Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman PC (24 October 1873 – 17 November 1927) was a British radical

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

politician, intellectual and man of letters. He worked closely with such Liberal leaders as

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during t ...

and

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

in designing social welfare projects, including the

National Insurance Act 1911 The National Insurance Act 1911 created National Insurance, originally a system of health insurance for industrial workers in Great Britain based on contributions from employers, the government, and the workers themselves. It was one of the foun ...

. During the First World War he played a central role in the main government propaganda agency.

Early life

Masterman was the third son of Thomas W. Masterman of Rotherfield Hall in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

. His older brothers were the future natural historian

Arthur Masterman Arthur Thomas Masterman FRS FRSE (9 April 1869 – 10 February 1941) was an English zoologist and author. He was an expert on the British fishing industry. Life He was born on 9 April 1869 the son of Thomas W. Masterman of Rotherfield Hall in ...

and the future bishop Howard Masterman. On his mother’s side, Masterman was a grandson of

William Brodie Gurney William Brodie Gurney (1777–1855) was an English shorthand writer and philanthropist of the 19th century. Biography Gurney was the younger son of Joseph Gurney, shorthand writer, who died at Walworth, Surrey, in 1815, by a daughter of William ...

and a distant relation of

Elizabeth Fry Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney; 21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845), sometimes referred to as Betsy Fry, was an English prison reformer, social reformer, philanthropist and Quaker. Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to improve the tr ...

. He was educated at

Weymouth College Weymouth College is a further education college located in Weymouth, England. The college has over 4,000 students, studying on a wide range of practical and academic courses in many subjects. The college is part of The University of Plymouth ...

and

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

, where he was President of the Union, and joint Secretary of the

Cambridge University Liberal Club Cambridge University Liberal Association (CULA) is the student branch of the Liberal Democrats for students at Cambridge University. It is the successor to the Cambridge Student Liberal Democrats, which in turn was formed from the merger of Cam ...

from 1895 to 1896. At the university, he had two primary interests: social reform (influenced by

Christian Socialism Christian socialism is a religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing left-wing politics and socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe capi ...

) and literature. His first published work was ''From the Abyss'', a collection of articles he had written anonymously while living in the slums of south east London. These were highly impressionistic pieces and reflected his literary leanings. Following this, Masterman became a journalist and co-edited the ''English Review'' with

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review'' were instrumental in ...

. In February 1900 he was elected a junior

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of Christ's College. In 1901, he edited a collection of essays by eminent people of the day, entitled ''The Heart of the Empire: a discussion of Problems of Modern City Life in England''. In 1905 he published ''In Peril of Change'', a collection of his own essays. He also wrote a biography of the Reverend

F. D. Maurice John Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–1872), known as F. D. Maurice, was an English Anglican theologian, a prolific author, and one of the founders of Christian socialism. Since the Second World War, interest in Maurice has expanded."Fre ...

''Frederick Denison Maurice''
, published in 1907. In the years up to 1906, he established many of the literary friendships that would be important in his later role as head of British propaganda in the First World War.

Political career

Masterman was an unsuccessful candidate at the

1903 Dulwich by-election The 1903 Dulwich by-election was a by-election held on 15 December 1903 for the British House of Commons constituency of Dulwich in South London. Vacancy The by-election was triggered by the death of the serving Conservative Party Member of P ...

, but in the Liberal Party landslide victory at the general election of 1906, he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for West Ham North. 1906 Charles Masterman

In 1909, he published his best known book, ''The Condition of England'', a survey of contemporary society with particular focus on the state of the working class. Masterman worked closely with Liberal leaders

and

on the

People's Budget The 1909/1910 People's Budget was a proposal of the Liberal government that introduced unprecedented taxes on the lands and incomes of Britain's wealthy to fund new social welfare programmes. It passed the House of Commons in 1909 but was bloc ...

of 1909. By 1911, he was playing a major role in writing parts of the Finance Bill, the Development Bill, the Shop Hours Bill, and the Coal Mines Bill, and he was responsible for the passage through parliament of the

. He had a mediocre record as a candidate by losing more often than winning. He was re-elected in West Ham North in January 1910 and in December 1910. However, after the second election a petition was filed to unseat him on the grounds of an unlawful return of election expenses, and this proved successful. In July 1911, Masterman was returned to

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

at a by-election in the Bethnal Green South West constituency. He joined the

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...

in 1912, and in 1914 obtained his most important position, an appointment to the Cabinet as

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. The position is the second highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the Prime Minister, and senior to the Minist ...

. However, the law at that time required him to recontest his seat in a by-election on joining the Cabinet. Masterman lost his own seat in February and then in May stood in a by-election at Ipswich, losing yet again. He resigned from the government as a result.

Wartime propagandist

In the summer of 1914, Masterman strongly supported British entry into the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and was soon appointed as head of the

War Propaganda Bureau Wellington House is the more common name for Britain's War Propaganda Bureau, which operated during the First World War from Wellington House, a building on Buckingham Gate, London, which was the headquarters of the National Insurance Commission b ...

(WPB), known as "Wellington House." His Bureau enlisted the eminent writers

John Buchan John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation. After a brief legal career ...

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

, as well as the painters Francis Dodd and Paul Nash. Before its abolition in 1917, the Bureau published some 300 books and pamphlets in 21 languages, distributed over 4,000 propaganda photographs every week, and circulated maps, cartoons and lantern slides to the media. Masterman also commissioned films about the war such as ''The Battle of the Somme'', which appeared in , while the battle was still in progress, as a morale-booster. It received a generally favourable reception. ''The Times'' reported on 1916, "Crowded audiences ... were interested and thrilled to have the realities of war brought so vividly before them, and if women had sometimes to shut their eyes to escape for a moment from the tragedy of the toll of battle which the film presents, opinion seems to be general that it was wise that the people at home should have this glimpse of what our soldiers are doing and daring and suffering in Picardy." A major objective of his department was to encourage the United States to enter the war on the British and French side. Lecture tours and exhibitions of paintings were organised in the US, drawing on an extensive network of the most important and influential figures in the London arts scene, Masterman devising the most comprehensive arts patronage schemes ever to be supported in the country. It was subsumed into Buchan's Department of Information. It became a template for the war art scheme in the Second World War, headed by

Sir Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...

. Lloyd George demoted Masterman in February 1917; he now reported to Buchan. The agency was peremptorily closed as soon as the war ended, and neither Masterman nor Buchan received the usual public honours. However, Masterman followed Lloyd George in his Liberal party maneuvers after 1918. Masterman played a crucial role in publicising reports of the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...

, in part to strengthen the moral case against the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. For his role, Masterman has been the target of repeated Turkish allegations that he fabricated, or at least embellished, the events for propaganda purposes.

Career after the war

For the 1918 general election, Masterman returned to West Ham where he had sat for five years before the war. He contested the new seat of Stratford West Ham. However, his old boss, Lloyd George, chose to endorse his Unionist opponent, and he was badly beaten. Stratford1918

Back into private life, Masterman continued his high output of books and essays. In 1922, he publishe
''How England is Governed''
In 1921, he supported the Manchester Liberals radical programme, adopted by the National Liberal Federation, which called for the establishment of a National Industrial Council, state supervision of trusts and combines, nationalisation of some monopolies as well as profit limitations. For the 1922 general Election, Masterman decided to contest

Clay Cross Clay Cross is a town and a civil parish in the North East Derbyshire district of Derbyshire, England. It is a former industrial and mining town, about south of Chesterfield. It is directly on the A61. Surrounding settlements include North W ...

in Derbyshire. At the previous election in 1918, the Liberal candidate had been endorsed by the Coalition Government and won. He subsequently took the Coalition Liberal whip and was defending his seat as a National Liberal, with the support of Lloyd George. The local Liberal association wanted an opponent of the coalition to run as their candidate and managed to attract Masterman. He outpolled the sitting member by nearly two to one, but the seat was won by the Labour candidate. After the election, there was discussion in Liberal circles, of Lloyd George and his National Liberals returning to the party. Masterman was concerned about such a move and talked about defecting to the Labour Party if that happened. Masterman's good political relationship with the Manchester Liberals resulted in their inviting him to contest one of their constituencies, which he accepted. The Manchester Liberals won five seats at the 1923 general election, including Rusholme, where Masterman stood. Following his election victory in 1923, Masterman revealed to his wife Lucy that he "thought we were never going to (win) again".''The Downfall of the Liberal Party'', by Trevor Wilson In August 1924, he led the opposition to a treaty, negotiated by the Labour government, which guaranteed a loan to the Soviet government. During the 1924 election campaign, Masterman publicly blamed Prime Minister

Ramsay MacDonald James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 ...

for the collapse of Liberal-Labour co-operation. At the General election of 1924, Masterman was heavily defeated in Manchester Rusholme by the Unionist candidate Frank Boyd Merriman. The same fate befell almost all the Liberal members of parliament in England. In 1925, he became the Parliamentary Correspondent for ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

''. Having initially expressed concerns about Lloyd George's return to the Liberal Party, he had acknowledged that it was again easier to get the party to adopt measures of social reform: "When Lloyd George came back to the party, ideas came back to the party". Lloyd George sponsored a number of reviews into areas of Liberal Party policy, and Masterman participated in those reviews, notably as part of the body that produced the policy document ''Coal and Power''. He was also on the committee that ultimately produced '' Britain's Industrial Future'', known as ''The Yellow Book''. Masterman‘s health declined rapidly, hastened by drug and alcohol abuse. He died in November 1927 at Bowden House, Harrow, leaving an estate valued at only £452. His address at death was stated as 46, Gillingham Street,

Eccleston Square Eccleston Square is a square in Pimlico, London. History The square dates to the 1830s, an integral part of Thomas Cubitt's planned design of "South Belgravia", which is now called Pimlico. Cubitt designed many of the houses on the square and b ...

, Westminster. He was buried in St Giles' Church, Camberwell, where a memorial tablet in the church commemorates him, stating that he had lived there for ten years. There is another for his wife.

Assessments

Religion was central to Masterman’s career, and he worked to revive the Gladstonian alliance between Liberalism and Nonconformity. He frequently used the language of prophecy—for which he had been inspired by Thomas Carlyle and other seers. Masterman had a long-standing influence as a champion of radical change. On one hand, he ridiculed anachronistic attachments to outmoded Victorian ideals and institutions. However, his own rhetoric was deeply rooted in high Victorian idealism. He proposed a wide-ranging program to assist the working class, such as labour exchanges, wage boards and free meals for schoolchildren. Historians have puzzled as to his ability to lose elections that had been prearranged for him. He had psychological problems, such as severe mood swings and mental health problems, and his public demeanour often struck observers as cynical and self-righteous.

described Masterman as "one of the most brilliant, misunderstood, and tragically fated men of his time".

Personal life

In 1908, Masterman married Lucy Blanche Lyttelton, poet,” and writer, later a politician, daughter of General Sir Neville Lyttelton. She was the author of ''A Book of Wild Things'' (1910), ''Poems'' (1913), and ''London from the Bus-top'' (1951); she also edited ''Mary Gladstone (Mrs Drew): her diaries and letters'' (1930). They had three children: * Margaret Mary Masterman (4 May 1910 - 1 April 1986), a British linguist and philosopher most known for her pioneering work in the field of

computational linguistics Computational linguistics is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, comput ...

and especially

machine translation Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation or interactive translation), is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates t ...

. She founded the Cambridge Language Research Unit and was a founding

Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge Lucy Cavendish College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college is named in honour of Lucy Cavendish (1841–1925), who campaigned for the reform of women's education. Hist ...

. * Neville Charles Masterman (1912 - 2019), an academic historian at

Swansea University , former_names=University College of Swansea, University of Wales Swansea , motto= cy, Gweddw crefft heb ei dawn , mottoeng="Technical skill is bereft without culture" , established=1920 – University College of Swansea 1996 – University of Wa ...

. He served in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and was transferred to

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

where he learned Japanese to help with translation. Neville went to

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

and read

Theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

at Christ's College, Cambridge, his father's college. * Dorothy Hilda Masterman (1914 - 1981). Lucy Masterman's biography of her husband was published in 1939. The Masterman Papers are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.

Election results

References

External links

*
''Tennyson as a Religious Teacher''
(1900)
''The Child and Religion''
article in collection edited by Thomas Stephens (1905)
''To colonise England: a plea for a policy''
edited with W B Hodgson and others (1907)
''Ruskin the Prophet''
article in collection edited by J H Whitehouse (1920)
''England after War: A study''
by John Buchan (1922)
Full text of 'The Condition of England'
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Masterman, Charles Frederick Gurney Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster Presidents of the Cambridge Union Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge People educated at Weymouth College (public school) British male journalists British propagandists 1873 births 1927 deaths Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom UK MPs 1906–1910 UK MPs 1910 UK MPs 1910–1918 UK MPs 1923–1924