British politician (1870?1963)
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel
,
GCB
,
OM
,
GBE
,
PC
(6 November 1870 ? 5 February 1963) was a British
Liberal
politician who was the party leader from 1931 to 1935.
He was the first nominally-practising
Jew
to serve as a Cabinet minister and to become the leader of a major British political party. Samuel had promoted
Zionism
within the
British Cabinet
, beginning with his 1915 memorandum entitled
The Future of Palestine
. In 1920 he was appointed as the first
High Commissioner for Palestine
, in charge of the administration of the territory.
Samuel was the last member of the Liberal Party to hold one of the four
Great Offices of State
(as
Home Secretary
from 1931 to 1932 in the
National Government
of
Ramsay MacDonald
).
[1]
[2]
One of the adherents of "New Liberalism",
[3]
Samuel helped to draft and present social reform legislation while he was serving as a Liberal cabinet member.
[4]
Samuel led the party in both the
1931 general election
and the
1935 general election
, during which period the party's number of seats in parliament fell from 59 to 21.
Early life
[
edit
]
Herbert Samuel was born at
Claremont
No. 11 Belvidere Road,
Toxteth
,
Liverpool
,
Lancashire
, in 1870. The building now houses part of
the Belvedere Academy
. Around 1775, his great-grandfather, Menachem Samuel,
[5]
had emigrated from Kempen in Posen (now
K?pno
), not far from the city of Posen (now
Poznan
), to Britain and his grandfather, Louis Samuel (1794-1859), was born in
London
. He was the son of Clara (Yates) and Edwin Louis Samuel (1825?1877).
[6]
His uncle was born Montagu Samuel,
[
citation needed
]
but became better known as
Samuel Montagu
, founder of the eponymous
bank
. He was also known by a Hebrew name, Eliezer ben Pinchas Shmuel
[
citation needed
]
. His eldest brother,
Sir Stuart Samuel
, was also a successful Liberal politician; his only sister, Mabel (1862?1938) married the influential art-critic
Marion Spielmann
, from the Spielmann dynasty of bankers and art-connoisseurs.
He was educated at
University College School
in
Hampstead
, London and
Balliol College, Oxford
, but at home he had a
Jewish
upbringing.
[7]
However, in 1892, while at Oxford he renounced all religious belief, writing to his mother to inform her. Samuel worked through the influence of
Charles Darwin
and the book
On Compromise
by senior Liberal politician
John Morley
.
[8]
[
page needed
]
He remained a member of the Jewish community, however, to please his wife,
[2]
and observed the Sabbath and Jewish food laws at home "for hygienic reasons".
[9]
Early political career
[
edit
]
Samuel unsuccessfully fought two general elections before being elected a
Member of Parliament
at the November
1902 Cleveland by-election
, as a member of the
Liberal Party
.
[10]
He was appointed to the
Cabinet
in 1909 by Prime Minister
H. H. Asquith
, first as
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
and then as
Postmaster General
,
President of the Local Government Board
and eventually
Home Secretary
.
He put forward the idea of establishing a British
protectorate
over
Palestine
in 1915, and his ideas influenced the
Balfour Declaration
. As Home Secretary, Samuel faced a shortage of manpower needed to fight in
World War I
, and he initiated legislation to offer thousands of Russian refugees (many of them young Jews) a choice between conscription into the
British Army
or returning to Russia for military service.
[11]
In December 1916, Asquith was replaced as Prime Minister by
Lloyd George
. Lloyd George asked Samuel to continue as Home Secretary, but Samuel chose to resign instead.
[8]
[
page needed
]
He attempted to strike a balance between giving support to the new government while remaining loyal to Asquith. At the end of the war he sought election at the
general election of 1918
as a Liberal in support of the Coalition government. However, the
government's endorsement
was given to his Unionist opponent, and he was defeated.
Women's rights
[
edit
]
Initially he had not been a supporter of
women's suffrage
but then changed his position. In 1917, a Speaker's Conference was charged with looking into giving women the vote but did not have, in its terms of reference, consideration to women standing as candidates for
Parliament
. However, Samuel moved a separate motion on 23 October 1918 to allow women to be eligible as Members of Parliament. The vote was passed by 274 to 25, and the government rushed through a bill to make it law in time for the 1918 election.
[12]
High Commissioner for Palestine
[
edit
]
Background
[
edit
]
One month after Britain's declaration of war on the
Ottoman Empire
in November 1914, Samuel met
Chaim Weizmann
, who was to become the President of the
World Zionist Organization
and later the first
President of Israel
. According to Weizmann's memoirs, Samuel was already an avid believer in Zionism and believed that Weizmann's demands were too modest. Samuel did not want to enter into a detailed discussion of his plans but mentioned that "the Jews would have to build railways, harbours, a university, a network of schools, etc", as well as potentially a Temple in "modernised form".
[13]
In January 1915, Samuel circulated a memorandum,
The Future of Palestine
, to his cabinet colleagues, suggesting that Britain should conquer Palestine in order to protect the
Suez Canal
against foreign powers, and for Palestine to become a home for the
Jewish people
.
[14]
The memorandum stated, "I am assured that the solution of the problem of Palestine which would be much the most welcome to the leaders and supporters of the Zionist movement throughout the world would be the annexation of the country to the
British Empire
". In March 1915, Samuel replaced the January 1915 draft version with the final version of his memorandum, toned down from the earlier draft, explicitly ruling out any idea of immediately establishing a Jewish state and emphasizing that non-Jews must receive equal treatment under any scheme.
[15]
Appointment as High Commissioner
[
edit
]
In 1917, Britain occupied Palestine (then part of the
Ottoman Empire
) during the course of the First World War. Samuel lost his seat in the
election of 1918
and became a candidate to represent British interests in the territory.
He was appointed to the position of
High Commissioner
in 1920, before the Council of the
League of Nations
approved a British mandate for Palestine. Nonetheless, the military government withdrew to
Cairo
in preparation for the expected British
Mandate
, which was finally granted two years later by the
League of Nations
. He served as High Commissioner until 1925.
[16]
Samuel was the first Jew to govern the historic
Land of Israel
in 2000 years.
[17]
He recognised
Hebrew
as one of the three official languages of the territory. He was appointed
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
(GBE) on 11 June 1920.
Samuel's appointment to High Commissioner for Palestine was controversial. While the Zionists welcomed the appointment of a
Zionist Jew
to the post, the military government, headed by
Edmund Allenby
and
Louis Bols
, called Samuel's appointment "highly dangerous".
[18]
Technically, Allenby noted, the appointment was illegal, as a civil administration that would compel the inhabitants of an occupied country to express their allegiance to it before a formal peace treaty (with the
Ottoman Empire
) was signed violated both
military law
and the
Hague Convention
.
[19]
Bols said the news was received with "consternation, despondency and exasperation" by the Muslims and Christians.
[20]
Allenby said that the Arabs would see it "as handing country over at once to a permanent Zionist Administration" and predicted massive violence.
Lord Curzon
read the last message to Samuel and asked him to reconsider accepting the post. Samuel took advice from a delegation in London representing the Zionists, who told him that the "alarmist" reports were not justified.
[21]
The
Muslim-Christian Association
had sent a telegram to Bols:
Sir Herbert Samuel regarded as a Zionist leader, and his appointment as first step in formation of Zionist national home in the midst of Arab people contrary to their wishes. Inhabitants cannot recognise him, and Muslim-Christian Society cannot accept responsibility for riots or other disturbances of peace.
The wisdom of appointing Samuel was debated in the
House of Lords
a day before he arrived in Palestine.
Lord Curzon
said that no "disparaging" remarks had been made during the debate but that "very grave doubts have been expressed as to the wisdom of sending a Jewish Administrator to the country at this moment".
Questions in the
House of Commons
of the period also show much concern about the choice of Samuel: "what action has been taken to placate the Arab population... and thereby put an end to racial tension". Three months after his arrival,
The Morning Post
commented: "Sir Herbert Samuel's appointment as High Commissioner was regarded by everyone, except Jews, as a serious mistake."
Tenure
[
edit
]
As High Commissioner, Samuel attempted to mediate between
Zionist
and Arab interests, acting to slow Jewish immigration and win the confidence of the Arab population. He hoped to gain Arab participation in mandate affairs and to guard their civil and economic rights, but refused them any authority that could be used to stop Jewish immigration and land purchase.
[22]
According to Wasserstein his policy was "subtly designed to reconcile Arabs to the... pro-Zionist policy" of the British.
[23]
Islamic
custom at the time was that the chief Islamic spiritual leader, the
Grand Mufti
of Jerusalem, was to be chosen by the temporal ruler, the Ottoman Sultan in
Constantinople
, from a group of clerics nominated by the indigenous clerics. After the British conquered Palestine, Samuel chose
Haj Amin al Husseini
, who later proved a thorn in the side of the British administration in Palestine. At the same time, he enjoyed the respect of the Jewish community, and he was honoured by being called to the
Torah
at the
Hurva synagogue
in the
Old City of Jerusalem
.
[24]
During Samuel's administration the
Churchill White Paper
was published. It supported Jewish immigration within the economic absorptive capacity of the country to accommodate them and defined the Jewish national homeland as:
not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride.
[25]
Samuel won the confidence of all sections of the population by his noted "impartiality".
[26]
He struck a particularly strong relationship with
Pinhas Rutenberg
, granting him exclusive concessions to produce and distribute electricity in Palestine and Trans-Jordan, often strongly backing Rutenberg in his relations with the Colonial Office in London.
[27]
[
page needed
]
Samuel government signed the Ghor-Mudawarra Land Agreement with the Baysan Valley Bedouin tribes, that earmarked for transfer 179,545
dunams
of state land to the Bedouin.
[28]
Samuel's role in Palestine is still debated. According to Wasserstein:
He is remembered kindly neither by the majority of Zionist historians, who tend to regard him as one of the originators of the process whereby the Balfour Declaration in favour of Zionism was gradually diluted and ultimately betrayed by Great Britain, nor by Arab nationalists who regard him as a personification of the alliance between Zionism and British imperialism and as one of those responsible for the displacement of the Palestinian Arabs from their homeland. In fact, both are mistaken.
[29]
Samuel Commission
[
edit
]
On his return to Britain in 1925, Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin
asked Samuel to look into the problems of the mining industry. The
Samuel Commission
published its report in March 1926, recommending a reorganisation of the industry but rejecting the suggestion of
nationalisation
. The report also recommended the government subsidy to be withdrawn and the miners' wages reduced. The report was one of the leading factors that led to the
1926 General Strike
.
Later political career
[
edit
]
Samuel returned to the House of Commons following the
1929 general election
. Two years later, he became deputy leader of the Liberal Party and acted as leader in the summer of 1931 when Lloyd George was ill. Under Samuel, the party served in the first
National Government
of Prime Minister
Ramsay MacDonald
formed in August 1931, with Samuel himself serving as
Home Secretary
. However the government's willingness to consider the introduction of
protectionist tariffs
and call a general election to seek a mandate led to the Liberal Party fragmenting into three distinct groups.
Sir John Simon
had already led a breakaway group of MPs to form the
Liberal National Party
.
The Liberal leader, Lloyd George, led a small group of
Independent Liberals
, opposing the National Government. That left Samuel effectively as leader of the parliamentary party and in control of party headquarters. The government's moves to introduce tariffs caused further friction for the Liberals, and Samuel withdrew the party from the government in stages, first obtaining the suspension of
cabinet collective responsibility
on the matter to allow Liberal members of the government to oppose tariffs. In October 1932, the Liberal ministers resigned their ministerial posts but continued to support the National Government in parliament. Finally, in November 1933, Samuel and the bulk of the Liberal MPs
crossed the floor
of the House of Commons and opposed the government outright. He remained leader of the Liberal Party until he again lost his seat in 1935.
In 1937, he was granted the title
Viscount Samuel
; later that year, Samuel, despite his Jewish ancestry, aligned himself with Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain
's appeasement policy towards
Adolf Hitler
, urged that Germany be cleared of its 1914 war guilt and recommended the return of
German colonies
lost after the war. His biographer
John Edward Bowle
noted Samuel's recollection of his comments to
Lord Halifax
in a conversation shortly before the
Anschluss
in 1938:
I said that I regarded Hitler as a man with a conscience ? a conscience that sometimes led him to do things that were very bad; but he was not a man who would do what he knew to be a crime as Napoleon would have. The danger was that, being a mystic and impetuous, he might easily be swept away at some moment of crisis.
[30]
He declined a later offer by Chamberlain to return to government. In 1938, he supported the
Kindertransport
movement for refugee children from Europe with an appeal for homes for them.
Samuel later became the leader of the Liberal Party in the
House of Lords
(1944?1955). During the
1951 general election
, on 15 October 1951, Samuel became the first British politician to deliver a party political broadcast on television.
[31]
He had previously fronted a broadcast on television at the
1950 election
, but this was merely a recording of a radio speech he had made earlier the same evening rather than a true party political broadcast.
[32]
Family
[
edit
]
On 17 November 1897 Samuel
married his first cousin
Beatrice Miriam (1871?1959), daughter of
Ellis Abraham Franklin
, a banker. They had three sons and one daughter.
[33]
His son,
Edwin
, served in the
Jewish Legion
.
Samuel was great-uncle to the scientist
Rosalind Franklin
, the co-discoverer of DNA.
Literary career
[
edit
]
In his later years, he remained concerned over the future of humanity and of science, writing three books:
Essays in Physics
(1951),
In Search of Reality
(1957) and a collaborative work,
A Threefold Cord: Philosophy, Science, Religion
(1961). The three works tended to conflict with the beliefs of the scientific establishment, especially as his collaborator and friend in the last work was
Herbert Dingle
.
Arms
[
edit
]
Coat of arms of Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel
|
- Crest
- In front of a Sun rising Or a Dove wings elevated and addorsed holding in the beak an Olive Branch proper
- Escutcheon
- Or a Bend between two Caps of Liberty Gules on a Chief Sable a Balance of the first
- Supporters
- On either side a Lion Or the dexter gorged with a Collar Gules and resting the interior hind leg on a Stump of Oak eradicated and sprouting proper the sinister gorged with an Eastern Crown also Gules and resting the interior hind leg on a Stump of Olive eradicated and sprouting also proper
- Motto
- Turn Not Aside
[
citation needed
]
|
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Freedland, Jonathan (31 October 2003).
"Profile: Michael Howard"
.
The Guardian
– via www.theguardian.com.
- ^
a
b
Wasserstein, Bernard (2004).
"Samuel, Herbert Louis"
.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/35928
. Retrieved
22 March
2014
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
Boucher, David; Vincent, Andrew (2 February 2012).
British Idealism: A Guide for the Perplexed
. A&C Black.
ISBN
9780826496782
– via Google Books.
- ^
Layborn, Keith (11 September 2002).
Fifty Key Figures in Twentieth Century British Politics
. Routledge.
ISBN
9781134588749
– via Google Books.
- ^
Levine, Naomi (September 1991).
Politics, Religion, and Love: The Story of H.H. Asquith, Venetia Stanley, and Edwin Montagu, Based on the Life and Letters of Edwin Samuel Montagu
. NYU Press.
ISBN
9780814750575
.
- ^
Wasserstein, Bernard (2004). "Samuel, Herbert Louis, first Viscount Samuel (1870?1963), politician".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/35928
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
History, Liberal.
"Herbert Samuel (Viscount Samuel), 1870-1963 · Liberal History"
.
- ^
a
b
Memoirs by Viscount Samuel (1945)
- ^
Wasserstein, Bernard,
"Herbert Samuel: A Political Life"
1992, p.9. Cited by Huneidi, Sahar "A Broken Trust, Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians", 2001, p.80.
- ^
"No. 27492"
.
The London Gazette
. 7 November 1902. p. 7089.
- ^
Modern British Jewry
, Geoffrey Alderman, Oxford University Press p. 237-238
- ^
Memoirs
, Viscount Samuel (1950) p. 131
- ^
Weizmann, Chaim (1983).
The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann: August 1898 ? July 1931
. Transaction Publishers. pp. 122?124.
ISBN
978-0-87855-279-5
.
He believed that my demands were too modest, that big things would have to be done in Palestine; he himself would move and would expect Jewry to move immediately the military situation was cleared up…. The Jews would have to bring sacrifices and he was prepared to do so. At this point I ventured to ask in which way the plans of Mr. Samuel were more ambitious than mine. Mr. Samuel preferred not to enter into a discussion of his plans, as he would like to keep them 'liquid', but he suggested that the Jews would have to build railways, harbours, a university, a network of schools, etc… He also thinks that perhaps the Temple may be rebuilt, as a symbol of Jewish unity, of course, in a modernised form.
- ^
C.D. Smith, 2001,
Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict
, 4th ed.,
ISBN
0-312-20828-6
, pp. 60, 112.
- ^
Schneer, Jonathan
(2011).
The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
. A&C Black. pp. 144?.
ISBN
978-1-4088-0970-9
.
- ^
Wasserstein, Bernard (1976). "Herbert Samuel and the Palestine Problem".
The English Historical Review
.
91
(361): 753?775.
doi
:
10.1093/ehr/XCI.CCCLXI.753
.
JSTOR
565641
.
- ^
Jewish Virtual Library
Herbert Louis Samuel (1870?1963)
- ^
Vital,
Zionism
, p. 83. Also Knox,
The Making of a New Eastern Question
, p. 153, and Ingrams,
Palestine Papers
, p. 105.
- ^
Henry Laurens,
La Question de Palestine
, Fayard, Paris 1999 vol.1 p.523
- ^
Ingrams,
Palestine Papers
, p. 106.
- ^
Samuel, Memoirs, p. 152.
- ^
C.D. Smith, 2001,
Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict
, 4th ed.,
ISBN
0-312-20828-6
, pp. 110?112
- ^
B. Wasserstein, 1978,
British in Palestine
, p. 92
- ^
Horovitz, Ahron (2000).
Jerusalem, Footsteps Through Time
.
Feldheim
. pp. 171?174.
ISBN
1583303987
.
- ^
"The Palestine White Paper of 1922 (Cmd. 1700) Palestinian Correspondence with Zionists"
. Archived from
the original
on 25 July 2011.
- ^
Encyclopædia Britannica
, Vol. 32, (1922) p. 1131
- ^
Shamir, Ronen (2013) Current Flow: The Electrification of Palestine. Stanford: Stanford University Press
- ^
Seth J. Frantzman; Ruth Kark (2011).
"Bedouin Settlement in Late Ottoman and British Mandatory Palestine: Influence on the Cultural and Environmental Landscape, 1870?1948"
(PDF)
. p. 16.
- ^
Bernard Wasserstein (1976). "Herbert Samuel and the Palestine Problem".
The English Historical Review
.
91
: 753?775.
doi
:
10.1093/ehr/xci.ccclxi.753
.
- ^
Bowle, John (1957).
Viscount Samuel, a Biography
. Gollancz. p. 309.
- ^
Wasserstein, Bernard, "Herbert Samuel: A Political Life" 1992, p.396
- ^
Evans, Jeff (2022).
The Political Compendium
. Newcastle upon Tyne: Zymurgy Publishing. p. 55.
ISBN
978-1-903506-49-3
.
- ^
Bernard Wasserstein, '
Samuel, Herbert Louis, first Viscount Samuel (1870?1963)
’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2011
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Samuel, Viscount Herbert (1937).
Belief and Action: An Everyday Philosophy
. London.
- Samuel, Viscount Herbert (1945).
Memoirs
. London.
- Samuel, Horace Barnett (1930).
Unholy Memories of the Holy Land
. L. and Virginia Woolf.
- John Edward Bowle
(1957).
Viscount Samuel: A Biography
. Victor Gollancz.
- Trevor Wilson (ed.),
The Political Diaries of C.P.Scott 1911?1928
, Collins: St James Place, London, 1970.
- Wasserstein, Bernard (October 1976). "Herbert Samuel and the Palestinian Problem".
English Historical Review
.
91
(361).
- Wasserstein, Bernard (1992).
Herbert Samuel: A Political Life
. Clarendon Press.
- Segev, Tom (2000).
One Palestine, complete: Jews and Arabs under the British mandate
. London: Little, Brown.
ISBN
0-316-64859-0
.
- Huneidi, Sahar (2001).
A Broken Trust, Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians
. London.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
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[
edit
]
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