on Wednesday, 27 December 2017.
Posted in Military
Guest blog by John Boaler - originally published in the Wiltshire Local History Forum Newsletter
2017 marks the centenary of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres. After catastrophic losses at Verdun and the Somme, it is hard to comprehend how the politicians and generals at the time were again willing to expend the lives hundreds of thousands of soldiers in another such assault on the Western Front.
But the one senior politician did speak up against this military ‘strategy’, calling for a negotiated peace, was Lord Lansdowne (1845–1927), the fifth Marquess and a great-grandson of Lord Shelburne, one of George III's prime ministers.
He had succeeded his father, upon his sudden death in 1866, taking his seat on the Liberal benches in the House of Lords. Lansdowne was appointed a junior whip in Gladstone's first government (1869); was promoted to Under-Secretary for War three years later; and was made Under-Secretary for India at the start of Gladstone's second government (1880). However his opposition to the Irish Land Act soon caused him to resign from the Liberal Party.
In 1883 he was appointed Governor-general of Canada; and from 1888 to 1894 was Viceroy of India. Back in London he was made War Secretary (1895-1900) and then Foreign Secretary (1900 – 1905). He was Leader of the Unionist peers from 1903- 1916.
The First World War
Lord Lansdowne was a member of the Shadow Cabinet in 1914 and strongly supported the decision for war in August. Though Lansdowne's second son was killed in France in October he remained committed to the war. In May 1915 he took office as minister without portfolio in Asquith's coalition, and in Government he supported conscription.
He began to have doubts about the capacity of the allies to score a decisive victory after the disastrous Somme offensive of June 1916. Asquith as Prime Minister invited his cabinet colleagues to submit their views on the course of the war. Lansdowne concluded that while there was no question of defeat, outright victory was unlikely. He argued for a restatement of war aims that might open the way to a negotiated settlement. But Asquith was about to be replaced by Lloyd George, and Lansdowne left office at the same time.
Letter to The Daily Telegraph
In 1917, as deaths quickly mounted in the Battle of Passchendaele, Lansdowne again put the case for a negotiated peace. This time he went public, with a letter printed in the Daily Telegraph on 29 November 1917. His views were well known in senior government circles yet had made no impact. The letter caused a sensation:
"We are not going to lose this war, but its prolongation will spell ruin for the civilised world, and an infinite addition to the load of human suffering which already weighs upon it...We do not desire the annihilation of Germany as a great power ... We do not seek to impose upon her people any form of government other than that of their own choice... We have no desire to deny Germany her place among the great commercial communities of the world.”
He was strongly denounced by the Northcliffe press (then publishers of the Daily Mail & Daily Mirror) and ostracised by the Unionist leadership. But his move attracted a lot of support. He received a large mailbag of which ‘The prevailing note is, “you have had the courage to say what we have been thinking for ever so long”’, he told his daughter.
President Wilson's ‘fourteen points’ were widely seen to be on Lansdowne lines, and he pressed on with further letters in March and July, supplemented by Lord’s speeches, calling for a careful restatement of war aims.
In October 1902, Wiltshire County Council received a letter from the clerk of Norfolk County Council asking that a petition be presented to the Local Government Board requesting them to ensure by legislation or likewise that a registration number was affixed on the back of every motor car to ensure the identification in the event of an accident on the public highway, in the interest and for the protection of the public.
The Motor Car Bill passed through The House of Commons and The House of Lords in the summer of 1903. The circular for the Motor Car Act was issued by the Local Government Board on the 20th November 1903. It set up a system of registration for motor cars and motor cycles, with a view to identifying motor cars/cycles and their owners. It brought in driving licences (legislation for compulsory testing was introduced for all new drivers with the Road Traffic Act 1934 for owners of motor vehicles and anyone wishing to use a motor vehicle). Penalties were introduced for people driving who did not hold a licence, and licences could be suspended for offences against the Act. A new speed limit was introduced of 20mph - raised from 14mph and aimed to prevent reckless driving by adding endorsements to the person’s driving licence.
The registration and licencing system was to be administered by County and Borough Councils throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Each County or Borough was issued a letter, or a group of two letters (styled the index mark), issued by the Local Government. Registers were kept for motor cars and motor cycles. These registers could be kept in two parts, one relating to motor cars and one relating to motor cycles. Wiltshire County Council kept separate registers for motor cars and motor cycles.
The Act did not define the term motor cycles, nor could the Local Government Board, but it was generally treated as a motor car with not more than three wheels and weighing not more than three hundredweight (152kg).
Applications for registrations were made through the council and for a fee of £1 for a motor car and 5 shillings for a motor cycle, an identification mark was issued to the vehicle and it was entered into the register. A copy of the entry was issued to the owner.
Any changes in ownership of the vehicle were given either by the new or the old owner to the council who issued the index mark. The alterations were made to the registers and the new owner was issued a copy of the new entry. If any changes were made relating to the vehicle the owner needed to inform the council, and the register was amended accordingly. If the vehicle was destroyed, scrapped, exported or re-registered with another county or borough, then the index mark assigned to that vehicle was cancelled in the register and that number could then be assigned to another vehicle.
The Roads Act of 1920 came into effect on 1st January 1921. The registers were named vehicle allocation books. With the Wiltshire allocation books, only the vehicle owner’s details and the make of the vehicle were entered, with no indication of colour, style or engine capacity. All subsequent changes made to the vehicle and to ownership were entered into a file which was kept for each index mark and when the number was cancelled due to the vehicle being scrapped or exported this was duly recorded. These files where supplemented with a record card for each index mark. One allocation book was now kept for motor cars, heavy motor cars and motor cycles, so that the same number could not be issued twice, for instance to a motor car and a motor cycle.
We all like to indulge in the odd luxury if we can, including a good truffle or two perhaps…
Did you know that these chocolate treats originally contained truffles of the fungal variety when they were first produced in Belgium? At the time it was this truffle that was at the height of fashion.
Truffles were once common in England, especially in the south. The hunting of them became a cottage industry in rural Wiltshire from the late 17th century to the early 20th. The earliest known description of the truffle is by Tancred Robinson in 1693. “Those observed in England are all included in a studded Bark or coat; the Tubercules resembling the Capsules or Seed–Vessels of some Mallows and Aloeas the inward substance is of the consistence of the fleshy part in a young chestnut, of a paste colour, of a rank or hircine odour, and unsavoury, streaked with many white Veins or threads, as in some Animals’ Testicles; the whole is of a globose figure, though unequal and chunky”. The size can range from 3mm to that of a grapefruit, can be found near trees or in forested areas, and are especially associated with beech trees which do not give too much shade. The first definitively English truffle was the ‘Trub’, documented and written up in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1693.
Truffles have held a certain mystique for many years in history as well as today, but just what is that that makes them so special?