A LIFE OF SIR JOHN ELDON GORST
CASS SERIES: BRITISH POLITICS AND SOCIETY
Series Editor: Peter Catterall
ISSN: 1467-1441
Social change impacts not just upon voting behaviour and party identity but also the formulation of policy. But how do social changes and political developments interact? Which shapes which? Reflecting a belief that social and political structures cannot be understood either in isolation from each other or from the historical processes which form them, this series will examine the forces that have shaped British society. Cross-disciplinary approaches will be encouraged. In the process, the series will aim to make a contribution to existing fields, such as politics, sociology and media studies, as well as opening out new and hitherto neglected fields such as management history.
Peter Catterall (ed.), The Making of Channel 4
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Peter Catterall, Wolfram Kaiser and Ulrike Walton-Jordan (eds), Reforming the Constitution: Debates in Twenty-Century Britain
Brock Millman, Pessimism and British War Policy, 19161918
Adrian Smith and Dilwyn Porter (eds), Amateurs and Professionals in Post-war British Sport
Archie Hunter, A Life of Sir John Eldon Gorst: Disraelis Awkward Disciple
Harry Defries, Conservative Party Attitudes to Jews, 19001950
A LIFE OF SIR JOHN ELDON GORST
Disraelis Awkward Disciple
Archie Hunter
First published in 2001 by
FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS
Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright 2001 A. Hunter
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hunter, Archie, 1929
A life of Sir John Eldon Gorst: Disraelis awkward disciple / Archie Hunter.
p. cm. (CASS series-British politics and society, ISSN 14671441)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. Gorst, John Eldon, Sir 18351916. 2. Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 18041881Friends and associates. 3. Great BritainPolitics and government18371901. 4. PoliticiansGreat BritainBiography. 5. BritishNew Zealand Biography. I. Title II. Series.
DA565.G47 H86 2001
941.081092aBdc21
2001028288
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hunter, Archie, 1929
A life of Sir John Eldon Gorst: Disraelis awkward disciple. (Cass series. British politics and society)
1. Gorst, Sir John Eldon, 18351916 2. Politicians Great Britain biography 3. Great Britain Politics and government 19th century
I. Title
941.081092
ISBN 13: 978-0-714-65180-4 (hbk)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, zuithout the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.
Dedicated to the descendants of John and Mary Gorst
Contents
Between pages 140 and 141
. Winckley Square, Preston.
. The grammar school, Preston.
. The Red Jacket clipper ship.
. John Eldon Gorst (hereafter JEG), c. 1863.
. Wiremu Tamihana.
. Rewi Maniapoto.
. Right Revd Bishop Selwyn.
. Sir George Grey.
. A. J. Balfour.
. Benjamin Disraeli.
. Randolph Churchill.
. Royal Commission on Labour (with JEG standing up).
. JEG as Minister of Education.
. Jack Gorst.
. Harold Gorst.
. Hylda Hunter (ne Gorst).
. Edith Sykes (ne Gorst).
. Eva Gorst.
. Gwendolen Herbert (ne Gorst).
. JEG with General William Booth of the Salvation Army, c. 1903.
. JEG in 1899.
. JEG with Maori friends, 1906.
. JEG with Eva in Maori canoe, 1906.
. Castle Combe Manor House, Wilts.
Everybody who takes a serious interest in nineteenth-century British politics has heard of Sir John Eldon Gorst. He established Conservative Central Office in 1870 and became the Conservative Partys principal agent. Disraeli approved Gorsts appointment for which the latter was, in modern parlance, head-hunted. It was a crucial moment in the history of the Party, because Gorst did a superb job and it is not too much to claim that many aspects of the modern Conservative Party stem directly from his reforms and initiatives. Though the broad country acres could be left to the reliable Tory squirearchy, urban Toryism gained its successes as a result of Gorsts foresight.
So much is known and so much is universally conceded. Yet, strangely enough, little else is now remembered about this remarkable man. Reading this striking biography of Gorst, by his descendant Archie Hunter, I repeatedly broke off in order to rebuke myself for having forgotten an illuminating fact about politics that Gorsts life illustrates. Eventually, I faced the fact that my memory was not unusually fallible on the subject. I had never known in the first place what Archie Hunter so carefully explains. Like others who pride themselves on their grasp of mid- and late-Victorian history there were alarming gaps in my knowledge. There can surely be no better recommendation of any biography than that it is packed with new information that encourages fresh thinking.
It may be objected that since Gorst was not a Prime Minister, or party leader, learning a lot more about his life can hardly have all that much impact on either our judgement or imagination. This is a gross error, perhaps derived from the modern cult of celebrity. The idea that the intellectual contribution of former generations is best assessed by discovering which of them occupied important offices is a view so wide of the mark as to be obviously wrong directly it is openly stated. Gorst was a much wiser and more far-sighted man than many who held high office.
His career demonstrates how different was the Conservative Party then to what it has subsequently become. The first difference is often mentioned, but the second, of even greater importance, is rarely stressed. These days the Conservative Party depends little upon the Duke and the Marquis. In Gorsts time the aristocratic domination of the Party was very apparent. Disraeli himself, though his own origins owed nothing to, and his outlook but a mere acquaintance with, the nobilitys attitudes, found it prudent to surround himself, in and out of office, with a disproportionate number of peers. Such a climate did not help Gorsts political advancement. He was a classic example of the gifts of the educated middle classes. That such gifts were often undervalued was an inevitable by-product of arrangements that bestowed favours so easily and casually upon aristocratic background.
What is very infrequently commented upon is that the Victorian Conservative Party had a much less close commitment to capitalism, or what is now usually called the free-enterprise system, than was the case in the twentieth century. Naturally that does not mean that Victorian Tories were, in any sense, socialistic, or sought any dramatic change in the social or economic order. It is more that their assumptions did not run so strongly in the belief that they were involved in a struggle of ideologies between capitalism and socialism. Such an intense ideological battle was the essence of the twentieth century rather than of the nineteenth. Men like Gorst had no particular qualms about a measure of state intervention, because it did not occur to them that using the power of the state to rectify wrongs implied any danger to capitalism.
