairman of the BBC in 1930. David Hendy reveals how this relatively new broadcasting medium benefited from his close relationship with John Reith who ran the BBC in its early years. The protection from political interference which Whitley offered allowed Reith to develop his firm control over the direction of BBC broadcasting. He certainly influenced the expansion of the BBC internationally (through the Empire Service), nationally and locally throughout the regions of Britain. Christine Verguson’s essay, reflecting upon the last of these spheres of influence, examines the expansion of the BBC in Yorkshire up to Whitley’s death in 1935 – arguing that its pragmatic expansion into music and light entertainment, which he partly encouraged, challenged his hope that people would restrict their listening in favour of other leisure activities

J.H. Whitley’s lifetime corresponded almost exactly with the period when legislation saw Britain move from constitutional government to democracy, provoking within the United Kingdom and the Empire notions of self-government and self-regulation. In his essay, Keith Robbins argues that these developments mean that J. H. Whitley had to grapple with the issues of Home Rule for Ireland, of which he was deeply supportive, and of examining the future government of India through his chairmanship of the Royal Commission on Indian Labour. His precise work was marginal to Indian independence but did impinge on the issue of what self-government, popular government, commonwealth, Empire status, and Dominion status actually meant.

The late John Barrett offers a fitting conclusion of J.H. Whitley’s life through an analysis of his obituaries – taking as his theme the view that obituaries should reflect the life rather than create myths. What he demonstrates is that the obituaries offer different levels of reflection and that, whilst local obituaries focus upon the man they knew, national obituaries often broadly related Whitley to his national activities and reflect more the man that locals did not know. What emerges is the picture of a much respected and modest man deeply steeped in his late Victorian and Edwardian upbringing trying to operate in the challenging environment of the early twentieth century.

In the final analysis, this collection of essays serves two main purposes. First, it establishes the changing political landscape of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century politics at the local, national and international levels, raising issues about the move from constitutional government to democracy, imperialism to independence, industrial conflict to conciliation, and about developments in modernity. Secondly, it establishes the centrally important role that Speaker Whitley had in these events. Hostile to, and disdainful of, title and privilege, and deeply involved in the reshaping of the political, economic and social structure of Britain he was never able to escape fully from his Gladstonian upbringing in an age of imperialism. Nevertheless, James Parker, the Labour MP who joined Whitley to represent Halifax in 1906, reflected ironically that Whitley had sought to be a ‘true commoner’.⁸ This is an appropriate epitaph to a man committed to democratic reform and social elevation in an age of imperialism.

Notes

1 ‘Introduction’, in Julie V. Gottlieb and Richard Toye (eds), The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender and Politics in Britain, 1918–1945, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 1–18.

2 H.C.G. Matthew, R.I. McKibbin and J. Kay, ‘The franchise factor in the rise of the Labour party’, English Historical Review, 9 (1976), 723–52; P.F. Clarke,. ‘Liberals, Labour and the franchise’, English Historical Review, 92 (1977), 582–9; Duncan Tanner, ‘The parliamentary electoral system, the “fourth” Reform Act and the rise of Labour’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 56 (1983), 205–19; Michael Dawson, ‘Money and the real impact of the Fourth Reform Act’, Historical Journal, 35 (1992), 369–81; David Thackeray, Conservatism for the Democratic Age: Conservative Cultures and the Challenge of Mass Politics in Early Twentieth Century England, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2013, pp. 117–18.

3 Paul Readman, ‘The Conservative Party, patriotism, and British politics: The case of the General Election of 1900’, Journal of British Studies, 40 (2001), 107–45.

4 Frank Trentmann, Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption, and Civil Society in Modern Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008; Daniel M. Jackson, Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule in Edwardian Britain, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2009.

5 Peter Clarke, The Locomotive of War: Money, Empire, Power and Guilt, London, Bloomsbury, 2017, p. 27.

6 Philip Williamson, Conservative leadership and national va...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on editors and contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• The Whitley Collection and J.H. Whitley Lectures, The University of Huddersfield
• Timeline: John Henry Whitley 1866—1935
• 1 Introduction
• 2 J.H. Whitley (1866—1935): a Speaker shaped by his Halifax roots
• 3 Clifton: inspiration and service
• 4 J.H. Whitley: a model for free churchmen
• 5 J.H. Whitley and Halifax politics between 1890 and 1906: the politics of social reform
• 6 Industrial relations and joint industrial councils: the UK and beyond 1916—39
• 7 J.H. Whitley as Speaker of the House of Commons, 1921—28
• 8 J.H. Whitley and St Stephen's Hall in the Palace of Westminster
• 9 J.H. Whitley and the Royal Commission on Labour in India 1929—31
• 10 J.H. Whitley at the BBC 1930-35
• 11 'Equal partners in a great enterprise': experiencing radio in Yorkshire in the time of J.H. Whitley
• 12 Self-government: J.H. Whitley's worlds in context
• 13 J.H. Whitley's 'first draft of history': a study of the obituaries and personal tributes
• Index