Rab Butler
Encyclopedia
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, KG
CH
DL
PC (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), who invariably signed his name R. A. Butler and was familiarly known as Rab, was a British Conservative
politician
. Butler was one of only two British politicians (the other being John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon
) to have served in three of the four Great Offices of State
– Chancellor of the Exchequer
, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary
– but never to have achieved the Premiership
, for which he was twice passed over.
(now Punjab, Pakistan) to Sir Montagu Sherard Dawes Butler and his wife, Anne Gertrude (née Smith). His maternal uncles were Charles Aitchison Smith
, Sir George Adam Smith
and Sir James Dunlop Smith. His father later remarried and thus he gained a half-sister, Iris Mary Butler, who became Iris Portal upon her marriage.
Butler's was a family of Cambridge don
s and Indian Governors; as a child his right arm was injured in a riding accident, leaving his hand never again fully functional. His limp handshake and inevitable lack of military experience (and stooping donnish manner at a time when many politicians were former officers) were political handicaps in later life. He was educated at Marlborough College
and Pembroke College, Cambridge
, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society
in the summer term of his third year; in March 1924, as a newly-elected President, he entertained the Opposition Leader Stanley Baldwin
at a debate.
While at Cambridge he read French (in which he obtained a First), German and, in his fourth year, History and International Relations, in which he obtained one of the highest Firsts in the University. He specialised in the study of Sir Robert Peel
, a man whose actions had split the Conservative Party
and who may have greatly influenced Butler's later political trajectory. Butler also took part in the ESU USA Tour, the debating tour of the United States run by the English-Speaking Union
.
After a brief period as a Cambridge don, teaching nineteenth century French history, he was elected as Member of Parliament
(MP) for Saffron Walden
in the 1929 general election
. Butler held this seat until his retirement in 1965.
(1932–37) at the time the Indian Home Rule Act was being debated in Parliament amidst massive opposition, led by Winston Churchill
, from rank-and-file Conservative supporters. In 1937-8 he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour.
Subsequently he was (appointed 1938) Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
in Neville Chamberlain
's government. Butler's close association to the government's policy of appeasement
of Nazi Germany
may have been instrumental in limiting his political career. Butler himself would later claim that appeasement had been aimed at buying time for Britain to rearm, and that he had little input into the direction of foreign policy and that true power was held by Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, with the Prime Minister speaking in the House of Commons for the major aspects of government foreign policy instead of Butler, who was the sole Foreign Office minister in the Commons (an arrangement devised to respond to criticism of appointing a peer as Foreign Secretary rather than a reflection on Butler).
Butler disliked Churchill. After Churchill had made a confident war speech on 12 November 1939, Butler told Jock Colville that he "thought it beyond words vulgar". Colville recorded in his diary on 10 May 1940, when Churchill was replacing Chamberlain as Prime Minister:
David Lloyd George
intended a compliment when describing Butler as "playing the part of the imperturbable dunce who says nothing with an air of conviction".
, and heiress to part of the Courtauld textile fortune. They lived at Stanstead Hall (aka Stansted Hall
) in Essex.
Children:
Following the death of Sydney from a very painful jaw cancer in 1954, Rab Butler married Mollie Courtauld (née Montgomerie) in September 1959. Mollie had been previously married to Augustine Courtauld
(Sydney's cousin), who had died in March 1959. Mollie and Rab lived very happily at their London Houses in Lord North Street and Smith Square
, the Master's Lodge at Trinity College Cambridge, Gatcombe Park
in Gloucestershire (inherited by Rab from Samuel Courtauld, Sydney's father) and a holiday house on the Isle of Mull. In 1976 Gatcombe Park was sold to the Queen as a home for Princess Anne, and Mollie and Rab bought back Spencers, the old Courtauld family home in Essex where Mollie had previously resided with Augustine Courtauld. Mollie continued living at Spencers after Rab's death in 1982 and up until her own death on February 18, 2009 at the age of 101.
Spencers came onto the market in February 2010, one year on from the death of Lady Butler.http://www.savills.co.uk/residentialsearch/propertydetail.aspx?pID=251421
. He was also chair of the War Cabinet Committee for the Control of Official Histories
. The position was widely seen as a backwater in wartime, with Butler having been promoted to it to remove him from the more sensitive Foreign Office. Despite this he proved to be one of the most radical reforming ministers on the home front, shaking up the education system in the Education Act 1944
, which is often known as the Butler Education Act. At the end of the war
Butler briefly served as Minister of Labour
for two months in the "Caretaker" administration of Winston Churchill
.
, as part of the secret plan of resistance had Britain been occupied by the Nazi
forces. Little even today is known about this proposed plan. 201, 202 and 203 Battalions of the British Home Guard
would have been the foundation of this British resistance
.
, Butler emerged as one of the most prominent figures during the rebuilding of the party. He served a record term as Chairman of the Conservative Research Department
from 1945 to 1964. When the Conservative party returned to power in 1951 he was appointed to the senior post of Chancellor of the Exchequer
. Butler followed to a large extent the economic policies of his Labour predecessor, Hugh Gaitskell
, pursuing a mixed economy
and Keynesian economics
as part of the post-war political consensus. The Economist
commented on these similarities by referring to a hybrid Chancellor, "Mr Butskell", from which the term Butskellism derives.
Butler planned to move to system of free-floating the pound ("Operation ROBOT
"), but this was scuppered by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden
in a rare intervention of his in domestic politics.
In 1953 Butler acted as head of the Government when Winston Churchill
suffered a stroke, whilst his successor Anthony Eden
was undergoing an operation overseas. Many have speculated that Butler could have become Prime Minister
had he persuaded Churchill to retire at this point, but Butler lacked the ruthlessness that would have been necessary to accomplish this, and may have been concerned about opposition to a "Man of Munich" becoming Prime Minister. Churchill slowly recovered and retired in 1955, handing power to Eden with no controversy.
Butler's career did not prosper under Eden, about whom a number of Butler's sardonic witticisms surfaced. He described Eden as "half mad Baronet
, half beautiful woman" and once agreed with a journalist that Eden was "the best Prime Minister we have". His penultimate budget slashed taxation immediately before the 1955 general election
but soon afterwards it became apparent that the economy was "overheating" (i.e. inflation and the balance of payments deficit were rising sharply), and his final budget undid several of the tax cuts, leading to charges of electoral opportunism. In December 1955 Butler was moved to the post of Lord Privy Seal
and Leader of the House of Commons
. Although Butler continued to act as a deputy for Eden on a number of occasions, he was not officially recognised as such and his successor as Chancellor, Harold Macmillan
, was assured by Eden that Butler was not senior to him.
Despite this Butler chaired the Cabinet in Eden's absence. However Butler's stock stumbled during the Suez Crisis
, particularly during Eden's absence in Jamaica
, during which time Butler was seen to give weak leadership.
had the ultimate choice as to who should succeed Eden as Prime Minister. The Queen took advice from senior Ministers, as well as Churchill (who backed Macmillan), Edward Heath
(who as Chief Whip was aware of backbench opinion) and from Lord Salisbury
, who interviewed the Cabinet one by one and with his famous speech impediment asked each one whether he was for "Wab or Hawold" (it is thought that only between one and three were for "Wab"). The advice was overwhelmingly to appoint Macmillan as Prime Minister instead of Butler. The media were taken by surprise by this choice, but Butler himself later confessed in his memoirs that while there was a sizeable anti-Butler faction on the backbenches, there was no such anti-Macmillan faction.
Macmillan sought to placate Butler by appointing him to a senior position, albeit as Home Secretary rather than Foreign Secretary, the job he wanted. In his memoirs, Macmillan claimed that Butler "chose" the Home Office
, an assertion of which Butler drily observed in his own memoirs that Macmillan's memory "played him false". Butler held the Home Office for five years, in which he once more demonstrated his radical reforming credentials through a number of pieces of legislation, although his liberal views on hanging
and flogging did little to endear him to rank-and-file Conservative members. Butler also held various additional posts on different occasions throughout this period, including Leader of the House of Commons
, Lord Privy Seal
, and Conservative Party Chairman
, the latter job prompting a newspaper analogy with Nikita Khrushchev
's rise to power through control of the Soviet Communist Party.
" reshuffle in 1962, Butler at last received the formal titles of Deputy Prime Minister
and First Secretary of State
. However, Macmillan used the occasion to promote younger men such as Reginald Maudling
(Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Edward Heath (in charge of the EEC entry negotiations), from amongst whom he hoped to groom his successor. The following year, Macmillan was taken ill on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference and resigned as Prime Minister, asking the party bigwigs to "take soundings" of Cabinet Ministers and MPs to select a consensus candidate as the leader through the "customary processes". In the confusion of the next few days, Butler found himself sidelined after delivering a poor Conference speech. Lord Hailsham
was rejected after using the Conference to campaign openly for the job in a manner considered vulgar at the time. Support gathered around the outside candidate Lord Home
. Much ink has been spilled on how badly the consultation process was rigged, but in the end Macmillan recommended Home for the premiership.
Many were outraged over the way that Butler had been passed over yet again. Hailsham and Maudling were dissatisfied by the choice, but agreed to serve under Home. Enoch Powell
and Iain Macleod
(who later claimed in print that the leadership had been stitched up by a "Magic Circle" of old Etonians) both refused to serve under Home and sought to persuade Butler to do the same, in the belief that this would make a Home premiership impossible and result in Butler taking office. However Butler refused to join Powell and Macleod; he even alleged in a letter to The Times that to have done so might have led to a Labour government (this suggestion was later dismissed as absurd by Harold Wilson
, then Opposition leader). Some have attributed Butler's actions to his university study of Peel, and to his resultant fear of splitting the Tory party. Powell, a former brigadier, observed that they had given Butler a loaded revolver which he had refused to use on the grounds that it might make a noise, a metaphor which speaks volumes about how Butler's lack of military experience affected his colleagues' image of him.
It is worth observing that despite Butler's immense experience, he was not an overwhelming choice as leader. In leadership elections a generation later, it has often been the case that the initial frontrunner (e.g. David Davis in 2005), or the "obvious" and publicly popular candidate (e.g. Michael Heseltine in 1990, or Kenneth Clarke in 1997 and 2001) loses at the final hurdle to a "second-best" candidate who enjoys a wider consensus of support in his own party. Anyway, there is no doubt that the episode of Home's elevation was a public relations disaster for the Conservatives, who had to elect their next leader (Edward Heath in 1965) by a transparent ballot of MPs.
Home appointed Butler as Foreign Secretary, and it was in this post he served until his party narrowly lost office at the 1964 general election
. Many believed that the Conservatives would have won under Butler's leadership, but during the election campaign he had shown his lack of stomach for the fight by remarking to a journalist that the campaign was "slipping away".
Cambridge
. The same year he was awarded a life peerage as Baron Butler of Saffron Walden. He would then sit as a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords. He had declined offers of an hereditary earldom, both by Alec Douglas-Home
in his resignation honours list and by Harold Wilson
.
At the time of his retirement from Parliament he was the longest continuously serving member of the Commons and Father of the House
. As Master of Trinity, Butler was publicly promoted as a mentor and counsellor to Charles, Prince of Wales
when he was enrolled in university; a humorous cartoon of the time showed Butler telling the Prince that he was to study a specially made-up History course "in which I become Prime Minister". Butler also actively served as the first Chancellor of the University of Essex
from 1966 until his death in 1982 at Great Yeldham
, Essex. He is buried in the churchyard of the parish church of St Mary the Virgin
in Saffron Walden
.
Butler's son Adam
served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 to 1987 and as a junior minister under Margaret Thatcher
.
depicted in John Wyndham
's short story Random Quest
, where the Second World War did not happen, Rab Butler is the prime minister. The story was written in 1954, when his achieving that office was a serious possibility.
Butler also becomes prime minister in the 2007 alternative history novel Resistance
by Owen Sheers. However, he leads a collaborationist puppet government after Nazi Germany
has largely conquered the British Isles.
Similarly, Butler, along with Lord Halifax, engineers a June 1940 British surrender to Germany (and ultimate occupation) in the background to the alternate history novel The Big One
, ultimately leading to his assassination by resistance forces.
Lord Butler of Saffron Walden had been twice offered an hereditary earldom and would have been styled as the Earl of Saffron Walden had he accepted such an offer. Instead, he chose to accept a life peerage for reasons which remain unknown.
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
CH
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry or religion....
DL
Deputy Lieutenant
In the United Kingdom, a Deputy Lieutenant is one of several deputies to the Lord Lieutenant of a lieutenancy area; an English ceremonial county, Welsh preserved county, Scottish lieutenancy area, or Northern Irish county borough or county....
PC (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), who invariably signed his name R. A. Butler and was familiarly known as Rab, was a British Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. Butler was one of only two British politicians (the other being John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon
John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon
John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon GCSI GCVO OBE PC was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second. He is one of only three people to have served as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer,...
) to have served in three of the four Great Offices of State
Great Offices of State
The Great Offices of State in the United Kingdom are the four most senior and prestigious posts in the British parliamentary system of government. They are the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary. Since 11 May 2010 these posts have been...
– Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a senior member of Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as one of the Great Offices of State...
– but never to have achieved the Premiership
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
, for which he was twice passed over.
Early life
Butler was born in Attock Serai, Attock in IndiaBritish Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
(now Punjab, Pakistan) to Sir Montagu Sherard Dawes Butler and his wife, Anne Gertrude (née Smith). His maternal uncles were Charles Aitchison Smith
Charles Aitchison Smith
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Aitchison Smith CIE was a British Army and Indian Army officer and administrator in India....
, Sir George Adam Smith
George Adam Smith
George Adam Smith , Scottish theologian, was born in Calcutta, where his father, George Smith, C.I.E., was then Principal of the Doveton College, a boys' school....
and Sir James Dunlop Smith. His father later remarried and thus he gained a half-sister, Iris Mary Butler, who became Iris Portal upon her marriage.
Butler's was a family of Cambridge don
University don
A don is a fellow or tutor of a college or university, especially traditional collegiate universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in England.The term — similar to the title still used for Catholic priests — is a historical remnant of Oxford and Cambridge having started as ecclesiastical...
s and Indian Governors; as a child his right arm was injured in a riding accident, leaving his hand never again fully functional. His limp handshake and inevitable lack of military experience (and stooping donnish manner at a time when many politicians were former officers) were political handicaps in later life. He was educated at Marlborough College
Marlborough College
Marlborough College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located in Marlborough, Wiltshire.Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 800...
and Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...
, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society
Cambridge Union Society
The Cambridge Union Society, commonly referred to as simply "the Cambridge Union" or "the Union," is a debating society in Cambridge, England and is the largest society at the University of Cambridge. Since its founding in 1815, the Union has developed a worldwide reputation as a noted symbol of...
in the summer term of his third year; in March 1924, as a newly-elected President, he entertained the Opposition Leader Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...
at a debate.
While at Cambridge he read French (in which he obtained a First), German and, in his fourth year, History and International Relations, in which he obtained one of the highest Firsts in the University. He specialised in the study of Sir Robert Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...
, a man whose actions had split the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
and who may have greatly influenced Butler's later political trajectory. Butler also took part in the ESU USA Tour, the debating tour of the United States run by the English-Speaking Union
English-Speaking Union
The English-Speaking Union is an international educational charity which was founded by the journalist Evelyn Wrench in 1918. The ESU aims to "bring together and empower people of different languages and cultures," by building skills and confidence in communication, such that individuals realize...
.
After a brief period as a Cambridge don, teaching nineteenth century French history, he was elected as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is located north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and approx north of London...
in the 1929 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1929
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
. Butler held this seat until his retirement in 1965.
Member of Parliament
Butler held a series of junior Ministerial posts throughout the 1930s, often enacting controversial policy decisions. After a brief period as Parliamentary Private Secretary (i.e. personal assistant) to the India Secretary Samuel Hoare, he was given his first ministerial job as Under-Secretary of State for IndiaUnder-Secretary of State for India
This is a list of Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State and Permanent Under-Secretaries of State at the India Office during the period of British rule between 1866 and 1948, and for Burma from 1858-1948....
(1932–37) at the time the Indian Home Rule Act was being debated in Parliament amidst massive opposition, led by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, from rank-and-file Conservative supporters. In 1937-8 he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour.
Subsequently he was (appointed 1938) Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
|The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has been a junior position in the British government since 1782, subordinate to both the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and since 1945 also to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs...
in Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
's government. Butler's close association to the government's policy of appeasement
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
may have been instrumental in limiting his political career. Butler himself would later claim that appeasement had been aimed at buying time for Britain to rearm, and that he had little input into the direction of foreign policy and that true power was held by Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, with the Prime Minister speaking in the House of Commons for the major aspects of government foreign policy instead of Butler, who was the sole Foreign Office minister in the Commons (an arrangement devised to respond to criticism of appointing a peer as Foreign Secretary rather than a reflection on Butler).
Butler disliked Churchill. After Churchill had made a confident war speech on 12 November 1939, Butler told Jock Colville that he "thought it beyond words vulgar". Colville recorded in his diary on 10 May 1940, when Churchill was replacing Chamberlain as Prime Minister:
Rab said he thought that the good clean tradition of English politics, that of PittWilliam Pitt the YoungerWilliam Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
as opposed to FoxCharles James FoxCharles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
, had been sold to the greatest adventurer of modern political history. He had tried earnestly and long to persuade HalifaxE. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of HalifaxEdward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, , known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and as The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was one of the most senior British Conservative politicians of the 1930s, during which he held several senior ministerial posts, most notably as...
to accept the Premiership, but he had failed. He believed this sudden coup of Winston and his rabble was a serious disaster and an unnecessary one: the 'pass has been sold' by Mr. C., Lord Halifax and Oliver StanleyOliver StanleyOliver Frederick George Stanley MC, PC was a prominent British Conservative politician who held many ministerial posts before his early death when it was expected he would soon assume higher office....
. They had weakly surrendered to a half-breed American whose main support was that of inefficient but talkative people of a similar type.
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
intended a compliment when describing Butler as "playing the part of the imperturbable dunce who says nothing with an air of conviction".
Private and family life
Rab married Sydney Elizabeth Courtauld in 1926. She was the daughter of Samuel CourtauldSamuel Courtauld (art collector)
Samuel Courtauld son of Sydney Courtauld and Sarah Lucy Sharpe was an English industrialist who is best remembered as an art collector...
, and heiress to part of the Courtauld textile fortune. They lived at Stanstead Hall (aka Stansted Hall
Stansted Hall
Stansted or Steanstead Hall was the country seat of the Earls of Essex during the reign of Henry VIII of England..It is now owned by the Spiritualist movement/religion http://www.arthurfindlaycollege.org/...
) in Essex.
Children:
- Richard C Butler (1929-)
- Adam Courtauld ButlerAdam Butler (British politician)Sir Adam Courtauld Butler, DL was a British Conservative Party politician, serving as an MP for 17 years and holding several junior ministerial offices....
(1931-2008) was also a politician. - Hon Samuel James Butler (1936-) was another son.
Following the death of Sydney from a very painful jaw cancer in 1954, Rab Butler married Mollie Courtauld (née Montgomerie) in September 1959. Mollie had been previously married to Augustine Courtauld
Augustine Courtauld
Augustine Courtauld , often called August Courtauld, was a yachtsman and British Arctic explorer, best known for serving as the solo meteorologist of a winter observation post, Icecap Station, located in the interior of Greenland in 1930-1931...
(Sydney's cousin), who had died in March 1959. Mollie and Rab lived very happily at their London Houses in Lord North Street and Smith Square
Smith Square
Smith Square is a square in the Westminster district of London, just south of the Palace of Westminster. The centre of the square is occupied by St John's, Smith Square, a Baroque church now used as a concert hall...
, the Master's Lodge at Trinity College Cambridge, Gatcombe Park
Gatcombe Park
Gatcombe Park is the private country home of Anne, Princess Royal, situated in England between the Gloucestershire villages of Minchinhampton and Avening, five miles south of Stroud and around six miles north of Highgrove House, the country residence of Prince Charles.The house and farming estate...
in Gloucestershire (inherited by Rab from Samuel Courtauld, Sydney's father) and a holiday house on the Isle of Mull. In 1976 Gatcombe Park was sold to the Queen as a home for Princess Anne, and Mollie and Rab bought back Spencers, the old Courtauld family home in Essex where Mollie had previously resided with Augustine Courtauld. Mollie continued living at Spencers after Rab's death in 1982 and up until her own death on February 18, 2009 at the age of 101.
Spencers came onto the market in February 2010, one year on from the death of Lady Butler.http://www.savills.co.uk/residentialsearch/propertydetail.aspx?pID=251421
1944 Education Act
In the summer of 1941, Butler received his first Cabinet-level post when he was appointed President of the Board of Education by Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
. He was also chair of the War Cabinet Committee for the Control of Official Histories
Official history
An official history is a work of history which is sponsored, authorised, or endorsed by its subject. The term is most commonly used for histories which are produced at a government's behest....
. The position was widely seen as a backwater in wartime, with Butler having been promoted to it to remove him from the more sensitive Foreign Office. Despite this he proved to be one of the most radical reforming ministers on the home front, shaking up the education system in the Education Act 1944
Education Act 1944
The Education Act 1944 changed the education system for secondary schools in England and Wales. This Act, commonly named after the Conservative politician R.A...
, which is often known as the Butler Education Act. At the end of the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Butler briefly served as Minister of Labour
Secretary of State for Employment
The Secretary of State for Employment was a position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. In 1995 it was merged with Secretary of State for Education to make the Secretary of State for Education and Employment...
for two months in the "Caretaker" administration of Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
.
Resistance plans
Butler had been designated to be one of the regional representatives of King George VIGeorge VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
, as part of the secret plan of resistance had Britain been occupied by the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
forces. Little even today is known about this proposed plan. 201, 202 and 203 Battalions of the British Home Guard
British Home Guard
The Home Guard was a defence organisation of the British Army during the Second World War...
would have been the foundation of this British resistance
Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
.
Post-war
After the Conservatives were defeated in the 1945 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...
, Butler emerged as one of the most prominent figures during the rebuilding of the party. He served a record term as Chairman of the Conservative Research Department
Conservative Research Department
The Conservative Research Department is part of the central organisation of the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom. It operates alongside other departments of Conservative Campaign Headquarters at 30 Millbank, London SW1....
from 1945 to 1964. When the Conservative party returned to power in 1951 he was appointed to the senior post of Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
. Butler followed to a large extent the economic policies of his Labour predecessor, Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
, pursuing a mixed economy
Mixed economy
Mixed economy is an economic system in which both the state and private sector direct the economy, reflecting characteristics of both market economies and planned economies. Most mixed economies can be described as market economies with strong regulatory oversight, in addition to having a variety...
and Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics is a school of macroeconomic thought based on the ideas of 20th-century English economist John Maynard Keynes.Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and, therefore, advocates active policy responses by the...
as part of the post-war political consensus. The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
commented on these similarities by referring to a hybrid Chancellor, "Mr Butskell", from which the term Butskellism derives.
Butler planned to move to system of free-floating the pound ("Operation ROBOT
Operation ROBOT
Operation ROBOT was an economic policy devised by HM Treasury in 1952 under Chancellor of the Exchequer R. A. Butler but which was never implemented...
"), but this was scuppered by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
in a rare intervention of his in domestic politics.
In 1953 Butler acted as head of the Government when Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
suffered a stroke, whilst his successor Anthony Eden
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
was undergoing an operation overseas. Many have speculated that Butler could have become Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
had he persuaded Churchill to retire at this point, but Butler lacked the ruthlessness that would have been necessary to accomplish this, and may have been concerned about opposition to a "Man of Munich" becoming Prime Minister. Churchill slowly recovered and retired in 1955, handing power to Eden with no controversy.
Butler's career did not prosper under Eden, about whom a number of Butler's sardonic witticisms surfaced. He described Eden as "half mad Baronet
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
, half beautiful woman" and once agreed with a journalist that Eden was "the best Prime Minister we have". His penultimate budget slashed taxation immediately before the 1955 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1955
The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election. It resulted in a substantially increased majority of 60 for the Conservative government under new leader and prime minister Sir Anthony Eden against Labour Party, now in their 20th year...
but soon afterwards it became apparent that the economy was "overheating" (i.e. inflation and the balance of payments deficit were rising sharply), and his final budget undid several of the tax cuts, leading to charges of electoral opportunism. In December 1955 Butler was moved to the post of Lord Privy Seal
Lord Privy Seal
The Lord Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state...
and Leader of the House of Commons
Leader of the House of Commons
The Leader of the House of Commons is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons...
. Although Butler continued to act as a deputy for Eden on a number of occasions, he was not officially recognised as such and his successor as Chancellor, Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
, was assured by Eden that Butler was not senior to him.
Despite this Butler chaired the Cabinet in Eden's absence. However Butler's stock stumbled during the Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
, particularly during Eden's absence in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, during which time Butler was seen to give weak leadership.
Butler and Macmillan
In January 1957 Eden resigned as Prime Minister. At the time the Conservative Party had no formal mechanism for determining a new leader, so The QueenElizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
had the ultimate choice as to who should succeed Eden as Prime Minister. The Queen took advice from senior Ministers, as well as Churchill (who backed Macmillan), Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
(who as Chief Whip was aware of backbench opinion) and from Lord Salisbury
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury
Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, KG, PC , known as Viscount Cranborne from 1903 to 1947, was a British Conservative politician.-Background:...
, who interviewed the Cabinet one by one and with his famous speech impediment asked each one whether he was for "Wab or Hawold" (it is thought that only between one and three were for "Wab"). The advice was overwhelmingly to appoint Macmillan as Prime Minister instead of Butler. The media were taken by surprise by this choice, but Butler himself later confessed in his memoirs that while there was a sizeable anti-Butler faction on the backbenches, there was no such anti-Macmillan faction.
Macmillan sought to placate Butler by appointing him to a senior position, albeit as Home Secretary rather than Foreign Secretary, the job he wanted. In his memoirs, Macmillan claimed that Butler "chose" the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
, an assertion of which Butler drily observed in his own memoirs that Macmillan's memory "played him false". Butler held the Home Office for five years, in which he once more demonstrated his radical reforming credentials through a number of pieces of legislation, although his liberal views on hanging
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
and flogging did little to endear him to rank-and-file Conservative members. Butler also held various additional posts on different occasions throughout this period, including Leader of the House of Commons
Leader of the House of Commons
The Leader of the House of Commons is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons...
, Lord Privy Seal
Lord Privy Seal
The Lord Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state...
, and Conservative Party Chairman
Chairman of the Conservative Party
In the United Kingdom, the Chairman of the Conservative Party is responsible for running the party machine, overseeing Conservative Central Office. When the Conservatives are in power, the Chairman is usually a member of the Cabinet being given a sinecure position such as Minister without Portfolio...
, the latter job prompting a newspaper analogy with Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's rise to power through control of the Soviet Communist Party.
The succession to Macmillan
In the "Night of the Long KnivesNight of the Long Knives (1962)
The epithet Night of the Long Knives is given to July 13, 1962, when the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sacked the following members of his Cabinet:*Lord Kilmuir — Lord Chancellor*Selwyn Lloyd — Chancellor of the Exchequer...
" reshuffle in 1962, Butler at last received the formal titles of Deputy Prime Minister
Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a senior member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The office of the Deputy Prime Minister is not a permanent position, existing only at the discretion of the Prime Minister, who may appoint to other offices...
and First Secretary of State
First Secretary of State
First Secretary of State is an occasionally used title within the Government of the United Kingdom, principally regarded as purely honorific. The title, which implies seniority over all other Secretaries of State, has no specific powers or authority attached to it beyond that of any other Secretary...
. However, Macmillan used the occasion to promote younger men such as Reginald Maudling
Reginald Maudling
Reginald Maudling was a British politician who held several Cabinet posts, including Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had been spoken of as a prospective Conservative leader since 1955, and was twice seriously considered for the post; he was Edward Heath's chief rival in 1965...
(Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Edward Heath (in charge of the EEC entry negotiations), from amongst whom he hoped to groom his successor. The following year, Macmillan was taken ill on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference and resigned as Prime Minister, asking the party bigwigs to "take soundings" of Cabinet Ministers and MPs to select a consensus candidate as the leader through the "customary processes". In the confusion of the next few days, Butler found himself sidelined after delivering a poor Conference speech. Lord Hailsham
Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone
For the businessman and philanthropist, see Quintin Hogg Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, KG, CH, PC, QC, FRS , formerly 2nd Viscount Hailsham , was a British politician who was known for the longevity of his career, the vigour with which he campaigned for the Conservative...
was rejected after using the Conference to campaign openly for the job in a manner considered vulgar at the time. Support gathered around the outside candidate Lord Home
Alec Douglas-Home
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC , known as The Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963 and as Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1974, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964.He is the last...
. Much ink has been spilled on how badly the consultation process was rigged, but in the end Macmillan recommended Home for the premiership.
Many were outraged over the way that Butler had been passed over yet again. Hailsham and Maudling were dissatisfied by the choice, but agreed to serve under Home. Enoch Powell
Enoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, MBE was a British politician, classical scholar, poet, writer, and soldier. He served as a Conservative Party MP and Minister of Health . He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made the controversial Rivers of Blood speech in opposition to mass immigration from...
and Iain Macleod
Iain Macleod
Iain Norman Macleod was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister.-Early life:...
(who later claimed in print that the leadership had been stitched up by a "Magic Circle" of old Etonians) both refused to serve under Home and sought to persuade Butler to do the same, in the belief that this would make a Home premiership impossible and result in Butler taking office. However Butler refused to join Powell and Macleod; he even alleged in a letter to The Times that to have done so might have led to a Labour government (this suggestion was later dismissed as absurd by Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
, then Opposition leader). Some have attributed Butler's actions to his university study of Peel, and to his resultant fear of splitting the Tory party. Powell, a former brigadier, observed that they had given Butler a loaded revolver which he had refused to use on the grounds that it might make a noise, a metaphor which speaks volumes about how Butler's lack of military experience affected his colleagues' image of him.
It is worth observing that despite Butler's immense experience, he was not an overwhelming choice as leader. In leadership elections a generation later, it has often been the case that the initial frontrunner (e.g. David Davis in 2005), or the "obvious" and publicly popular candidate (e.g. Michael Heseltine in 1990, or Kenneth Clarke in 1997 and 2001) loses at the final hurdle to a "second-best" candidate who enjoys a wider consensus of support in his own party. Anyway, there is no doubt that the episode of Home's elevation was a public relations disaster for the Conservatives, who had to elect their next leader (Edward Heath in 1965) by a transparent ballot of MPs.
Home appointed Butler as Foreign Secretary, and it was in this post he served until his party narrowly lost office at the 1964 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1964
The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after the preceding election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had retaken power...
. Many believed that the Conservatives would have won under Butler's leadership, but during the election campaign he had shown his lack of stomach for the fight by remarking to a journalist that the campaign was "slipping away".
Retirement from politics
At the comparatively young age of 62 Butler left office for the last time with one of the longest records of ministerial experience amongst contemporary politicians. Butler remained on the Conservative front bench for the next year, when he was appointed Master of Trinity CollegeTrinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
. The same year he was awarded a life peerage as Baron Butler of Saffron Walden. He would then sit as a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords. He had declined offers of an hereditary earldom, both by Alec Douglas-Home
Alec Douglas-Home
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC , known as The Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963 and as Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1974, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964.He is the last...
in his resignation honours list and by Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
.
At the time of his retirement from Parliament he was the longest continuously serving member of the Commons and Father of the House
Father of the House
Father of the House is a term that has by tradition been unofficially bestowed on certain members of some national legislatures, most notably the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. In some legislatures the term refers to the oldest member, but in others it refers the longest-serving member.The...
. As Master of Trinity, Butler was publicly promoted as a mentor and counsellor to Charles, Prince of Wales
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
when he was enrolled in university; a humorous cartoon of the time showed Butler telling the Prince that he was to study a specially made-up History course "in which I become Prime Minister". Butler also actively served as the first Chancellor of the University of Essex
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...
from 1966 until his death in 1982 at Great Yeldham
Great Yeldham
Great Yeldham is a village in north Essex, England, about from the Suffolk border. Surrounding villages and towns include Little Yeldham, Tilbury Juxta Clare, Toppesfield, Stambourne, Ridgewell, Sible Hedingham, Castle Hedingham, Halstead and Sudbury...
, Essex. He is buried in the churchyard of the parish church of St Mary the Virgin
St Mary the Virgin
-Churches:* St Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury* St Mary the Virgin, Blackburn Hamlet* St Mary the Virgin, Brighton* St Mary the Virgin, Barnes* St Mary the Virgin, Bathwick* St Mary the Virgin, Gillingham, Dorset* St Mary the Virgin, Henbury...
in Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is located north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and approx north of London...
.
Butler's son Adam
Adam Butler (British politician)
Sir Adam Courtauld Butler, DL was a British Conservative Party politician, serving as an MP for 17 years and holding several junior ministerial offices....
served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 to 1987 and as a junior minister under Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
.
In fiction
In the alternate realityParallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
depicted in John Wyndham
John Wyndham
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer who usually used the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes...
's short story Random Quest
Random Quest
Random Quest is a science fiction short story, which is also a love story, by John Wyndham. It was included in his 1961 collection Consider Her Ways and Others...
, where the Second World War did not happen, Rab Butler is the prime minister. The story was written in 1954, when his achieving that office was a serious possibility.
Butler also becomes prime minister in the 2007 alternative history novel Resistance
Resistance (Owen Sheers novel)
Resistance is a novel by Welsh poet and author Owen Sheers. The plot centres around the inhabitants of a valley near Abergavenny in Wales in 1944–45, shortly after the failure of Operation Overlord and a successful German counter-invasion of Britain , and a group of German Wehrmacht soldiers who...
by Owen Sheers. However, he leads a collaborationist puppet government after Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
has largely conquered the British Isles.
Similarly, Butler, along with Lord Halifax, engineers a June 1940 British surrender to Germany (and ultimate occupation) in the background to the alternate history novel The Big One
The Big One
The Big One is a term often used in casual conversation by residents of California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia to describe the megathrust earthquake or other natural disaster anticipated as inevitably striking the West Coast of the United States...
, ultimately leading to his assassination by resistance forces.
Styles and honours
- Mr Richard Butler (1902–1929)
- Mr Richard Butler MP (1929–1939)
- The Rt. Hon. Richard Butler MP (1939–1954)
- The Rt. Hon. Richard Butler CH MP (1954–1965)
- The Rt. Hon. The Lord Butler of Saffron Walden CH PC (1965–1971)
- The Rt. Hon. The Lord Butler of Saffron Walden KG CH PC (1971–1982)
Lord Butler of Saffron Walden had been twice offered an hereditary earldom and would have been styled as the Earl of Saffron Walden had he accepted such an offer. Instead, he chose to accept a life peerage for reasons which remain unknown.
Literature
- Anthony HowardAnthony Howard (journalist)Anthony Michell Howard, CBE was a prominent British journalist, broadcaster and writer. He was the editor of the New Statesman, The Listener and the deputy editor of The Observer...
: Rab: R. A. Butler, Jonathan Cape, London 1987
External links
- Richard Austen Butler - Personal Facts and Details stanford.edu
- The Master of Trinity at Trinity College, CambridgeTrinity College, CambridgeTrinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
- Saffron Walden Conservatives
- R.A. Butler papers in the Conservative Party Archive
- The Butler Trust - A charity set up, in memory of Butler, to promote and encourage positive regimes in UK prisons.