Trudy Gold
Herbert Asquith, Edwin Montagu and Venetia Stanley

Trudy Gold - Herbert Asquith, Edwin Montagu and Venetia Stanley

- Now, today I’m talking about a fascinating trio, and I want you to think about history. What on earth do we mean by history? Is, as Marx suggested, everything is determined by economic events? Or if you want to take Isaiah Berlin’s idea that 90% of events are predetermined. Like for example, if there’s economic, social, and political chaos, it’s quite likely extremism will rise. But having said that, Isaiah Berlin always believed and many other historians, that there’s always a 10% leeway, and the individuals can alter history either for the good or for the bad by unexpected events. And what I’m talking about today is an extraordinary trilogy of Herbert Asquith, the British Prime Minister, Venetia Stanley, a rather beautiful socialite, and Edwin Montagu, the son of Lord Swaythling and a Jew. It’s a love triangle. Those two men were in love with Venetia and it’s going to alter the course of Jewish history because I’m going to stay from the beginning. Herbert Asquith, and we’ve already dealt with Lloyd George, Herbert Asquith fell from power in 1916. His fall from power had a lot to do with his crazy relationship with a woman who was so much younger than him, and his bitterness of her choosing his rival. And also the fact that Edwin Montagu, who had been his protege, was a Jew in the cabinet and was violently opposed to the Balfour Declaration, as was Asquith. If Asquith hadn’t fallen from power in 1916, would there ever have been a Balfour Declaration? And the majority of historians really believe that this is a very, very important factor. So, I thought we’d have a bit of an interesting fun today because I want to look at their three personalities.

And then I want to look at Edwin Montagu and how as a man and a Jew he dealt with being a Jew in England, because underlying so many of my presentations has been, what on earth does it mean to be a Jew? And for Montagu, Montagu is so violently opposed to Zionism because he felt it undercut all the assumptions on which he built his life. And yes, he did witness antisemitism, he was a strange, isolated individual, but many of these tensions, what are we, what can we be, are still the tensions that I think face Jews who identify as Jews today. And I think it’s particularly true of England. I’ve often had this discussion with Wendy because she thinks the South African experience is very different. But in England, what do we aspire to? Do we aspire? What is the greatest thing that we can aspire to? I mean, this week we had Lord Danny Finkelstein on who’s an absolutely fabulous man who’s the grandson of Alfred Wiener, but he sits in the House of Lords and as an English gentleman. Or is he a Jew? And these issues, particularly since the birth of Israel, ironically, have become even more complicated. So I want to start with the biography of Herbert Asquith. And remember, they are all born in Edwardian, in Victorian Edwardian times. And the other point I want to make is I’m going to talk a little bit about Edwin Montagu’s family, because his first cousin, ironically, was another Jew in government, and he was a Zionist. So you had these two first cousins quarrelling about the issue of Jewish identity.

So if you don’t mind, do you think we could start, Hannah, with the first slide. There you see Herbert Asquith and can we go on, please? Right. Now, he was born in Yorkshire. His family were in the war trade. Unlike the majority of his fellow members of parliament, he is middle class. Now, I think I’ve already explained, the Tory party was the bastion of English aristocracy. It was Eden and Oxford. In the liberal party which was now attracting a few Jews, the majority of Jews in parliament were liberal. They tended to have a slightly different background, because don’t forget it, up until 1911, you earned no salary from being an MP. And it’s a, even to this day, it’s a very, very fascinating argument because on one level, everyone should have the opportunity to be able to represent their constituencies in parliament. But if there’s no salary, it’s usually the province of the rich. However, the fact that it’s now a salaried employment means that for, we have, I believe, too many MPs who’ve never had any other jobs. So, it’s an interesting thing, but please bear this in mind. Now, he belonged to a low church congregation. Now, a quote on his father from historian share, “A man of high principles who held Bible classes for young men. His mother, a very strong woman who had a strong influence on her son.” So he’s brought up in an era of deep low church Christianity and the Bible. He was called Bertie as a child. His second wife, we’re going to find out, calls him Henry because he is second wife, he’s going to marry, quote unquote, “The British above himself.” One of the stories of of Herbert Henry Asquith is going to be his social nobility.

And eventually he’s going to abandon his Yorkshire non-conformist roots and he’s going to become, if you like, the British gentleman. So, his early education homeschool, but his father died suddenly. So, he came into the care of his maternal grandfather and then to his uncle. He went to a church school in Leeds and then he came to London. And for a while he had to board and he boarded with various families. This is from his biographer Naomi Levine. They were treated as orphans for the rest of their childhood. And later he said, “It was to all intents and purposes, to all intents and purposes a Londoner.” However, there is, how much did his non-conformist background actually influenced him? There was always a streak of anti-establishment in his life. But he quickly becomes part of Metropolis and he went to the City of London Day School. He was a brilliant boy, an outstanding pupil, huge ability, excelled in classics English, also excelled in sports. He read absolutely ferociously. He was fascinated by oratory. He used to go to the public gallery in parliament to hear the great men at work. And of course, who would he have heard? He would’ve still have heard Benjamin Disraeli who didn’t die until 1881. And of course the man who headed up the liberal party, who is going to not die until 1898, Gladstone.

So he actually heard parliament at its absolutely best but he also honed his skills in debating societies and he’s going to become a great parliamentarian. He was also had a… He saw some convicted murderers on their way to be hung outside Newgate Prison. He was also, which had a horrible effect on him. He was also a social reformer. Now, what happened to a middle class boy who was absolutely brilliant? He managed to get a classic scholarship to Oxford. And at Oxford he came under the spell of a fascinating Anglican theologian and a Greek scholar. Can we see his face please? He’s called Benjamin Jowett. There you see Balliol College, Oxford. Now, why am I dwelling on their biographies? Because I really believe in order to understand these characters, we have to look at their psychology and it’s important to know where they come from. And Asquith later said that what Jowett taught him, that how privileged they all were and that they showed what Asquith called a tranquil consciousness of effortless superiority. So, he is studying with a classicist, a theologian. He’s also influenced by another man, T.H. Green, who was a political radical and a temperance reformer. One of the other issues that was sweeping Victorian England was to try and put a stop to alcohol. I’m sure many of you will know of gin alley and how many of the poor and displaced and unhappy in London just drunk themselves to death. And this is very much a middle class thing that we are, and also coming from religiosity that we must create a more temperate society.

And of course, that was something that Lloyd George also took off. So, Green is also a great thinker in the world of social liberalism. And he was married to a woman who, can we, who, have we got a picture of Green? I think we have, yeah. He was married to a woman who was a promoter of women’s education. So this is also on the agenda now. By the time you get to the third and fourth quarter of the Victorian era, the whole notion amongst a small number is what is the role of women in society? And she was actually, his wife, Mr. Green’s wife, was actually involved in the committee to create the first woman’s college at Oxford, which later led to the founding of Somerville College, which ironically was the college that Maggie Thatcher went to and Indira Gandhi. It was also the first, Oxford’s first non-denominational college. And if you think about Margaret Thatcher, she was called by some of her more snotty colleagues, snooty colleagues, snotty colleagues, the grocer’s daughter from… The grocer’s daughter from the Midlands. And I think the whole notion of breaking the class system is actually very, very interesting. Now, he of course was this brilliant young man, and though his biographer said he was striking without being sensational. Now, he continues debating at Oxford. He also debated with his contemporary Alfred Milner and I’m going to be talking about Alfred Milner next week when I look at the Cleveland set and something called Milner’s Kindergarten. And those of you who are interested in South Africa, that was actually founded in South Africa.

And also he was close to Arnold Toynbee at Oxford, who of course was the brilliant historian who had one of these theories that, of the whole sweep of history but I’m not going to that now. Anyway, in his last term, Asquith becomes president of the Union. He gets a double first in Mods and Greats, which is language and literature of Greece and Rome. He’s a Prize fellow at Balliol. So he’s climbed to what Disraeli would’ve called the top of the academic greasy pole. But he’s not rich. So after graduating, he spent months coaching a man called Lord Lamington, who later was the Earl of Portsmouth. He was a liberal politician. He’s already interested in politics. And he began, through Lamington, he begins to enjoy aristocratic country life. And this breaks away from the side of him that’s such a non-conformist. Now this is what he himself said. “I rid myself of the puritanism of which I was bred. "And I developed, quote unquote, ‘fondness for fine wine and spirits.’” He goes back to Oxford, but doesn’t want to become a don. And of course, the traditional route for clever young men without much income was law. So he becomes a barrister. He’s called to the bar. Seven lean years, he calls them. He was far too moral, he said to learn the trick of the trade. He married, can we see a picture of his wife?

He married a woman called Helen Melland, the daughter of a Manchester doctor. He marries a nice middle class woman. They met through friends of his mother who had a very strong influence on him. And evidently her father agreed to the match, having been assured that he had potential. Helen had a private income, which meant they could have a pretty nice house in Hampstead, which even to this day is one of the best suburbs of London. They had five children, all of them are going to marry into the aristocracy. And how does he supplement his income as so many of these aspiring characters do? Can we see the next slide, please? He wrote for The Spectator magazine, which is really today it’s really the in-house magazine of the Tory Party but it’s a very good magazine. And I should say, if you don’t know it, some of the best writers in this country actually write for The Spectator. And for a while, I don’t know if this is good or bad, Boris Johnson was the editor. Anyway, The Spectator at that time was far more of a liberal paper. It was a radical paper but unconvinced by either the Whigs or the Tories, and the debates of the day were really about British imperialism, which I’ve already discussed when we looked at Lloyd George. Also votes for women. Asquith was a great supporter of the British Empire. Ironically, he opposed women’s suffrage for most of his political career. They would, because he believed, now this is interesting, that women’s suffrage would disproportionately favour the Tories and ironically surveys proved him right on that. He was also retained as a leader writer for The Economist. So he’s a good journalist, he’s a lawyer. And by 1883, his career as a barrister is turned, really turned up a few notches. Why?

Because he works with Robert Samuel White in his chambers, who was a justice at the high court, who was a council for the government. And Asquith prepared a memorandum for the next man. Can we see him, please? And there Haldane, a friend of his, works with him, puts the, and actually he’s a very, he’s going to become a very close friend of Asquith, and he’s going to be very influential in the liberal party. And who is the man who he prepares the memo for? Can we see the next slide, please? Oh, go on, go back and then go on. I want… Can we go on one more? Yes, William Ewart Gladstone, Disraeli’s formidable rival. And of course Disraeli died in 1881 but boy did Gladstone go on and on and on. And he’s so impressed that he becomes the, one of the main legal councils to the liberal government. Now, 1886, the Liberal Party split on the issue of Irish Home Rule, always a problem in British politics. There’s a vacancy. And because of Haldane, who’s a close friend of Asquith and also he had a seat next door, Asquith is put forward and he’s in parliament. Now, can you flip back please to the last, Margot Asquith. Now unfortunately, his first wife died. Three years later, he married a woman called Margaret Asquith. Now she’s going to have an incredible impact on his career because she’s going to push him up the social scale. Because with Britain, you really are looking at the class system in action. Now, she was the daughter of an industrialist and a politician, and she grew up on a huge estate quite wild and uninhibited. Entered society by the 1880s. She had a very good brain, centre of a group of intellectuals known as The Souls, which attracted most of the important politicians in Britain. William Scawen Blunt, one of the best writers of the time, he said, “An interesting group of clever men and pretty women.

No section of London society was better worth frequenting, including as it did or that was amusing and least conventional.” And Asquith meets Margot and they marry, and on, and she becomes the spur to his ambition and introduces into the really glittering social world. He’s already tasted it. He tasted it when he was, already when he was a tutor to the Earl of Portsmouth. He tasted it through Haldane. He is now in parliament and he’s got an ambitious wife who’s absolutely at the centre. She also became the very unenthusiastic mother to, stepmother to his five children. His daughter, Violet Asquith said, “She flashed into our lives like some dazzling bird of paradise, filling it with amazement, amusement, excitement, sometimes with a unique uneasiness as to what she might do next.” She had five children of her own, but only two survived. And one, her daughter married by Asquith married a Romanian prince and her son by Asquith became a very important British filmmaker, Anthony Asquith. Anyway, so he’s in Parliament and he is doing very, very well. And Gladstone is back in office. Finally, in 1894, Gladstone finally retires. And can we see, Lord Rosebery? Can we go on? Here you see Lord Rosebery becomes prime minister. He and Asquith remains. Asquith is appointed and he’s going to remain in office, and he’s going to go through, he’s going to really go through the ranks. He’s going to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. Remember, he’s a brilliant orator. He’s now socially well-connected and under Rosebery, he becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer. And then under Campbell-Bannerman. And when Campbell-Bannerman becomes ill, Asquith becomes prime minister, and he, can we come onto the next slide?

There you see him as Prime Minister looking very prime ministerial. And if you come onto the next slide, he, of course, and I discussed this with you last time, it is in his office that Lloyd George is now Chancellor of the Exchequer and the People’s Budget. The next slide, please, which led of course, the death of Edward the VIII. If you remember, the People’s Budget was to try and level up Britain. It was to tax land and tax the rich. And if you remember, the peers were totally against it. And it led to the death of Edward II, because nothing, of Edward VII, nothing was done in his time. His son George V, when he was king, he populated the liberal, the House of Lords with liberals. And from then on, the Liberal Party could no longer veto legislation. And that’s how it went through. And then of course, Asquith is prime minister when in the war. And he is going to be a very, very bad, he’s going to be a very, very bad war leader. And he’s partially a bad war leader because of the relationship that he’s going to form with Venetia Stanley when even at the height of war, he’s going to be deposed in 1916. We covered that when we looked at Lloyd George, but at the height of it, he’s still writing three or four letters a day to his, the love of his life, or was she, Venetia Stanley. And at the same time he’s neglecting the war. And not only that, he’s becoming very, very much into alcohol. So, important to know that he’s going to fall in 1916. But now can I turn to Edwin Montagu, the second of the tria, there you see George V. Edwin Montagu, right. He’s the second son and sixth child of Samuel Montagu who is made 1st Baron Swaythling later on.

His wife is Ellen, daughter of Louis Cohen. Now I’m going to divert quickly into his father’s story because this is a really, a Jewish story. So, can we see the next slide, please? There you see Samuel Montagu. He was born in Liverpool as Montagu, Samuel. His father had come from Lithuania, a brilliant mind, and he was the second son that his father, his father’s second son. His father was called Louis Samuel. He’d started out as a watchmaker. He was a very, very clever Lithuanian and Henrietta Israel, who was the daughter of a man called Israel Israel. Now this isn’t unusual, by the way, Israel Israel, because during the great immigrations, the customs people, the same thing happened in America. The customs people didn’t always catch the names. So the names you were given were the names you had. I had an uncle who was, a great uncle who was called Lewis Lewis. Anyway, he does very, very well. And he founds the Bank of Samuel Montagu and Company. At first, the company dealt an exchange of coins, later foreign bills of exchange. He, Samuel Montagu, Edwin Montagu’s father though is very involved in Jewish affairs. He’s involved in the establishment of the Federation of Synagogues. He comes to live in London. Now the Federation of Synagogues was an umbrella for small orthodox congregations of the East End. These are the Jewish immigrants coming to the East End of London. The United Synagogue, which is very much an English Jewish synagogue, it’s orthodox. But it’s very much to replicate the Church of England with the chief rabbi and the clergyman dressed in Canonicals. And it was something that the Orthodox Jews of the East End coming from Russia couldn’t cope with.

So, he with benevolence, they’re very much taking on, although charity is so strong in the Jewish world, they took on a kind of English type of charity where they looked after, quote unquote, “the deserving poor.” The federation was important because by 1911 it represented 51 London synagogues, over 6,000 members, which made it the largest body in Anglo jury. It also, unfortunately, it brought him into conflict with Nathaniel Baron Rothschild, who was chairman of the United Synagogue. Samuel Montagu is now being, is really being embraced into the cousinhood. This is important because as I’ve said to you before, Anglo jury at this stage was run really by a group of interconnected families. And if people made, if people came into the country and made a lot of money, by the time you get to the second generation, they can marry into it. So the cousinhood is really going to run Anglo jury, I would suggest you almost up to the ‘30s but more about that later. Now, this is what Montagu said about the federation. One of the principle objects of the federation is to secure an endeavour to raise the social conditions of the Jews of the East End and to prevent anything like anarchy and socialism. Much of the criticism of jury, East End jury, and we’ve covered this, was that they were seen as troublemakers, as communists, as anarchists. And here you have an English Jewish patriarch now who wants to show just how English we are. Now, where’d you go from there? 1885, he becomes a liberal member of parliament for Whitechapel which he held until he stood down in 1900. Ironically in 1885, his campaign was against his brother-in-Law.

Let’s see his brother-in-Law. This is Lionel Louis Cohen who was controversially running as a conservative. You see the intermarried cousinhood. He’s interesting too. He was born in London to a man called Louis Cohen who was the founder of Louis Cohen and Sons. They were bankers and members of the stock exchange. And he didn’t take the usual Jewish route into politics because the majority of Jews, I’ve already told you, joined the liberal party. But he joined the Tories. And he actually caused a sensation in the Jewish Chronicle when he asked Jews to exercise independence of thought at the elections. He’s elected to parliament in 1885 for Paddington North. He’s reelected and held a seat until his death. So you have these brothers-in-law on opposite soul. Also, he’s very involved in community work. His scheme for the better management of all the Jewish poor elaborating in 1860 firmly formed the basis for the constitution of the Board of Guardians. And those of you who live in England will know that today that is Jewish Care. So these characters historically are very, very interesting. He was also involved in the establishment of the United Synagogue and initiated a movement in 1881 to help the persecuted Jews of Russia. So, he and his brother-in-law had a very fractious relationship. So, the other thing about Montagu is that Montagu was a Yiddish speaker and he is the one who took the Whitechapel seat that’s why Lionel Louis Cohen had to take another one. And Montagu as MP for Whitechapel, he actually offered 100 pounds to discover who was Jack the Ripper. Because those of you who studied the case will know that the murders, there was something written on the wall where the word Jewes, J-E-W-E-S was there, and there was this fear that Jack the Ripper was in fact a Jew.

And in fact there was a lot of antisemitism in the East End, but the home office didn’t allow it because the practise had been discontinued. Now, what’s interesting about Samuel Montagu, he was in favour of Jewish colonisation in Palestine and he actually was a proto Zionist. A good man, he presented land he owned in Edmonton for the federation to build a burial ground. He was also aware of the overcrowding in the East End. He was vastly wealthy and he felt that one of the reasons for the antisemitism as the East End was there were too many Jews so let’s get them to Edmonton. And later on he gave 10,000 pounds towards the London County Council for a housing estate in Tottenham. So, as I said, he’s raised to the Peerage. Now, his eldest son, of course is going, Louis Montagu succeeded to the baronetcy and succeeded the, and actually completely went against his father’s Zionism, and founded the Anti-Zionist League of British Jews. His nephew was Herbert Samuel, who was of course the first high commissioner in Palestine. So, let’s go back to Edwin Montagu now because yeah, Edwin Montagu, his second son. It’s his career that we are mainly concerned with. Now, he was educated at Clifton College and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Again, clever. He became president of Cambridge University Liberal Club and he was president of the Cambridge Union, and he became very close to Herbert Asquith’s son, Raymond, a very, very close friendship.

And it was Raymond who introduced him to Asquith. Now, don’t forget, his father’s already a liberal MP. He’s a very, very wealthy man. They are mixing in the same circles. He becomes a member of parliament for Chesterton, which he’s going to hold until 1918. And then he’s going to represent Cambridgeshire until 1922 when the liberal government is going to be decimated. Now, through his son Raymond, he becomes a total protege of Asquith. He develops a huge admiration for Asquith and he, under him, he’s going to be, he becomes his PPP, then he becomes Finance Secretary to the Treasury, and then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and eventually Minister of Munitions. When Asquith falls in 1916, he resigns with him, but later comes back under Lloyd George and he becomes Secretary of State for India. So, that’s Montagu. He’s also in parliament. He tries very hard to be an English gentleman. But now let’s bring the the third of the trilogy in, Venetia Stanley. Because what happens is, can we see the next slide, please? There you see Clifton College where he went to school. Can we go on, please? Now, okay, I’ve put it here. Can we go on to Venetia Stanley please and go back to that please, if you don’t mind. Here you see Venetia Stanley.

She was the youngest daughter of Edward Lyulph Stanley, 4th Baron Sheffield. So she comes from an aristocratic family. She, her husband, her father was a very well-educated man and he had, he himself was a liberal MP, and he’d married the daughter of another liberal MP. So she is part of the liberal party fraternity and the aristocracy. Interesting, one of her closest friends who I’m going to talk about again was Helen Violet Bonham Carter, who was in fact born Violet Asquith. So, her closest friend who she may well have had some of the biographers suggest that they had more than just a close friendship, but it’s not proven. But she is the daughter of Asquith. So Venetia Stanley’s best friend is Asquith’s daughter Violet and Violet later goes on to marry Bonham Carter and of course, she is going to be very close to Churchill, and also I think from, she becomes violently opposed to fascism, joined a number of anti-fascist groups. I’m now talking about Bonham Carter. She’s probably best known to you as the grandmother of Helena Bonham Carter. So that’s the third, so let’s go on a little more about Venetia Stanley. So she’s this beautiful wild girl. And then what happens is in 1912, let’s have a look at the picture of Helena Bonham Carter first there. That’s Helena Bonham Carter, that is the… She was called Violet though, Helen Violet Bonham Carter. She best friend of Venetia Stanley, daughter of Asquith, and grandmother of Helena Bonham Carter. You’re with me now. And a family that were incredibly involved in helping Jews in the war, by the way.

So, interesting stories. Now, let’s get onto the trilogy. What happens is this, Edwin Montagu is a very, very, very close friend, remember, of Asquith. So it’s not surprising that there is a holiday and off to Sicily go the Asquiths, which meant Margot. And with them goes his protege because he is really his protege, his son Raymond of course, Asquith’s son Raymond, who is a very close friend of Edwin Montagu and Violet, and Violet Asquith who brings her best friend, 18-year-old Venetia Stanley. And they all go off on holiday to Sicily. And what happens is both men fall madly in love with her. Now remember, 1912. Asquith later writes to her that I’ve never felt like this, you are my pole star. He begins an obsessive, he’s 58, she’s 18. He begins an, can we go back to a picture of Venetia Stanley, please? Yeah. He begins an absolutely obsessive letter writing campaign to her. He’s going to write her in the next couple of years, sorry, the next three years over 400 letters. Sometimes three a day and not just once war brokes out, he doesn’t just write to her about how he needs her, et cetera, et cetera. He writes to her about what’s going on in the war and really one, at a time when he should have been concentrating on the war, he’s absolutely obsessed with this young girl. The problem was so was her, unfortunately, so was his protege and close friend, and that of course was Edwin Montagu. So, this is what Asquith wrote when he was 59 years old, writes to Venetia about the friendship. “The first stage in our intimacy, we had together one of the most interesting and delightful fortnights in all our lives. The scales dropped from my eyes and I dimly thought they come to a turning point in my life.” Also, by this time he is drinking much too much.

Now on their return from holiday, he invites her to a house party and then lots of invitations to Downing Street. Now he always surrounded himself with pretty women. His wife Margot referred to them as Henry’s harem and she didn’t take it very seriously. But this one was very, very different. And it’s at this time that Edwin Montagu has also fallen madly in love with Venetia Stanley. As early as August 1912, he asked her to marry him. Evidently she accepted and then completely changed her mind. This is what she… She discussed it at length with Violet. One of the things we have to deal with when we’re dealing with these characters is they wrote letters which is wonderful for those who are interested in biography. And this is what Violet Asquith actually wrote about Venetia’s beau. “Montagu’s physical repulsiveness to me is such that I would likely leak from the top story of Queen Anne’s mansions or the Eiffel Tower itself to avoid contact. The thought of any erotic amenities with him is enough to freeze one’s blood. Apart from that, he’s not only very unlike an Englishman or indeed a European, but also extraordinarily unlike a man. He has no robustness, virility, courage, physical competency. He is devoured by illnesses.” Now, to what extent was that in fact antisemitism and it’s tinge with it. Now, what happens is it seems that, it seems that Venetia becomes almost overwhelmed by the attentions of Asquith. And can you imagine three letters a day, thousands and thousands of words. And as a result, she finally decides to accept his proposal, although there’s absolutely no evidence that she loved him. In fact, part of the marriage contract was that she would decide when they had sex, et cetera. And also if you read the comments of some of her friends and also the comments of Asquith, when there was another trouble.

According to Lord Swaythling’s will, in order for his son to inherit, and he was on a pension of 10,000 a year, Edwin Montagu got 10,000 a year from his father. To continue with it, he could only marry a Jew. And Venetia who had no religion, she finally decided to convert and she had a three-month conversion. Now, she informs Asquith by letter on the 12th of May that she’s going to marry Edwin Montagu. And this is in fact, she, Asquith shared his daughter’s apprehension about it. He wrote, “It’s not merely the prohibitive physical side, bad as it is, I won’t say anything about race and religion, though they are not quite negligible factors. But he is not a man. And the news he admitted was a death blow.” And even though he remains in office for the next 18 months, it really is the end. Now, the marriage, by the way, and also it should be said that when Montagu spoke in the house and quite often he had views that were contrary to other members of parliament, particularly the Tories, there was a lot of antisemitism. So it’s important to know that he was subjected to a lot of antisemitism. It’s also important to know that his brother and sister also tried to persuade him from marrying Venetia. She never loved him. And in fact, she had a child by someone else and she had an affair with Beaverbrook. He died young, Montagu died in 1924. He died young. It was a disastrously unhappy marriage.

The child was obviously was by another man. But against all the odds he married her, she converted to liberal Judaism. It took three months. And when he died she didn’t even go to the funeral. And was she in fact in a relationship with Violet Asquith? Who knows, but a lot of people suspect she was. But it’s a strange love triangle. Now, let’s bring it into anti, to bring it into Jewish history or just to finish on her. She finished up quite close to Churchill and after the war she became quite an adventurous and had an interesting life. She was one of those daredevils, she loved flying planes, et cetera, et cetera. But what I want to talk about now because this is really where the love triangle, which is a nice story, but this is where it becomes important because as I said to you at the beginning, he was completely, Edwin Montagu was completely anti-Zionist and so was Asquith. He’d influenced Asquith and consequently, if Lloyd George had not replaced Asquith as PM, it is quite unlikely that the Balfour Declaration would’ve happened. Because when Edwin Montagu’s cousin, Herbert Samuel, presented a pro-Zionist memo in 1915, Asquith dismissed it out hand, particularly because his protege told him that it was completely crazy. Now, what I’m going to go, can we go back to that statement of Montagu’s? “Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom.

If a Jewish Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes, and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he has always seemed to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and to admit it that he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman. I have always understood that those who indulged in this creed were largely animated by the restriction upon and refusal of liberty to Jews in Russia. But at the very time when these Jews have been acknowledged as Jewish Russians and given all liberties.” This is because the provision, the provisional government under Kerensky made antisemitism illegal, as did the Bolsheviks. “It seems to be inconceivable that Zionism should be officially recognised by the British Government, and that Mr. Balfour should be authorised to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as the national home for the Jewish people.” I’m going to go on and he’s going to in a memorandum to the government because he goes back into government, remember. He’s Secretary of State for India. He’s involved in the writing of the conjoint letter. A lot of the Anglo Jewish establishment was so opposed to Zionism because they felt it undercut everything that they had done in England and would undercut themselves as patriots. I mean, Montagu for example, in the First World War before conscription, he said that any Russian Jews who didn’t join up should be sent back to Russia and this was anti-Zionist Russia. So, he puts first his Englishness.

Now, I’m going to read to you very slowly. He lays down with emphasis for principles. “I assert that there is not a Jewish nation, the members of my family, for instance, who’ve been in this country for generations, have no sort of kind of community or view of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or lesser degree the same religion. It’s no more true to say that a Jewish Englishman and a Jewish Moor are of the same nation than it is to say that a Christian Englishman and a Christian Frenchman are of the same nation or of the same race, perhaps traced back through the centuries. The Prime Minister and Mr. Briand are, I suppose, related through the ages, one as a Welshman and the other as a Breton, but they certainly do not belong to the same nation. When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country, drawn from all quarters of the globe, speaking every language on the face of the earth, and incapable of communicating with one another except by means of an interpreter. I have always understood that this was the consequence of the building of the Tower of Babel. And I have always understood, by the Jews before Zionism was invented, that to bring the Jews back to form a nation in the country from which they were dispersed would require divine leadership.

I have neither heard it suggested, even by their most fervent admirers, that either Mr. Balfour or Lord Rothschild would prove to be the Messiah. I claim that the lives that British Jews have led, that the aims that they have had before them, that the part that they have played in our public life and our public institutions, have entitled them to be regarded, not as British Jews, but as Jewish Britons. I would willingly disenfranchise every Zionist. I would be almost tempted to proscribe the Zionist organisation as illegal and against the national interest. But I would ask the British Government sufficient tolerance to refuse a conclusion which makes aliens and foreigners by implication, if not at once by law, of all their Jewish citizens. The Temple may have been in Palestine, but so was the Sermon of the Mount and the Crucifixion. I would not deny to Jews in Palestine equal rights to colonisation with those who profess other religions, but a religious test of citizenship seems to me the only admitted by those who take a bigoted and narrow view of one particular epoch in the history of Palestine. If my memory serves me right, there are three times as many Jews in the world as could possible get into Palestine if you drove out all the population that remains there now. So only 1/3 will get back at the most, and what will happen to the others?” And he goes on to say. “Why should the Russians give the Jew equal rights? His national home in Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine. And then he goes on to say he doesn’t know how they would choose. So basically he also is against a specific Jewish legion. He thinks Jewish should fight in the British army. So, here you have a complete refusal. Let me read you this again and let’s go on to questions.

Q&A and Comments:

"Zionism has always seemed to me a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish Englishman sets his mind on The Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he seems to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and to have admitted that he is unfit for a share in public life of Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman.”

Okay, I’ll stop there. Now remember, this is at a period in history when there were very few non-Christian minorities living in England. England was still a Christian country and the Jews were the only sizable non-Christian minority. So, Edwin Montagu violently anti-Zionist. He was aware of antisemitism. Obviously, it affected him very, very deeply. He fell madly in love with an English aristocrat who really treated him like a piece of dirt. He, in many ways I see him as a tragic figure. As I said, he died young, but his views, he was the most anti-Zionist Jew in the British cabinet. Far more anti-Zionist than any of the others. The only other member of the cabinet who was anti-Zionist was Curzon. Under Lloyd George, he didn’t, although he was in the cabinet as Secretary of State, he didn’t have, he wasn’t part of the inner circle. And when he was sent to India, he actually said, “How can you send me to India representing the British Government when you tell me my home is at the end of the Eastern Mediterranean.” But these issues and dilemmas of identity, I don’t think we’re free of them even today, even though of course Britain is certainly a far more multicultural country. But let’s see what you’ve all got to say. So let’s have a look at the questions.

Thank you Hannah, for doing the slides for me. I’m going to skip the first ones because luckily, very sweet of you.

So many of you’re saying nice things about lockdown.

Q: Well, Shelly says, does low church or high church translate into different attitudes against Jews and Zionism?

A: Depends when you’re talking about. Now, there’s a real problem, particularly with the Methodists, but certainly at that time low church in the main was much more pro than high Anglicanism or Catholicism.

Jennifer’s saying the website works perfectly. I’m really, I’m really jamming on now 'cause I want to see if we’ve got any… Everybody’s happy. That is so wonderful.

Helena Bonham Carter’s mother is Jewish. My grandparents was the story of both sides. Yes, of course she is on the other side, yeah, and was involved in rescue.

Oh, basically Paula, Wendy’s was just talking about the website.

Q: Oh, I think that’s… Oh, Shelly’s asking, can you recommend a book explaining these different Jewish organisations and shore movements for which there are no parallel in the US?

A: I will recommend. Actually interesting, Shelly, one of the things we are going to put on the website, give us time, are better bibliographies so that on particular subjects you’re going to have more opportunity to read around.

David Garfield, my grandfather also from Lithuania was named Benjamin Benjamin. Frankly, I think nearly all the questions are about website. I’d be interested if any of you want to put questions on about identity, because I just think their story is really all about identity.

Anyone, any more points?

Q: What is the reason for naming an offspring first and last name the same?

A: In the main, what happened was as you went through customs, that’s what usually happened. You’ve got to remember also quite a few Eastern European Jews, although they were meant to, they didn’t necessarily, and they still kept their Jewish names like Shlomo Venyakov. And at customs, as I said, my great uncle was Mr. Lewis Lewis, which was very, it was very confusing.

Oh, I think that’s it actually. Anyway, Hannah, thank you very, very much and we are live. Okay, God bless everyone. Bye.