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George Lansbury

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George Lansbury, largely forgotten now, was a significant figure in British politics in the first half of the 20th century. He began in the 1880s as an agitator for social reform, became a women's suffragist and a pacifist and, in his old age, leader of the British Labour Party. His idealistic pacifism was not attuned to the international situation in the 1930s, and his career ended in failure, though not without honour. Unsurprisingly, many more people today relate his surname to Angela, his granddaughter, aka Miss Marple and much else besides (Comparative WP article av. daily viewing: Angela 3619, George 170). I'd appreciate any comments on this account of an interesting career which I have tried to make reasonably accessible to the general reader. Brianboulton (talk) 17:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Tim riley

This is a splendid affair, and it will take me two or three bites. Bite the first:

  • Lead
    • "beliefs which, aside from…" – to my eye that's an American construction. Perhaps I'm wrong (it has been known) but I think "apart from" is the idiomatic UK construction.
    • "paper maintained a strident pacifist stance" – is "strident" a touch tendentious? Would something like "vehement" make the same point less judgmentally?
      • I think its tone was pretty strident. And vehement. However, I've compromised to "strongly"
    • "but remained loyal to Labour" – ditto, in spades
      • Not sure I agree that saying he "remained loyal" is particularly judgemental. The fact is, he stuck with his party. I neutered it a bit.
  • East End upbringing
    • "led to at least one near-fatal accident" – tease! Near-fatal as in the victim was so gravely injured, or an accident that could easily have been fatal but all was well?
      • From the source I think the latter. All Shepherd says is "he almost lost his life in an industrial accident involving a hand-winch", but nothing is said about injuries. So I can't really add more.
    • "Lansbury remained a devout Anglican" – one of the nice things about being an Anglican, I find, is that none of us are devout. Staunch, firm, even committed. But we leave devoutness to nonconformists and RCs.
      • I think I meant to write "devoted" but it came out wrongly. "Staunch" is probably better. [Digression: I had a religious upbringing that would make your eyes water - see life of Edmund Gosse for approximate details. An eventual escape into Anglicanism was to me the balm of freedom]
  • Australia
    • "decided that his their best hopes of prosperity" – one or the other; I didn't presume to guess which and amend it myself. [Tangentially, I found this section illuminating, shocking and absolutely fascinating.]
    • "apart from a period of plain sailing in the tropics" – a touch digressive, possibly?
  • LCC elections, 1889, and aftermath
    • "newly formed London County Council" – I am none too ept with hyphens in such constructions, but I think you need one here
  • Social Democratic Federation
    • "or to demonstrate solidarity with industrial disputes" – this feels subtly wrong: a dispute has two sides, so he can't have had solidarity with the disputes themselves. Not sure how better to put it, though, without extensive verbiage.
      • "solidarity with workers involved in industrial disputes" is what I thought I'd said. Shows the value of peer reviews.
    • "clergy's unsympathetic approach to poor relief, and their opposition" – if "clergy's" (singular) then "its" opposition? Not sure about this, but I mention it for your consideration.
      • I think this is OK. The "local clergy" are manifestly a group of people, so I think "their" is justified.
    • "convinced Lansbury to give up his job" – oh, now look! That is a blatant Americanism. Either "persuaded to" or "convinced that he should".
      • I obviously do too much WP reviewing and am getting my idioms confused. I have humbly reworded.
  • Poor Law guardian
    • "critique of capitalism; only the reorganisation" – I think I'd have used a colon, not a semicolon here, but ignore me if you disagree, natch
    • "a campaign of adverse propaganda to discredit the principle" – adverse is perhaps tautological in this context
    • "Lansbury was appointed to a Royal Commission on the Poor Law" – according to that absolutely excellent article Octavia Hill it was the RC on the Poor Laws plural. (I bet the old bat gave poor old George a handbagging).
      • You are right about the plural. If anyone gave George a handbagging it was Beatrice Webb, not the saintly Octavia.
  • Campaigner for women's suffrage
    • "You say "suffragist" in one sentence and "suffragette" in the next. The first now seems to be the approved PC term, so I suggest you standardise on the second.
      • You are right. I have changed all remaining ettes to ists
        • W.S. Gilbert regularly updated his libretti for revivals. At one point (1908-ish from memory) he changed "that singular anomaly the lady novelist..." to "that singular anomaly, the lovely suffragist – I don't think she'd be missed." This is of no relevance whatever, but I thought you might enjoy it. Tim riley (talk) 17:11, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • "the more militant" – there were only two?
      • Probably only two main ones, at the time. The other was the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, founded in 1897. There may have been other minor groups, but the WLF, and Milicent Fawcett's mob, came later.

Here endeth the first batch. – Tim riley (talk) 17:17, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these well-considered comments. Unless I indicate otherwise I have followed your wise advice. I look forward to more. Brianboulton (talk) 23:58, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Round two:

  • War, Daily Herald and Bolshevism
    • "and early in 1914 assumed the paper's editorship" – sounds a touch transcendental; didn't someone, or a board, appoint him? Did he oust the previous incumbent?
    • Lansbury was a director of the newspaper. According to the source the board became dissatisfied with the original editor, one Lapworth, and fired him (on Lansbury's casting vote, apparently). Other names were touted for the editor's chair (including Rebecca West) but no one was forthcoming, so Lansbury himself "assumed the editorship". Brianboulton (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • "and Lansbury failed to retake" – perhaps "and he failed" might flow better
    • "Lansbury travelled to Russia and met with Lenin" – I reckon that one meets with disaster, approval or other incorporeal things, but just meets people.
  • Labour backbencher
    • "resigned through ill health" – "through" seems odd here; perhaps because of?
    • "He believed that his exclusion from the cabinet followed pressure from the king – I assume we don't know if Lansbury was right to suspect King George of putting the royal oar in?
    • Who knows? A memorandum from Lord Stamfordham, recording the king's first meeting with MacDonald, mentions the king's annoyance with Lansbury for his suggestions of "court intrigues", but there is no further discussion in the document relating to Lansbury's appointment or non-appointment. Brianboulton (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • In 1928, short of money following the failure of the family business, Lansbury published his autobiography – Do we know if he made any money out of it?
88 Added a few words.Brianboulton (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Final years
    • "followed by a memorial service in Westminster Abbey" – Not relevant to this peer review, but I've just looked at the Times report. Rather a poor turnout: Churchill, Chamberlain and Attlee all sent understudies. One hopes it was pressing concerns that kept them away, rather than indifference to the old chap. On the other hand the congregation contained a remarkable number of clergymen, which shows how much GL was valued in the C of E.
    • I think the turnout, especially the non-appearance of leading government figures, might have been affected by the critical war situation in France. The service, on 23 May, came midway between Churchill's "blood, sweat, toil and tears" speech on 13 May and "fight them on the beaches" on 4 June. I don't think it represented discourtesy. Brianboulton (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why this second, and concluding, batch is so much shorter than my first, but I'm pretty sure I haven't missed anything I wanted to raise. This is a lovely article. I learned much and took a real shine to the old boy. Having just done a bit of work (bread-and-butter stuff) on the serpentine Binkie Beaumont, I found reading about a good man with unwavering principles a treat. And GL is a much pleasanter companion than the last Labour MP you took to FA! – Tim riley (talk) 17:11, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, which have helped me in several places. I agree that Driberg was a shit, but not without a certain horrible fascination. Lansbury was much nicer; I wonder if the two ever met? Brianboulton (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Wehwalt

My first tranche of comments covers about the same span as Tim's, above. I also want to take a look at my Nev references to see if anything is said about Lansbury.

Lede
  • "re-elected to parliament" Given that he was not the incumbent, perhaps "elected again to Parliament?"
Australia
  • There is a mild disconnect between "his father-in-law" and "the Lansburys" which you might wish to adjust. It might be OK as is, but I'm being picky.
"London County Council elections, 1889, and aftermath"
  • ^Isn't conciseness suggested for section titles?
  • I've cut "and aftermath"; will that do?
  • "Bow and Bromley and Brixton" while this is clear to me, it does look odd. Perhaps put the borough name after its candidate, and drop the "respectively"?
  • "ending of sweated labour" While it sounds very Dickensian, is there a link that this "sweated labour" could be piped to?
  • Were the grounds for the ladies losing their seats that they were female? I gather it was by the proposed legislative action, but this should be made clearer further up.
Social reformer
  • "One factor in his disillusion with the Church was the local clergy's unsympathetic approach to poor relief, and their opposition to collective political action." Sounds like two factors to me. I'm not certain the comma is really needed in this sentence as it stands, by the way.
  • Did Lansbury lose his deposits in the two 1895 votes? (which remind me of the poor guy in the Trollope books who spent a large amount of money which wasn't his to bribe all the electors and be elected in the by-election, only to not have enough funds to fight the main election)
  • It says earlier that the legal status of women as candidates or councillors was not clrear. I have now added that the challenge to Sandhurst was indeed on the grounds of her sex.
  • "These dismal results convinced Lansbury to give up his job at the sawmill and become the SDF's full-time salaried national organiser. " Ah, a couple of related things. While you mentioned his father in law's business, you have not previously mentioned Lansbury's employment there; in fact to the present he has had no visible means of support. Second, unless the job at the sawmill was particularly choice, it strikes me as something Lansbury might want to do even without the dismal results, which presumably did not affect the sawmill. I will resist the temptation to say that it seems Lansbury was in an ideal situation to craft planks for his political platform and to ask if they sawed wood when he spoke. (oh wait, I didn't).
  • Nicely whimsical, but the first line of the "First campaigns" section reads "On his return to London, Lansbury took a job in Brine's timber business."
  • "the election of a Liberal government in 1906. The new Local Government minister was John Burns," I would clarify a bit as technically both Burns and the Liberals came in, in 1905, after Balfour resigned. I doubt they did very much until after the 1906 election, though. Also, I'd consider relinking Burns.
  • Technically you are correct about the dates, but it would require a few sentences of explanation to explain this, which has nothing to do with Lansbury and would merely stretch the text. If you insist, I could add a footnote, but I'd prefer to leave it.
  • "the Poor Laws were finally abolished" at Nev's instigation, as I recall. You might want to clarify to the reader that this abolition also got rid of the Poor Law Guardians. The tone of this is to suggest that the 1929 Act accomplished (at least some) of Lansbury's goals, but the thing is, he opposed it (calling Nev "a pinchbeck Napoleon", btw. Among other things. I'll have suggestions on that when I get to that.)--Wehwalt (talk) 18:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
National prominence
  • Was Lansbury allowed to write his anti-war views in the Herald? I note that you mention that in 1918, he was an "anti-war candidate".
  • The Herald maintained a pacifist stance throughout the war. Its war reports, as mentioned in the article, tended to be somewhat more objective than the "beastly Hun" stuff served up by most other papers. The description "anti-war candidate" should be understood as meaning "candidate who had opposed the war", and I have clarified this.
  • How long was he imprisoned for?
  • Text says "After six weeks' incarceration..."
Parliament
  • Ah, back to Nev. Glancing at David Dilks' bio of Nev (Volume 1, Volume 2 never appeared), there are a fair few mentions of Lansbury, generally in the context of opposing the Conservatives on things like the local government. The biblio info's in the Nev article if you care to use any of these:
  • Referring to an Economy Bill Nev was pushing in 1926 and 1927, and to the protracted divisions during the debate, p. 456. "One one occasion an unlucky party of thirteen Opposition Members, led by Lansbury and Wheatley, lay on the floor of the lobby and refused to move. The rest of the House waited three-quarters of an hour and eventually the thirteen were suspended."
  • Referring to Nev's bill (1926) allowing the Minister of Health (him) to replace Poor Law Guardians who did not fulfill their tasks properly, p. 497 "When Chamberlain spoke of unabashed corruption in the election of Guardians and the distribution of public funds, Lansbury asked him to define 'corruption'. "I think I have made it perfectly clear", Chamberlain replied, "I mean that the system naturally tends to set one candidate against another bidding for the support of the electors by promising extra relief. That is what I mean by corruption." "Exactly the same", Lansbury replied sharply, "as a Protectionist candidate."
  • Same timeframe, Nev proposing changes in the grants to Poor Law authorities, p. 504 "Any rules the Minister [Chamberlain] drew up would produce inequities and hardships. Whenever he defended them, he sounded like Scrooge. "I say it is an inhuman policy", cried Lansbury in one of the debates about unemployment; "and the responsibility for the health of every widow and child … whose relief has been cut down by 6d., 1s., or 2s., and the responsibility for the death of many of these old people in this severe weather, will lie at the doors of the Ministry of Health, and nowhere else."
  • (p. 519 emailed to you)
  • pp. 522 and 523, the British sending troops to the concession in Shanghai in 1927. "Lansbury, a genuine pacifist, argued that the British should hand over their concession at Shanghai, and should not have sent troops. Chamberlain retorted that it was a good thing the Labour party were not in office. "If you think you have been bitten by a mad dog, you do not go to an [page break] anti-vivisectionist. When we had to defend Shanghai we did not go to a pacifist to ask whether we should use ships or troops. We went to our Chiefs of Staff."
  • p. 576, discussion of the minister's powers under the Local Government Bill in 1929, Chamberlain is contending that as councils will be receiving more than half their funding from the state as they took over the poor law functions, that the minister had to have the right to intervene in their decisions. "Mr Ernest Brown for the Liberals and Mr Lansbury for Labour opposed this vehemently. "A pinchbeck Napoleon!" cried Lansbury."

Whether you use these or not, and it's entirely up to you (I will trawl the rest of my Chamberlain bios for you if it is helpful), I think you should say something about his opposition to the Conservatives' local government proposals in the 1920s. Let me know if you would find page images helpful; I did not want to tie up your mailbox with tons of images.

  • There's some interesting material here, much of which I have (from the opposite perspective) in my sources. I will use this stuff to add a little more colour to the "Backbench" section, which is perhaps a little bland beyond Lansbury's jaunty promise to raise parliamentary mayhem whenever he could. On his opposition to Nev's Poor Law/Local Govt reforms, George wanted the laws reformed in his way, as outlined in the 1912 minority report, and was clearly going to act all oppositional against a Tory government's reforms, even if they went some way to meeting his objectives.
Cabinet minister
  • "a mutually cordial relationship" I would strike mutually; it is implied
Party leader
  • I suspect that if you could find a source, Lansbury was the oldest major party leader at the start of his leadership since Reform.
  • I'm sure that is so, but I don't recall seeing a source that says it (and it's trivia, really)
Final years
  • "He addressed large crowds in 27 cities before meeting President Roosevelt in Washington, to present his proposals for a world peace conference." I'm not certain about that comma.
  • Interesting he died just before the Norway Debate … what he said on 3 September was much like what Nev said in his radio address.
Excellent read, very enjoyable.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine to me. I had another look, and I think it is a fine writeup about an important figure who gets too little attention. Looking forward to the FAC.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:32, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Afterthought: the list of GL's published books starts off in date order but gets wobbly in the middle. I thought about dealing with it on the spot, but forbore just in case. Tim riley (talk) 07:37, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The pub. date for My England is 1934 not 1940. Thanks for spotting this. Brianboulton (talk) 15:16, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments (very minor and short) from SchroCat
  • There is some inconsistency around Labour Party and Labour party (similarly with Conservative & Liberal party/Party)
  • There are a fair few ellipses without a nbsp before them, but that's just my personal preference more than anything else.

Australia

  • "Lansbury decided that his their best hopes"
  • "a stonebreaking labourer" Should stonebreaking be two words or hyphenated? It looks odd being a single word, but if that is what it used to be called then so be it! (The OED currently has it hyphenated, if that helps)

Social Democratic Federation

  • I think "Anglican church" should probably be "Anglican Church", especially as you refer to "the Church" elsewhere.

Final years

  • "näive" Should it be naïve?

All minor suggestions in an otherwise (as always) excellent article. - SchroCat (talk) 13:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these comments, all of which I have acted on. Leaving out the nbsps before ellipses is a regular blind spot - until you remind me to do it. "Stonebreaking" is one word in the source, but I've slightly altered the text to sidestep the issue. Brianboulton (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sarastro: He sounds like an interesting chap, and I enjoyed reading this. Learned quite a lot too! I'm not a specialist on this period, having only a vague familiarity with most of it, but I followed this easily. Everything that was not clear in terms of background was explained very nicely. Just a few minor points and questions.

  • "campaigning against established authority and vested interests, his main causes being social justice, women's suffrage and world disarmament": At first reading, I thought he was campaigning against social justice, women's suffrage and world disarmament! Could this be smoothed so that he isn't simultaneously campaigning for and against things?
  • Do we need to mention women's suffrage twice in the first paragraph?
  • "Through his radically-minded mother and grandmother young George became familiar with the names of great contemporary reformers—Gladstone, Richard Cobden and John Bright—and began to read the radical newspaper Reynolds News.": Radically…radical: is there another way to do this?
  • "the family experienced illness, discomfort and danger": This leaves me wondering what the danger was.
  • "which developed from David Lloyd George's "People's Budget"…" Could this be reworded to avoid having two links next to each other that look like one long link?
  • Could we describe Blythe further than just a "writer"; as his opinion is expressed in this article, it would be useful to know why it matters! From his article on here, maybe something like "essayist" or "social historian"? In particular, his judgement on the first Labour government, while doubtless true, seems rather definitive. Is it backed up by more general historians of the period?
  • I have elevated Blythe to "essayist" which I think is more appropriate. I've also changed "According to Blythe..." to "Blythe suggests that...", which I think makes his opinion personal rather than authoritative. I have also added a comment by Shepherd on the lacklustre nature of MacDonald's first government. Brianboulton (talk) 18:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Contrary to previous expectations the two formed a cordial relationship": Something a bit off here: why "previous"? Could it not just be "contrary to expectations"? Or is this suggesting that they got on despite Lansbury's previous criticisms? At the moment, this rather falls between two stools.
  • Expectations that they would have difficulty relating to each other were likely mutual, Postgate says, and probably broadly shared. In the end they got along fine and even seemed to enjoy each other's company. Brianboulton (talk) 18:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for these comments, all addressed. I put the Cricinfo stuff in to tempt you to read the article. Lansbury seems to have been very fond of cricket, at least in his early days, but none of his biographers give any information as to his playing record, unfortunately. Brianboulton (talk) 18:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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