LIBRARY UNIVtrtSUY Of CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO THE LIFE OF THE RT. HON. SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, BART., M.P. First Edition . . . September, 1917 Second Impression . . September, 1917 Second Edition . . . October, 1917 RT. HON. SIR CHAKLES W. DILKE, BART., M.P., IX THE YEAR 1873. From the painting by G. F. Watts in the National Portrait Gallery. Frontispiece, Vol. I. THE LIFE OF THE RT. HON. SIR CHARLES W. DILKE BART., M.P. BEGUN BY STEPHEN GWYNN, M.P. COMPLETED AND EDITED BY GERTRUDE M. TUCKWELL LITERARY EXECUTRIX OF SIR CHARLES DILKE WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1917 All rights retwed PREFACE THE following Life of Sir Charles W. Dilke consists mainly of his own Memoirs and of correspondence left by him or furnished by his friends. The Memoirs were compiled by Sir Charles Dilke from his private diaries and letters between the years 1888 and his return to Parliament in 1892. The private diaries con- sisted of entries made daily at the dates dealt with. Of the Memoirs he says: " These notes are bald, but I thought it best not to try, as the phrase goes, ' to write them up.' ' In some cases the Memoirs have been condensed into narra- tive, for Sir Charles says of the periods his " notes " cover: " These chapters contain everything that can be used, and more than is needed, arid changes should be by way of ' boiling down.' ' The Memoirs were unfinished. He writes in May, 1893: " From this time forward I shall not name my speeches and ordinary action in the House, as I had now regained the position which I held up to 1878, though not my position of 1878-1880, nor that of 1884-85;" and as from this point onwards there are few entries, chapters treating of his varied activities have been contributed by those competent to deal with them. Sir Charles Dilke's will, after giving full discretionary powers to his literary executrix, contains these words: "I would suggest that, as regards those parts relating to Ireland, Egypt, and South Africa, the same shall be made vi PREFACE use of (if at all) without editing, as they have been agreed to by a Cabinet colleague chiefly concerned." A further note shows that, so far as Ireland was concerned, the years 1884-85 cover the dates to which Sir Charles Dilke alludes. The part of the Memoirs dealing with these subjects has therefore been printed in extenso, except in the case of some detailed portions of a discussion on Egyptian finance. The closing words of this part of Sir Charles Dilke's will point out to his executrix that " it would be inconsistent with my lifelong views that she should seek assistance in editing from anyone closely connected with either the Liberal or Conservative party, so as to import into the publications any of the conventional attitude of the old parties. The same objection will not apply to members of the other parties." In consequence of this direction, Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., whose name was among those sug- gested by Sir Charles Dilke, was asked to undertake the work of arranging the Memoirs, and supplementing them where necessary. This work was already far advanced when Mr. Gwynn joined the British forces on the outbreak of the War. His able and sympathetic assistance was thus withdrawn from the work entailed in the final editing of this book a work which has occupied the Editor until going to press. A deep debt of gratitude is due to Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, who has contributed the chapters on " The British Army " and " Imperial Defence." Sir George Askwith was good enough, amidst almost overwhelming pressure of public duties, to read and revise the chapter entitled " The Turn- ing-Point." Sir George Barnes and Sir John Mellor have also freely given expert advice and criticism. Mrs. H. J. Tennant, Miss Constance Smith, Mr. E. S. Grew, Mr. H. K. Hudson, and Mr. John Randall have given much valuable PREFACE vii assistance. The work of reading proofs and verifying references was made easy by their help. While thanking all those who have placed letters at her disposal, the Editor would specially acknowledge the kindness with which Mr. Austen Chamberlain has met applications for leave to publish much correspondence. Mr. John Murray's great experience has made his constant counsel of the utmost value ; and from the beginning to the close of the Editor's task the literary judgment of the Rev. W. Tuckwell has been placed unsparingly at her service. Sir H. Austin Lee and Mr. Bodley, who were Sir Charles Dilke's official secretaries when he was a Minister, have given her useful information as to political events and dates. To the many other friends, too numerous to name, who have contributed "recollections " and aid, grateful acknow- ledgments must be made. Finally, the Editor expresses her warmest thanks to Lord Fitzmaurice, who has laid under contribution, for the benefit of Sir Charles Dilke's Life, his great knowledge of con- temporary history and of foreign affairs, without which invaluable aid the work of editing could not have been completed. INTRODUCTION THE papers from which the following Memoir is written were left to my exclusive care because for twenty-five years I was intimately associated with Sir Charles Dilke's home and work and life. Before the year 1885 I had met him only once or twice, but I recall how his kindness and considera- tion dissipated a young girl's awe of the great political figure. From the year 1885, when my aunt, Mrs. Mark Pattison, married Sir Charles, I was constantly with them, acting from 1893 as secretary in their trade-union work. Death came to her in 1904, and till January, 1911, he fought alone. In the earlier days there was much young life about the house. Mrs. H. J. Tennant, that most loyal of friends, stands out as one who, hardly less than I, used to look on 76, Sloane Street, as a home. There is no need to bear witness to the happiness of that home. The Book of the Spiritual Life, in which are collected my aunt's last essays, contains also the Memoir of her written by her husband, and the spirit which breathes through those pages bears perfect testimony to an abiding love. The atmosphere of the house was one of work, and the impression left upon the mind was that no life was truly lived unless it was largely dedicated to public service. To the labours of his wife, a " Benedictine, working always and everywhere," Sir Charles bears testimony. But what of his own labours ? " Nothing will ever come before my ix x INTRODUCTION work," were his initial words to me in the days when I first became their secretary. Through the years realization of this fact became complete, so that, towards the last, remon- strances at his ceaseless labour were made with hopeless hearts ; we knew he would not purchase length of life by the abatement of one jot of his energy. He did not expect long life, and death was ever without terror for him. For years he anticipated a heart seizure, so that in the complete ordering of his days he lived each one as if it were his last. The house was a fine school, for in it no waste of force was permitted. He had drilled himself to the suppression of emotion, and he would not tolerate it in those who worked with him except as an inspiration to action. " Keep your tears for your speeches, so that you make others act; leave off crying and think what you can do," was the characteristic rebuke bestowed upon one of us who had reported a case of acute industrial suffering. He never indulged in rhetoric or talked of first principles, and one divined from chance words of encouragement the deep feeling and passion for justice which formed the inspiration of his work. He utilized every moment. The rapidity of his transition from one kind of work to another, and his immediate con- centration on a subject totally different from that which he had previously handled, were only equalled by the rapidity with which he turned from work to play. With the same unerring quickness he would gather up the contents of a book or appreciate the drift of a question. This latter characteristic, I fear, often disconcerted dispu- tants, who objected to leave their nicely turned periods incomplete because he had grasped the point involved before they were halfway through a sentence ; but his delight in find- ing this same rapidity of thought in others was great, and I remember his instancing it as a characteristic of Mr. Asquith. His wide grasp of every question with which he dealt INTRODUCTION xi was accompanied by so complete a knowledge of its smallest details that vague or inaccurate statements were intolerable to him ; but I think the patience with which he sifted such statements was amongst the finest features in the discipline of working under him. One felt it a crime to have wasted that time of which no moment was ever deliberately wasted by himself. The spirit in which he approached his work was one of detachment from all personal considerations ; the introduc- tion of private feuds or dislikes into public service was a thing impossible to him and to be severely rebuked in those who helped him. He never belittled antagonists, underrated his opponents' ability, or hesitated to admit a mistake. Others will testify in the pages which follow to the warmth and generosity of his friendship, but that which stands out in memory is his forbearance to his foes. Just as his knowledge was complete in its general grasp as in its smallest detail, so was his sympathy all-embracing. No suffering, says the Secretary of the Anti-Sweating League, was too small for his help ; the early atrocities of Congo misrule did not meet with a readier response than did the wrongs of some heavily fined factory girl or the suffer- ings of the victim of a dangerous trade. For his own achievements he was curiously regardless of fame. He gave ungrudgingly of his knowledge to all who claimed his help and direction, and he trained many other men to great public service. In Mr. Alfred Lyttel- ton's happy phrase, he possessed " rare self-effacement." There are many instances in his early career of this habit of self-effacement, and the habit increased with years. Re- monstrance met with the reply: " What does it matter who gets the credit so long as the work is done ?" It is for this reason that we who love him shall ever bear xii INTRODUCTION in affectionate memory those who brought his laurels home to him in their celebration of the passing of the Trade Boards Act in 1910 that first instalment of the principle of the minimum wage, on which he united all parties and of which he had been the earliest advocate. It has been said of his public life that he knew too much and interested himself in too many things ; but those coming after who regard his life as a whole will see the connecting link which ran through all. I can speak only of that side of his activities in which I served him. He saw the cause of labour in Great Britain as it is linked with the conditions of labour throughout the globe; his fight against slavery in the Congo, his constant pressure for enlightened govern- ment in India, his championship of the native races every- where, were all part and parcel of the objects to which he had pledged himself from the first. For progress and de- velopment it is necessary that a country should be at peace, and his study of military and naval problems was dictated by the consideration of the best means under existing con- ditions to obtain that end for England. Yet to imagine that his life was all work would be to wrong the balance of his nature. He turned from letters and papers to his fencing bout, his morning gallop, or his morning scull on the river, with equal enthusiasm, and his great resonant boyish laugh sounded across the reach at Dockett or echoed through the house after a successful " touch." His keenness for athletic exercises, dating from his early Cambridge days lasted, as his work did, to the end. In spite of the warnings of an overtaxed heart, he sculled each morning of the last summer at Dockett, and in Paris he handed over his foils to his fencing-school only a month before his death, leaving, like Mr. Valiant-for-Truth before he crossed the river, his arms to those who could wield them. It was well for him; he could not have borne long INTRODUCTION xiii years of failing strength and ebbing mental energy. Any- thing less than life at its full was death to him. Released from work, he was intensely gay, and his tastes were sufficiently simple for him to find enjoyment every- where. He loved all beautiful things, and, though he had seen everything, the gleam of the sinking sun through the pine aisles at his Pyrford cottage would hold him spell- bound; and in summer he would spend hours trying to dis- tinguish the bird notes, naming the river flora, or watching the creature life upon the river banks. So in the Forest of Dean, that constituency which he loved well and which well deserved his love, his greatest pleasure was to set himself as guide to all its pleasant places, rehearsing the name of each blue hill on the far horizon, tracing the windings and meeting of the rivers, loving all best, I think, when the ground was like a sea of bluebells and anemones in the early year. He watched eagerly each season for the first signs of spring, and when he was very ill he told me that it must ever be a joy untouched by advancing years. But indeed he had in him the heart of the spring. I think it was largely this simple love of nature which kept him always strong and sweet even after the deep blow of his wife's death in 1904. Wherever he was, life took on warmth and colour. Travel with him was a revelation, trodden and hackneyed though the road might be. In his vivid narrative the past lived again. Once more troops fought and manoeuvred as we passed through stretches of peaceful country which were the battlefields of France; Provence broke on us out of a mist of legendary lore, the enchantment deepening as we reached the little-traversed highlands near the coast those Mountains of the Moors where in past days, connu comme le loup blanc among the people, he had wandered on foot with his old Provengal servant before motors and light railways were. xiv INTRODUCTION His care for the Aihenceum, inspired by the more than filial love he bore his grandfather, its earlier proprietor, led to continual reading and reviewing, and he would note with interest those few Parliamentarians who, keeping them- selves fresh for their work of routine by some touch with the world of Literature, thereby, as he phrased it, " saved their souls." Of the events which cut his public life asunder it is sufficient to say here that those nearest him never believed in the truth of the charges brought, finding it almost incon- ceivable that they should have been made ; while the letters and records in my hands bear testimony to that great outer circle of friends, known and unknown, who have expressed by spoken or by written word, in public and in private, their share in that absolute belief in him which was a cardinal fact of our work and life. The fortitude which gave to his country, after the crash of 1886, twenty-five years of tireless work, was inspired, for those who knew him best, by that consciousness of rectitude which holds a man above the clamour of tongues, and finds its reward in the fulfilment of his life's purpose. " To have an end, a purpose, an object pursued through all vicissitudes of fortune, through heart's anguish and ehame, through humiliation and disaster and defeat that is the great distinction, the supreme justification of a life." So wrote his wife in her preface for The Shrine of Death. The service of his country was the purpose of his life. Nor was that life justified alone by his unswerving pursuit of its great aim; it was justified also in its fulfilment, for his service was entirely fruitful he wrested success from failure, gain from loss. It has been said that in 1 886 the nation lost one who would have been among its greatest administrators. Yet when we look back on all that was inspired and done by him, on the INTRODUCTION xv thousand avenues of usefulness into which his boundless energy was directed, there is no waste, only magnificent achievement. An independent critic both by pen and speech inside and outside the House of Commons, the consolidator of what- ever Radical forces that chamber held, the representative of labour before the Labour Party was, he stood for all the forces of progress, and when his great figure passed into the silence his place was left unfilled. One writing for an African journal the record of his funeral, dreamed that as the strains of the anthem poured their blessings on " him that hath endured," there rose behind the crowd which gathered round him dead a greater band of mourners. " A vast unseen concourse of oppressed mankind were there, coming to do homage to one who had ever found time, amidst his manifold activities, to plead their cause with wisdom, unfailing knowledge, and with keen sympathy of heart." I commit his memory to the people whom he loved and served. G. M. T. CONTENTS OF VOL. I CHAPTER PAGE I. EARLY LIFE - -, - - - 1 H. EDUCATION - - 11 m. CAMBRIDGE - ... *>.- - 24 iv. CAMBRIDGE (continued) - - - - 40 V. LAST TERMS AT THE UNIVERSITY - 49 VI. " GREATER BRITAIN " "' 60 VII. ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT - - - - 74 Vin. THE EDUCATION BILL OF 1870 THE FRANCO- GERMAN WAB - - - - - 94 IX. THE BLACK SEA TREATY THE COMMUNE - - 115 X. THE CIVIL LIST - - 135 XI. PERIOD OF FIRST MARRIAGE - - 153 XH. RE-ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT DEATH OF LADY DILKE 169 XHI. RENEWAL OF ACTIVITY - - - 184 XIV. REVIVAL OF THE EASTERN QUESTION - 202 XV. HOME POLITICS AND PERSONAL SURROUNDINGS - 225 XVI. THE EASTERN QUESTION TREATY OF SAN STEFANO AND CONGRESS OF BERLIN - 236 XVII. POLITICS AND PERSONS - 256 XVIII. THE ZULU WAR AND THE GREEK COMMITTEE - 270 XIX. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INTERESTS - - 283 XX. THE FORMATION OF A MINISTRY - 298 XXI. AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE - 318 xvii xviii CONTENTS CHAPTKR HAOK XXII. HOME POLITICS COMMERCIAL TREATY PERSONAL MATTERS - 343 XXin. COERCION CLOSURE MAJUBA - 360 XXIV. EUROPEAN POLITICS - 378 XXV. COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH FRANCE - 392 XXVI. GAMBETTA, DISRAELI, ROYAL PERSONAGES, MORIER 402 XXVH. DIFFICULTIES OF THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT - 420 XXVIII. THE PHCENIX PARK MURDERS - 436 xxry. EGYPT (JANUARY TO SEPTEMBER, 1882) - , 450 XXX. ENTRY INTO THE CABINET (SEPTEMBER TO DECEM- BER, 1882) - 481 XXXI. AT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD - 503 XXXH. FOREIGN AND COLONIAL AFFAIRS (OCTOBER, 1882, TO DECEMBER, 1883) - 529 XXXIII. EGYPT AFTER TEL-EL-KEBIR (SEPTEMBER, 1882, TO DECEMBER, 1883} - - 543 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. 1 RT. HON. SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, M.P., IN THE YEAR 1873 - - -Frontispiece Photographed by F. Hollyer from the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery. TO FACE PAGE SIR CHARLES W. DILKE AS A CHILD 10 From the miniature by Fanny Corbaux. MR. CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE (SIR CHARLES W. DILKE'S GRANDFATHER) 48 Photographed by F. Hollyer from the painting by Arthur Hughes. SIR C. WENTWORTH DILKE (SIR CHARLES W. DILKE'S FATHER) 86 Photographed by F. Hollyer from the painting by Arthur Hughes. LADY DILKE (MISS KATHERINE SHEIL) - 146 From a photograph by Hills and Saunders. JOHN STUART MILL - 168 Photographed by F. Hollyer from the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A., bequeathed by Sir Charles W. Dilke to the Westminster Town Hall. RT. HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, M.P. - - 304 Photographed by F. Hollyer from_the_ painting by Frank Holl, R.A., buquoatl Gallery. l>equeathed by Sir Charles W. Dilke to the National Portrait Gallery. LEON GAMBETTA - - - 514 Photographed by F. Hollyer from the painting by Legros, bequeathed by Sir Charles W. Dilke to the Luxembourg and Louvre Museums. THE LIFE OF SIR CHARLES DILKE CHAPTER I EARLY LIFE THE man whose history is here recorded was for more than forty years a commanding figure upon the theatre of English public life ; a politician, who in the councils of a powerful Ministry exercised an influence more than proportioned to the offices he held ; a statesman, who brought to trium- phant issue many wise projects, and whose authority, even when he was a private member of Parliament, continued to be recognized not only among all parties of his country- men, but also throughout Europe : yet, when he died, all thought and spoke not of what he had achieved, but of what he had missed. To write the biography of one so marked by a special malignity of fate is a difficult task. That bare justice may be done, it is necessary not only to follow out his openly recorded successes, things done in his own name and of his own right, but also to disentangle, as far as may be, the part which his authority, his knowledge, and his ceaseless industry played in framing and securing measures whose enactment redounded to the credit of other men. But above all, since a man's personality signifies far more than his achievements, and this man stands before the world over- shadowed by a dishonouring accusation, it is necessary to establish by facts and by testimony not so much what he did as what he was. Yet it must not be supposed that he himself counted his career among life's failures. The record will tell of TOL. i 1 2 EARLY LIFE [CHAP, i close and affectionate family ties; of a wonderfully vivid and varied experience acquired in many lands and through many phases of activity ; and, even in his blackest hour, of a noble love retained and richly repaid. No trace will be found of a nature soured or warped by balked ambition, nor any resentful withdrawal from the public stage. In the story that has to be told, proof will emerge indis- putably that, without affected indifference to the prizes of a public career, his passion was for work, not for its attendant honours ; that he valued office as an opportunity to advance, not himself, but the causes which he had at heart ; and that when further tenure of power v/as denied him, he abated no jot of his lifelong labours. The main purpose of his life was ' to revive true courage in the democracy of his country,'* and his immediate object always and everywhere to defend the weak. For the protection of toilers from their task- masters at home and abroad, in the slums of industrial England and in the dark places of Africa, he effected much directly ; but indirectly, through his help and guidance of others, he effected more; and in the recognition of his services by those for whom he worked and those who worked with him he received his reward. Charles Wentworth Dilke was born into a family of English gentlefolk, which after a considerable period of comparative obscurity had won back prosperous days. The baronetcy to which he succeeded was recent, the reward of his father's public services; but a long line of ancestors linked him to a notable landed stock, the Dilkes of Max- stoke. This family was divided against itself in the Civil Wars; and the brother of the inheritor of Maxstoke, Fisher Dilke, from whom Sir Charles descended, was a fanatical Puritan, * Throughout these volumes single quotation marks without further indication signify an excerpt from the Manuscript Memoir (compiled by Sir Charles, as explained in the Preface, from origina.1 diaries and letters), or (as here) from notes left with that document, but not embodied in it. Double quotation marks signify Correspon- dence and Memoranda found in the despatch- cases and letters sent by correspondents, etc. 1742-1826] WENTWORTH AND DILKE and married into a great Puritan house. His wife, Sybil Wentworth, was granddaughter to Peter Wentworth, who led the Puritan party of Elizabeth's reign: she was sister to Sir Peter Wentworth, a distinguished member of Cromwell's Council of State. Property was inherited through her under condition that the Dilke heirs to it should assume the Wentworth name; and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Fisher Dilke's descendants were Wentworth Dilke or Dilke Wentworth from time to time. In George II. 's reign one Wentworth Dilke was clerk to the Board of Green Cloth at Kew Palace: his only son, Wentworth Dilke Wentworth, was secretary to the Earl of Litchfield of the first creation, and left an only son, Charles Wentworth Dilke, who was a clerk in the Admiralty. This Dilke was the first of five who successively have borne this combination of names.* The second of them, Charles Went- worth Dilke, his eldest son, and grandfather to the subject of the memoir, was, like his father, a clerk in the Admiralty ; but early in life showed qualities which fitted him to succeed in another sphere of work qualities through which he exercised a remarkable influence over the character and career of his grandson. So potent was this influence in * For convenience a partial table of descent is inserted, showing the five Dilkes who bore the same combination of names. CHABLES WENTWORTH DILKE, 6. 1742, d. 1826. i Charles Wentworth Dilke Maria Dover b. 1789, d. 1864. Walker. Charles Wentworth Dilke==M. Mary first Baronet, b. 1810, d. 1869. Chatfield. William Dilke, 6. 1796, d. 1885. William Wentworth Grant Dilke, killed in Crimea, b. 1826, d. 1854. Charles Wentworth Dilke=(l) Katherine second Baronet, M. E. Sheil. b. 1843, d. 1911. (2) Emilia F. S. Pattison. Charles Wentworth Dilke, present Baronet, b. 1874. "I Ashton Dilke, o. 1850, d. 1883. 4 EARLY LIFE [OHAP.I moulding the life which has to be chronicled, that it is neces- sary to give some clear idea of the person who exercised it. Mr. Dilke who shall be so called to distinguish him from his son Wentworth Dilke, and from his grandson Charles Dilke at an early period added the pursuit of literature to his duties as a civil servant. By 1815, when he was only twenty-six, Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, already spoke highly of him; and between that date and 1830 he was contributing largely to the monthly and quarterly reviews. In 1830 he acquired a main share in the Athenceum, a journal ' but just born yet nevertheless dying,' and quickly raised it into the high position of critical authority which it maintained, not only throughout his own life, but throughout his grandson's. So careful was Mr. Dilke to preserve its reputation for impartial judgment, that during the sixteen years in which he had virtually entire control of the paper, he withdrew altogether from general society " in order to avoid making literary acquaintances which might either prove annoying to him, or be supposed to compromise the independence of his journal."* After 1846 the editorship of the Athenceum was in other hands, but the proprietor's vigilant interest in it never abated, and was transmitted to his grandson, who con- tinued to the end of his days not only to write for it, but also to read the proofs every week, and repeatedly for brief periods to act as editor. When in 1846 Mr. Dilke curtailed his work on the Athenceum, it was to take up other duties. For three years he was manager of the recently established Daily News, working in close fellowship with his friends John Forster and Charles Dickens. From the time when he gave up this task till his death in 1864 Mr. Dilke's life had one all-engrossing pre- occupation the training of his grandson Charles. But to the last, literary research employed him. In 1849 he helped to estab!ish Notes and Queries ' to be a paper in which * From Papers of a Critic, a selection of Mr. Dilke's essays, edited, with a memoir, by Sir Charles Dilke. See infra, p. 184. 1789-1864] MB. DILKE 5 literary men could answer each other's questions ' ; and his contributions to this paper* and to the Athenceum never ceased ; though so unambitious of any personal repute was he that in all his long career he never signed an article with his own name, nor identified himself with a pseudonym. A man of letters, he loved learning and literature for their own sake; yet stronger still than this love was his desire to transmit to his heirs his own gathered knowledge, ex- perience, and convictions. He had become early ' an antiquary and a Radical,' and this combination rightly indicated unusual breadth of sympathy. The period in which he was born favoured it: for, keen student as he was of the eighteenth century preserving in his own style, perhaps later than any other man who wrote in England, that dignified but sim- ple manner which Swift and Bolingbroke had perfected he yet was intimately in touch with the young genius of an age in revolt against all the eighteenth-century tradition. Keats, only a few years his junior, was his close friend ; so was John Hamilton Reynolds, the comrade of Keats, and author of poems known to every student of that literary group. Thomas Hood and Charles Lamb had long and near asso- ciation with him. Lover of the old, he had always an open heart for the new ; and, bookish though he was, no one could be less a bookworm. The antiquary in him never mastered the Radical : he had an unflagging interest in the large facts of life, an undying faith in human progress. Slighting his own lifework as he evidently did for he never spoke of it to his son or his son's son he was yet prompted by instinct to kindle and tend a torch which one after him should * Its founder and first editor, Mr. W. J. Thorns (afterwards Librarian of the House of Lords), had for three years been con- tributing to the Athenceum columns headed " Folk-Lore " a word coined by him for the purpose. The correspondence which grew out of this threatened to swamp other departments of the paper, and so the project was formed of starting a journal entirely devoted to the subjects which he had been treating. Mr. Dilke, being con- sulted, approved the plan, and lent it his full support. In 1872, when Mr. Thorns retired from control of the paper, Sir Charles Dilke bought it, putting in Dr. Doran as editor; and thenceforward it was published from the same office as the Athenceum. 6 EARLY LIFE [OHAP. i cany, and perhaps should carry high. It would be diffi- cult to name any man who had a stronger sense of the family bond. He had married very young before he was nineteen Maria Dover Walker, the beautiful daughter of a Yorkshire yeoman, still younger than he. This couple, who lived together " in a most complete happiness " for forty years, had one child only, born in 1810, Charles Wentworth Dilke, commonly called Wentworth.* Mr. Dilke sent his son to Westminster, and removed him at the age of sixteen, arranging because his theory of education laid great stress on the advantage of travel that the lad should live for a while with Baron Kirkup, British Consul and miniature painter, in Florence, as a preparatory discipline before going to Cambridge. What he hoped and intended is notably expressed in a letter written by him at Genoa on his return journey to his son in Florence in 1826:f " I ought to be in bed, but somehow you are always first in my thoughts and last, and I prefer five minutes of gos- siping with you. . . . How, indeed, could it be otherwise than that you should be first and last in my thoughts, who for so many years have occupied all my thoughts. For fifteen years at least it has been my pleasure to watch over you, to direct and to advise. Now, direct and personal interference has ceased. ... It is natural, perhaps, that I should take a greater interest than other fathers, for I have a greater interest at stake. I have but one son. That son, too, I have brought up differently from others, and if he be not better than others, it will be urged against me, not as a misfortune, but as a shame. From the first hour I never taught you to believe what I did not myself believe. I have been a thousand times censured for it, but I had that confi- dence in truth that I dared put my faith in it and in you. And you will not fail me. I am sure you will return home to do me honour, and to make me respect you, as I do, and ever shall, love you." It was a singular letter for a man of thirty-seven to write singular in its self-effacement before the rising generation, singular, too, in the intensity of its forecast. Yet, after all, a * Papers of a Critic, vol. L, p. 13. | Ibid., p. 18. 1826-1862] MR. WENTWORTH DILKE 7 measure of disappointment was to be his return for that first venture. The son to whom so great a cargo of hopes had been committed was a vigorous lad, backed when he was fifteen ' to swim or shoot or throw against any boy of his age in England,' and he developed these and kindred energies, accepting culture only in so far as it ministered to his fine natural faculty for enjoyment. He acquired a knowledge of Italian and of operatic music at Florence; but when afterwards at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he was, to his father's despair, very idle, and during his early years in London ' was principally known to his friends for never missing a night at the Opera.' That interest in things of the mind which he could hardly have failed to inherit had made of him a dilettante rather than a scholar; but later he became very active in pro- moting those ideals which appealed to his taste. He had a shrewd business eye, and showed it in founding the Gardeners' Chronicle and the Agricultural Gazette, both paying properties. He had, moreover, a talent for organization, and a zeal in getting things done, acknow- ledged in many letters from persons of authority in their recognition of those services to the International Exhi- bitions of 1851 and 1862 which were rewarded by his baronetcy. An interesting National Exhibition of ' Art Manufactures ' had already been held by the Society of Arts, on whose Council Wentworth Dilke was an active worker, at the time when he, with two other members of the Council and the secretary, Mr. Scott Russell, met the Prince Consort on June 30th, 1849, and decided to renew the venture on a scale which should include foreign nations. When the executive committee of four (to whom were added a secretary and a representative of the contractors) was named in January, 1850, the work practically fell on three persons Sir William Reid communicating with the public departments, Mr. Henry Cole settling questions of space and arrangement,* and Wentworth Dilke ' having charge * Mr. Cole, afterwards Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B., was, says the Memoir, ' commonly known as King Cole,' and was afterwards secretary to the South Kensington School of Design. 8 EARLY LIFE [OHAP.I of the correspondence and general superintendence,' and attending ' every meeting of the executive except the first.' Wentworth Dilke worked hard for this and for other objects. But his public activities had to be fitted in with a great deal of shooting and other sport at Alice Holt, the small house in Hampshire, with adjacent preserves, which he rented, and which became the family's country home. In 1840 he married, and, after the birth of Charles Went- worth Dilke, the subject of this Memoir, on September 4th, 1843, all the grandfather's thought centred on the child. His daughter-in-law became, from then till her death, his chief correspondent, and the master of the house was ' com- pletely overshadowed ' in the family group. That group was so large as to be almost patriarchal. Wentworth Dilke, when he married, and established himself at 76, Sloane Street, took under his roof his wife's mother, Mrs. Chatfield, her grandmother, Mrs. Duncombe, and also her unmarried cousin, Miss Folkard. All these ladies lived out their lives there, Mrs. Chatfield and Miss Folkard sur- viving till Charles Dilke had become a Minister of State. Up to 1850 old Mr. Dilke and his wife lived at their house in Lower Grosvenor Place, which was a second home for their grandson Charles. But in 1850 the wife died, and Mr. Dilke ' spent sixteen months in wandering through the remoter parts of Scotland, and along the north and west coast of Ireland, but corresponded ceaselessly with his daughter-in-law, to whom he was much attached.' During a great part of this time he was accompanied by his grand- son. Mrs. Wentworth Dilke, after giving birth in 1850 to her second child, Ashton Dilke, had ' fallen into a deep decline ' ; and Charles Dilke, at the age of seven, was handed over to his grandfather's charge, partly to solace the old widower's loneliness, partly to relieve the strain on his mother. The peculiar relation between grandfather, mother, and son, stands out clearly from the letter which that mother wrote shortly before her death in September, 1853, to be 1853] MRS. WENTWORTH DILKE 9 delivered to the boy Charles. After some tender exhorta- tion, she added : " But moral discipline your grandfather will teach you. What I wish particularly to impress on you is the necessity of worshipping God." And at the end : " My own boy, there is another thing still to name, for none can say whether this letter may be required soon, or whether I may have the delight of seeing my children grow up, but this last and cherished subject is my little Ashton. When he is old enough, dear, to understand, let him read this letter, and by his mother's blessing teach him to think and feel that all that I have said applies equally to him. Set him a good example in your own conduct, and be always affectionate brothers." Of the father, not a word and for care of the younger boy, the dying woman's hope is in his brother. It will be shown how studiously the ten-year-old boy, on whom his mother so leant, fulfilled that charge. But he himself felt, in later life, that scant justice had been done to the man who was ' overshadowed ' in his home, and wrote in 1890: ' My father loved my grandfather deeply, but my grand- father was greatly disappointed in him, and always a little hard towards him : my father suffered through life under a constant sense of his inferiority. He suffered also later from the fact that while his elder son was the grandfather's and not the father's boy, his younger son was as completely under my influence in most matters, as I was under the influence of my grandfather.' Yet in a sense the relation between old Mr. Dilke and the son whom he unconsciously slighted was strangely intimate and confiding. For in 1853 the elder man gave up his own house in Lower Grosvenor Place, made over all his money to his son, and came to live under the son's roof in Sloane Street for the remainder of his life. His confidence in the patriarchal principle justified itself. ' My father,' writes Sir Charles, * for eleven years consulted his father dependent on him for bread in every act of his life.' 10 EARLY LIFE [OHAP.I To the world at large, Wentworth Dilke was a vastly more important person than the old antiquary and scholar. After his services in organizing the Great Exhibition of 1851, he declined a knighthood and rewards in money; but he accepted from the French Government a gift of Sevres china; from the King of Saxony, the Collar of the Order of Albertus Animosus ; from the King of Sweden and from the Prince Consort, medals ; and from Queen Victoria, a bracelet for his wife. These remained among the treasures of 76, Sloane Street. But he acquired something far more important in the establishment of friendly relations with persons of mark and influence all over the Continent; for these relations were destined to be developed by Charles Dilke, then a pretty-mannered boy, who was taken everywhere, and saw, for instance, in 1851, the Duke of Wellington walk through the Exhibition buildings on a day when more than a hundred thousand people were present. He could remember how the Duke's ' shrivelled little form ' and ' white ducks ' ' disappeared in the throng which almost crushed him to death ' before the police could effect his rescue. Wentworth Dilke's association in the Prince Consort's most cherished schemes had brought him on a footing of friendship with the Royal Family; and on July 25th, 1851, his wife wrote that the Queen had come over and talked to her in the Exhibition ground. Long afterwards, when the pretty-mannered boy had grown into a Radical, who avowed his theoretical preference for republican institutions, Queen Victoria said that " she remembered having stroked his head, and supposed she had stroked it the wrong way." t? ~~Ki&Ms