Reinventing the dole: Chapter 6

8/4/2019 Reinventing the dole: Chapter 6

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CHAPTER 6: THE BOARD

The members

The first chairman of the board was to be none other than the genialMinister of Labour, Sir Henry Betterton. As well as the security of aseven year appointment, he acquired a peerage (becoming BaronRushcliffe of Blackfordby) and a salary of 5,000 a year in place of hisministerial salary of 2,000. Sir Ernest Strohmenger gave up his post atthe Treasury to become deputy chairman. He was appointed for fiveyears at a salary of 3,000 a year but was to resign after less than threeyears. There were four part-time members:

H M Hallsworth (1876-1953), Professor of Economics in theUniversity of Durham and joint author of Unemployment inLancashire .

Dr Thomas Jones (1870-1955), deputy secretary of the cabinetfrom 1916 to 1930.

Violet Markham (1872-1959), chairman of the Central Committeefor Womens Training and Employment, member of the IndustrialCourt since 1920, Mayor of Chesterfield in 1927 and author of anumber of books.

Matthew Reynard (1878-1946), Director of Public Assistance forthe City of Glasgow.

Matthew Reynards experience in poor law administration went back tothe beginning of the century and he was unlikely to bring a radicallynew approach to the boards work. Hallsworth gave up his universitychair to join the board, receiving a salary of 1,000 a year, comparedwith the 750 salary of the other part-time members; but, apart fromhis connection with the depressed areas of the north-east, the groundsfor appointing him are obscure. One of the boards former officials hasdescribed him as a negative, rather despised figure 1 and he seems tohave made little positive contribution.

The two part-time members who, in their different ways, played a moreimportant role were Thomas Jones and Violet Markham. They werealready close friends and the letters they exchanged provide a valuableinsight into the relationships between the full-time and part-time boardmembers and between the board and its senior officials. When invitedto join, Markham wrote to Jones: ... it is everything to know that I shallhave you as friend and comrade to share the perils and difficulties. 2

Tom Jones had had a distinguished career in the civil service but isremembered as much for his unofficial relationship with prime ministersand particularly with the Conservative leader, Stanley Baldwin, to whomhe acted as speech-writer and confidant (though, in the opinion of one

writer, he was more of a toady than a candid friend to Baldwin3

). Hehad been a special investigator for the Poor Law Commission of 1906-09

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and a professor of political economy, was active in Welsh affairs, and in1930 had been appointed secretary of the newly created Pilgrim Trustwhich, as well as supporting recreational and other services for theunemployed, was to sponsor a major study of unemployment ( MenWithout Work , 1938). Jones had a finger in many pies: on one occasionin May 1936 when Violet Markham tried to contact him, he was inMunich meeting Adolf Hitler. 4 He knew Eady well, sharing with himmembership of the leftish Romney Street Group (its other membersincluded people of such diverse political views as Kingsley Martin of theNew Statesman and Walter Elliot, the Minister of Agriculture). When

Jones threatened to resign from the board in April 1936, Eady wrote tohim:

The choosing you as a member - which was my own - wasdeliberate, not only because you know South Wales, but becauseof your wide personal associations. For me, and for Stroh, yourepresent the link between the statutory independence that theBoard is expected to show in administration, and politicalrealities. 5

Deteriorating health and competing interests were increasingly to limithis role in the boards affairs but, when relations with the governmentbecame difficult, it was a comfort to know that he could put the boardspoint of view informally in high places. Tom Jones would be hauled in if there was a crisis, a former official of the board has said, and theofficials would talk to him between board meetings. 6

Violet Markham had been active in public life for many years and hadstood for parliament as an independent liberal in 1918. In private life,she was Mrs James Carruthers. On retiring from the army, ColonelCarruthers devoted himself to racing until his death in 1936. When Ilunch with her, Jones told Baldwin in 1934, she sends her husband tohis club, because his talk is all about horses. Its a queer marriage. 7Queer or not, there is no reason to think it was unhappy, but it was to

Tom Jones rather than to Jim Carruthers that she looked for support inher personal crusade on behalf of the distressed areas. Deeply movedby the tragedy of unemployment, Markham was constantly searchingfor solutions and promulgating her ideas in letters to ministers,

influential friends and The Times . She was scornful of those whobelieved that charitable works were a sufficient response. In a letter to Jones in December 1928 she wrote:

I am feeling almost desperate about the situation and these futileappeals to charity which can no more cope with the position thana piece of cardboard can dam a mill race! 8

Of the Personal Service League, with its massive collections of second-hand clothes for the unemployed, she commented at the end of 1932:

People dont discharge their responsibilities at a time like this bycollecting and distributing old clothes. 9

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In an emotional letter to Jones (T.J.) in May 1934, little more than amonth before she was invited to become a member of the UAB, shewrote:

I am haunted by the Derelict Areas and the sense of those terrible

pools of rotting humanity whose problems seem to defeat allstatesmanship and all humanity. Of course the problem is notinsoluble ... But I am convinced the solution cant be found onorthodox lines and that a new technique has to be evolved tomeet the situation.

And since this is difficult, the miseries of these people are justpushed aside. What is more I am convinced that in some quartersthere is a conspiracy of silence. ... But I am full of fight and dontmean to be shut up. As things are I feel that the food I eat, theclothes I wear, the peace and beauty of my garden on such a dayas this have all become a reproach.

T.J. I know you feel this too. Help me to carry on this campaignand make people care about what is happening in places like

Jarrow and the Rhondda. 10

A week later she wrote to say that, having been told that NevilleChamberlain was the only member of the Government who really caresabout this question, she had asked him to see her. He had not onlyagreed but had told her that Betterton wanted to be present. I shallfeel like a child with a bow and arrow advancing on two largehowitzers, she wrote. 11 The proposal she put to Chamberlain was that a

few special areas should be scheduled for experimental measures,each area having a director with practically autocratic powers toprovide jobs and training and to get as many people as possible out of the district - the policy of industrial transference to which the Ministryof Labour had been committed since 1928. Refusal of training would notbe tolerated: The privileges of special treatment involve at some pointthe corollary of compulsion. 12 It is at least possible that Chamberlainssupport for the decision, later that year, to appoint two commissionersfor the depressed areas, one for England and Wales and one forScotland, was influenced by Violet Markhams proposals. Whateverother results the meeting may have produced, it was an opportunity for

the two ministers to assess a prime candidate for appointment to theUAB.

The preservation of Markhams correspondence with Jones when somuch else is lost may tempt the historian to exaggerate the role of these two compared with that of other members of the board. It isarguable that none of the part-time members had much influence onthe permanent officials. Yet Markham and Jones, and especiallyMarkham, did bring to the boards work a depth of concern for theunemployed as human beings which might otherwise have beenlacking.

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The deputy chairman

As the boards first deputy chairman, Sir Ernest Strohmenger - oftenreferred to as Stroh - was in a much more powerful position, thoughhis influence might have been greater if he had been less committed to

his role as financial watchdog and more sensitive to the feelings of hiscolleagues. He was from the start regarded with suspicion by the part-time members, as well as by outside observers. Lady Simon, whosehusband Sir Ernest had been parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Health in 1931, wrote to Violet Markham:

... when Sir E. Strohmenger was at the Ministry of Health helooked upon everything from the narrowly financial point of view. Ihope that you and T.J. will be able to cajole - or bully - him into thepaths of humanitarianism. 13

Such hopes were to be disappointed. In a letter to Jones in November

1935, Markham writes of Strohmengers crazy philosophy - aphilosophy only possible to a bureaucrat who has never come upagainst the facts of life save on paper. 14

The person most directly affected by Strohmengers appointment wasthe boards secretary, Wilfred Eady. Eady was the obvious choice for thepost of secretary, as the official who had borne the main responsibilityfor both the transitional payments scheme and the legislation setting upthe board. In an unkind witticism then current in the Ministry, theUnemployment Assistance Act was described as an Act to relieve thePoor and Eady - to which some added and to keep the Wolfe from the

door (the poet, Humbert Wolfe, was the head of the Ministrysemployment and training department and, as director of establishments, had earlier shown little enthusiasm for the creation of aseparate network of offices with their own staff to administer theassistance scheme 15 ). Eady was a highly intelligent and ambitious civilservant. Given the opportunity to head a new government departmentat the age of 43, he was determined to make a success of it. Bettertonsappointment as chairman meant a continuation of the relationship theyhad already established, with the advantage from Eadys point of viewthat he was now, in function though not in rank, the equivalent of permanent secretary of the department. Strohmengers appointment,

however, made Eadys position much more difficult. Holding the rank of deputy secretary, Strohmenger was senior to Eady in the civil servicehierarchy. Up to the date of the boards appointment, the two men hadworked together on the planning and preparation of the administrativemachine, and they continued to do so. Although from then onStrohmenger was referred to as deputy chairman without mention of hiscivil service rank, he retained his status as an official senior to Eady andeven became the Boards first accounting officer - a position normallyheld by the administrative head of a government department (Eadybecame accounting officer when Strohmenger retired). 16 Relationsbetween the two became strained. S. and I only succeeded in makingthe arrangements work by keeping our scrapping in private, Eady

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wrote on Strohmengers retirement. 17 Shortly before, he had written to Tom Jones:

S. is at present in one of his difficult moods. He has been theBoard, and God knows what would have happened without him or

will happen later when he is no longer there to prevent or reduceour lunacies! Thus is history written! 18

The chairman

The transformation of the Minister of Labour, Sir Henry Betterton, intoLord Rushcliffe, chairman of the board, was to prove an unhappyexperience. The qualities which made him a popular minister weredescribed in chapter 5. Whether these were the right qualities for theboards chairman is open to question. Bettertons anxiety to pleasecould be regarded as a sign of weakness rather than strength. NevilleChamberlain certainly so regarded it. He wrote to his sister ten daysbefore the committee stage of the Unemployment Bill:

It takes me all my time ... to keep the Minister of Labour up to thescratch. He gets very rattled over a big Bill like this and is alwayscoming to know if he may give away this or that importantconcession as he is firmly convinced that our position will bequite indefensible unless we do. So far I have insisted that heshould hold the fort and he has not yet suffered any of thedisasters he feared. 19

A week later, after several days in bed, he wrote:

I must try and make an improvement tomorrow because I havegot the finance clauses of the Unemployment Bill on Monday andBetterton is so wobbly about them that I should feel veryuncomfortable about leaving him in charge. 20

Betterton was by no means stupid: a former official who was for a timehis private secretary has said, Ive never heard anybody who was sogood at expounding a complicated matter in simple terms and yetwithout putting a foot wrong. 21 In cabinet, he had shown his ability to

argue a case cogently and persistently. As chairman of the board,however, he stood in the middle of a complex web of relationshipswhich a tougher man would have found difficult to cope with. The part-time members looked to him for leadership in the power strugglebetween the board and its officials. The officials looked to him topresent their case to the minister. The minister and the cabinet lookedto him to shield the government from criticism of its treatment of theunemployed while cleansing the Augean stables of the transitionalpayments scheme. And the unemployed looked to him as head of thenew body on which their ability to maintain themselves and theirfamilies depended. He must have been keenly aware of theuncomfortable relationship between the deputy chairman and secretaryof the board, and the increasingly unhappy relations between the

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officials of the board and the Ministry of Labour. On top of all this, hehad to face growing dissatisfaction among board members who felt thatthey were being prevented from playing a positive role in the boardsaffairs. The most serious blow to his morale, however, was thedisastrous failure of the boards regulations in January and February1935. The board having let down both the unemployed and thegovernment, the government then let the board down by imposing theignominious standstill (these events are described fully in chapter 12).

Ministers can feel isolated enough, cloistered in their departments, butat least they remain members of the House of Commons (or Lords) and,if they are of cabinet rank, can meet their colleagues round the cabinettable. The isolation of the chairman of the board was not mitigated bythese outside contacts. Two of his former private secretaries haverecalled occasions when deputations of Labour and ILP MPs called at theboards headquarters. To the Clydesiders, Maxton and McGovern, whocame to see him before Christmas 1936, he complained, I wish youbuggers would come and see me more often. Its ever so lonely downhere. 22 And when, in 1938, a group of Labour members from SouthWales called on him, Rushcliffe seized the opportunity of chatting toGeorge Hall, the MP for Aberdare, about the House of Commons andpeople they both knew, until the leader of the deputation interruptedand brought the conversation round to the business in hand. 23

The other members of the board could provide companionship of a sortwhen they were around, but the only other full-time member,Strohmenger, was not a person to whom Rushcliffe would have felt

much affinity. By the time Strohmenger was replaced by VioletMarkham, she had formed a low opinion of the chairman. Happily forRushcliffe, he found in Eady a person to whom he could speak freelyand who would respond with understanding and sensitivity, but early in1938 Eady was removed to the Home Office. Eady is a terrible loss to[the chairman] on the personal as well as official side, Markham wrote, - he cant have that intimate gossip with Reid and Hancock in thesame way. 24

It is not surprising, then, that Rushcliffe seemed at times bad-tempered,indecisive and lethargic. At crucial stages in the boards affairs he would

be found salmon-fishing in Scotland. When he was present he haddifficulty in imposing his authority. I gather that the Chairman is moreuseless and idle than ever, Markham wrote to Jones in May 1935. Itsreally desperate going into battle without even the pretence of acommander. 25 A year later, when the boards new regulations wereunder discussion, Tom Jones wrote in his diary:

How he managed to survive and succeed for so many years asMinister of Labour is a puzzle. He has a good presence, a friendlygossiping disposition and a habit of saying the same thing overand over again which I find boring. He has no trace of distinctionin thought or language, and I suppose this ordinariness is hissecret, and his determination to agree with the enemy in the gate

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and avoid trouble. He is thoroughly defeatist about ourRegulations and is sure his old Cabinet associates will run awayonce again. 26

But if Rushcliffe lacked the qualities that would have commanded

Joness (or Chamberlains) respect, he is remembered with affection bythose who worked for him, as a kindly, courteous and thoroughlylikeable human being. It should be said in his defence, moreover, thathe appears to have entertained serious doubts as to whether he wasthe right man for the job of chairman and allowed himself to bepersuaded after a show of reluctance which was almost certainlygenuine. The knowledge that he was far from being the first choice forthe job cannot have enhanced his confidence and self-esteem.

Selection and appointment

Finding a suitable chairman had, indeed, proved difficult and a numberof possible candidates had been considered, including Lord Macmillan, 27the Scottish judge who had chaired the committee on finance andindustry appointed by the Labour government in 1929, and LordAmulree 28 who had been president of the industrial court and later aminister in the Labour government. Chamberlains favoured candidatewas the relatively unknown Sir Wyndham Portal (as Lord Portal he waslater to be a wartime Minister of Works). By March 1934, there weremoves afoot to advance Bettertons candidature, but Chamberlain,whose opinion of Betterton we have already noted, was not

enthusiastic. He wrote in his diary:... though Bs name would probably have a good reception hedoes not possess the qualities of initiative and originality anddrive that I consider are required. I sounded him to see what hisown views were and he said he did not see how a Minister couldcreate such a post with a handsome salary attached and thentake it himself, to which I merely responded that that was a verypowerful argument.

Other names on Chamberlains list included Lord Trenchard, who hadcommanded the Royal Air Force in France during the war and was now

Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and Lord Halifax who was thenpresident of the Board of Education. MacDonald, Chamberlain wrote,was attracted by Trenchard but feared the accusation of Prussianismand Concentration Camps, while Halifax had hopes of becomingforeign secretary (a post he eventually attained on Edens resignation in1938) and was not interested. 29 On being told that the Prime Ministerfavoured Portal, however, Betterton put forward two new candidates,Lord Eustace Percy and John Buchan. He is a very trying colleague,wrote Chamberlain, 30 who continued to back Portal, persuadingMacDonald to appoint him as one of the special commissioners whowere to report on the depressed areas, 31 in which capacity he blotted hiscopybook by suggesting that the government should finance the re-opening of the Ebbw Vale steel works. This crude suggestion,

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Chamberlain confided to his diary, has made me feel that he is not theman to be chairman of the Unemployment Assistance Board and mythoughts have reverted to Betterton who would be safe. 32

Betterton finally agreed to take the job after considerable persuasion.

Fear of being suspected of creating the post for his own benefit wascertainly one reason for his reluctance. He had, after all, been amember of the cabinet committee which, the previous year, decidedthat the chairman must be a person with an outstanding nationalreputation and that the 3,000 paid to a permanent secretary mightnot be enough to attract a suitable person. The figure of 5,000 hadbeen suggested on the grounds that this was the salary of the chairmanof the Import Duties Advisory Committee set up in 1932 (ironically, theholder of that post was Sir George May, whose report had played acrucial part in the events of 1931 leading to the imposition of the meanstest on the unemployed). 33 After the membership of the board had beenannounced, Chamberlain wrote:

... I am glad all is settled as I havent had a moments peace fromBetterton for days. He was terrified of what the P.M. would sayand I had to draft the announcement myself. 34

The official files open to public inspection reveal little about the processof selecting the boards other members. There had to be at least onefrom Scotland (Reynard), one from Wales (Jones), and preferably onefrom the north-east (Hallsworth); one from the public assistance field

(Reynard) and one having links with voluntary welfare organisations(Jones and Markham); and, of course, there had to be a woman (thegovernment had, in fact, accepted an amendment to the bill, moved byLady Astor, making this a statutory requirement). There would havebeen advantages in appointing someone with known Laboursympathies, but there is no evidence that any attempt was made to dothis and it might have been difficult to find such a person who wasprepared to serve.

Some preliminary soundings were being made early in 1934. Tom Joneswas approached by Sir Francis Floud, having already received a hintfrom Eady who, Jones wrote smugly, wants to get someone with ahumane outlook. 35 Strohmenger, presumably Chamberlains personalchoice, must have known at an early stage that he was to be deputychairman - and, as the chairman was not chosen until the last minute,this placed him in a powerful position from the start. Of the others,Reynard probably had some advance warning. Violet Markham, on theother hand, seems to have had no idea that she was to be invited until

just before the formal invitation, though it must have been obvious thatshe was one of a handful of women in the running (her name hadappeared in a list of possible members of the Royal Commission onUnemployment Insurance in 1930 36 ). A hastily scrawled note from

Betterton may have helped to persuade her to join what she describedas his sherry party: 37

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My dear Violet,

When you are asked you are not to refuse!! I insist on youracceptance and will not take a refusal!! 38

The board at work

Between July 1934 and March 1940, when its title was shortened and itsfunctions widened, the Unemployment Assistance Board met formally143 times. In addition, members frequently met or correspondedinformally. The boards membership remained unchanged throughout,apart from Strohmengers retirement.

It cannot be said that the contribution of individual members of theboard was ever indispensable. The work could have been done entirelyby full-time officials, major questions of policy being referred to thechairman for decision, just as they would have been referred to aminister in any other department. The Act required that the draftregulations should be submitted to the minister in the boards nameand that decisions on individual cases should be made by officersappointed by the board; but these formal responsibilities could havebeen fulfilled by an occasional board meeting to rubber-stamp theofficials decisions. George Reid, a future secretary of the board, wroteto Violet Markham on her appointment:

Personally I do not think that you should find the duties veryarduous. They will be responsible and may at times be worrying;but with a full-time Chairman and deputy chairman and anumerous and well paid staff, the individual members of theBoard ought not to have much to do . Their function as Iunderstand it is to let the common enterprise have the advantageof their sagacity, knowledge and experience. 39

But while some of the boards part-time members might have beencontent with such a passive role, others were not. They saw it as theirduty to involve themselves not only in policy but in administration. Theyfelt (Violet Markham most of all) that membership carried a personalresponsibility for the welfare of the unemployed; and, after a disastrousstart, they also came to feel a responsibility for the boards battered

reputation. Their attempts to adopt a positive role, however,encountered an ambivalent response from the officials. It was notnecessarily helpful and could be positively vexatious to have membersof the board nosing around the office looking for work to do. On theother hand, if they were willing to put time and effort into the work of the board, any attempt to keep them out was likely to make them stillmore troublesome.

In the early days, relations between members and officials seem tohave been harmonious enough. Weve had half a dozen meetings of the U.A. Board in the spacious (and noisy) halls of Thames House, Tom

Jones wrote after the first month. All are pulling well together. V.M. iskeen and quick if a trifle voluble. Eady and Reid tip-top. 40 Early in

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September 1934, Violet Markham demonstrated her intention of beingan active member by touring a number of cities in the north of Englandand Scotland, meeting local officials and councillors, and reporting herimpressions to the next meeting of the board. 41 The board as a wholeplayed an active part in revising early drafts of the regulations atmeetings which sometimes extended over several days, but themembers were becoming increasingly aware of the limits on theirfreedom of action. By the end of November 1934, when the cabinet wasat last persuaded that the regulations were in a fit state to be laidbefore parliament, any illusions they may have entertained as to theirpower to act against the wishes of the government had been destroyed.

The standstill of February 1935 following the failure of the firstregulations was far more traumatic, involving the public repudiation bythe government of the boards efforts. In the months that followed, theofficials, with little pretence of involving the part-time members, appliedthemselves to the daunting task of producing new regulations whichcould decently be commended to the board and yet would meet thealmost paranoid anxieties of the Ministry of Labour and its new minister,Ernest Brown. In the end, however, it was not so much the unrewardingnature of the work that nearly led to a revolt by the non-officialmembers, but the feeling that, throughout the summer months, theywere being excluded from it altogether.

The situation came to a head in September 1935. The board had notmet since July and the chairman was away fishing in Scotland. The non-official members were told nothing of the negotiations Eady was

conducting with the Ministry of Labour regarding the new regulations.Markham called at Thames House at the end of September, having beentold by Eady there was no need to do so, and took offence when heasked why she was there. 42 She and Hallsworth, with Reynardsagreement, suggested to Jones that the four of them should hold aninformal meeting. 43 Jones alerted Eady to the non-official membersfeeling that they were being excluded from the boards affairs, that theywere expected either to ratify commitments entered into by the officialsor to make decisions without sufficient knowledge, and that (as Eadyput it) there was too much Deputy Chairman in the cosmos! Eadyacted swiftly. Following the time-honoured method of disposing of atroublesome minister by sending him on a series of provincial tours, hedecided to despatch the board members around the country on tours of inspection. In addition, to satisfy their desire to be involved in the day-to-day work, they were to be asked, when not engaged in their travels,to come two or three days a week to Thames House, where Eady couldconsult them as he consulted Rushcliffe and Strohmenger. Rushcliffe,too, was no longer to be a passive signer of letters but was to bebrought into the daily administration. 44

The plan was unveiled at the boards next meeting when, as Eadyreported to Jones, Stroh happened to be away (Jones was also away,

taking the waters in Bath). Markham and Hallsworth were delighted,while Rushcliffe, according to Hallsworth, seems a new man and gives

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me the impression he intends in future to be no mere figurehead. 45 Jones had the satisfaction of having acted as mediator without himself getting involved in the programme of work to which his colleagues werecommitted: all were agreed that he could not be expected to do thisand should remain detached from the day-to-day work and ready tooffer his wise counsel when needed. 46

The new arrangements started well. Reynard was sent off to show theflag in Scotland and find out how the standstill was operating there.Hallsworth was sent on a similar errand to the north-east. Markham,after a week visiting London offices, turned her attention to Wales,where she was appalled even more by the demoralising effects of massunemployment than by the sheer physical poverty of the valleys.Shortly after, she received from Tom Jones a satirical essay by him,published anonymously in the New Statesman , attacking the policy of depopulation which was the governments only answer to the problemsof South Wales. 47 In reply, she wrote:

If our Christianity wasnt a sham could we tolerate for fiveminutes the conditions of life that a greedy capitalism hasproduced in the Welsh valleys and elsewhere? 48

Back in London, however, involvement in the day-to-day work did littleto relieve the part-time members frustration. The more they saw of thetortuous negotiations between the board and the ministry, the lesspoint there seemed to be in the boards existence. Even Jones was

discouraged:During this last week the Unemployment Board has devoured mybody and mind. Six meetings in the parched air of Thames House.All our discussions have an air of equal aridity and exhaustion.Will our new regulations ever be wanted? 49

Markham, reporting a conversation with Hallsworth, returned to herfavourite metaphor:

Both of us confessed that we felt our futility as members of theBoard was complete. Both of us feel that it will be difficult tospend another two years pouring water through a sieve after the

fashion of the last 15 months.... The independence of which we heard so much is a myth. Wecannot move hand or foot without the permission of the Ministryof Labour. ... I personally should be very thankful to be quit of the

job. Life is too short to spend ones time carrying cans of waterfrom the basement to the attic, there to pour them down thedrain. 50

Talk of resignation became rife as the board was repeatedly forced tomodify its proposals, but nobody actually resigned. We cant leave theship when it is trying to make harbour in a crippled state, Markhamwrote; 51 while Jones, after formally threatening resignation, confided to

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his diary, My main reason for agreeing to remain on the U.A. Board fora few months longer was personal loyalty to the P.M. 52

The fact was that, with their initial programme of visits to area officescomplete, it was difficult to find anything useful for board members to

do during their days at Thames House. As Markham put it: The actual work I am doing for the Board is trifling, but I am kepthanging about all the time and unable to do other work because Imay be wanted. And even so very often Eady makes me feel thatmy room is more welcome than my company! I know we outsidersare a trial to the pukka civil servant but as things are I dont findthe Board worth while. 53

Markham and Hallsworth did find one job they were convinced theycould do better than the officials: drafting the introduction to theboards annual report. This was the first opportunity for a substantialpublic defence of the boards actions. Rushcliffe invited Markham andHallsworth to help (Jones was abroad and Reynard, Markham wrote,didnt count much in a job of this kind). Hallsworth described thescene on his arrival:

A pretty warm meeting was evidently in progress. The Chairmanappeared wan and helpless and Eady and Stroh looked as if theyhad been giving him a bad time. Apparently Eady had preparedtwo drafts, neither of which he liked.

Hallsworth glanced at the second draft and did not like it either. Nor didMarkham, who had now arrived on the scene: it was, she wrote to Jones,

not only utterly undistinguished in language but utterly colourlessin style. The Chairman was in despair, couldnt bear the draft butwas incapable himself of altering it; sat and made feeble digs at ablock with a pen and talked of omitted bull points.

Markham and Hallsworth spent a day redrafting and submitted theresult to a board meeting. Strohmenger, Markham reported, was

very angry and full of heavy humour about these journalisticefforts. And we heard a lot about his forty years experience etc.

etc. and the need for dignity.A number of inaccuracies in the new draft were pointed out and theversion finally approved was a joint effort by Hallsworth, Markham andEady. A bowl of water had to be brought in for Strohmenger, as forPontius Pilate, Hallsworth told Jones. He entirely disapproves of thewhole tenor of it. 54

Reading the introductory chapter 75 years later, it is hard to understandwhy Strohmenger objected so strongly to what now seems a sober andmoderate statement of the boards view of the events of 1935, but thedisagreement between the officials and the part-time members over the

annual report reflected their differing perceptions of the boardsrelationship to the government. In particular, the members wanted the

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board to stand up to the minister and insist on the standstill beingbrought to an end in a firm and principled manner. Ernest Brown wasdetermined that there should be no repetition of the events of February1935 which had nearly destroyed the career of his predecessor. Hispermanent secretary, Sir Thomas Phillips (he had succeeded Floud in1935), shared that determination. Eadys position could hardly havebeen more difficult. As secretary of the board it was his duty to fight forits principles and defend its independence; yet he knew that, in the lastresort, the board could not act in defiance of the minister. Moreover, thetraditions of the civil service demanded that the position of the minister(who, unlike the board, was directly answerable to parliament) must beprotected. The fact that Phillips, like Strohmenger, was Eadys senior inthe civil service hierarchy helped to undermine Eadys position. Like allcivil servants, he hoped for promotion, which would inevitably meanleaving the board and probably moving back to the Ministry of Labour.

Falling out with the permanent secretary would not enhance his careerprospects. To Violet Markham, however, his attitude seemedinexplicable:

Our series of lamentable surrenders have created a position whichI find intolerable. I cant understand Eady and his growingsubservience to the Ministry of Labour. I am afraid I have lostconfidence in him and in his judgment. His mind is too subtle andit veers about too much.

Why he should act more like an agent of the Ministry than of theBoard is a fact beyond my comprehension. But among our staff

who dont come from the M. of L. the fact is increasingly deploredand resented . 55

In October 1936, Eady made another, and for a time more successful,attempt to involve board members in the work of the office. By then therunning battle over the new regulations was over and there was areasonable prospect of the board settling down to a period of administrative consolidation, relatively free from political interference.

There would be a good deal of detailed policy work to be done and Eadysuggested the formation of three sub-committees: one to deal with

assessment questions, building up a body of precedents for theguidance of officials; one to deal with questions arising from theliquidation of the standstill (the new rules were to be introducedgradually, to avoid a repetition of the dramatic cuts of 1935); the thirdto be concerned with training and welfare. Instead of the board meetingone or two days a week, most of its work would be done by the sub-committees. 56 Each sub-committee was to have three members butothers were free to attend and, at the start at least, they often did. Thearrangement worked well at first but, as the work settled down, thebusiness of the sub-committees became more humdrum and the oldfrustrations reappeared.

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A new deputy chairman

Violet Markham remained the most active of the non-official membersand was rewarded with the deputy chairmanship when Strohmengerretired at the end of April 1937 - though she insisted on remaining

part-time and refused an increase in her 750 salary. Eadys hopes of getting the job himself were disappointed. The worst outcome, from hispoint of view, would have been the appointment of anotherStrohmenger - a senior civil servant brought in from anotherdepartment (worst of all, from the Ministry of Labour); but there seemsto have been general agreement among board members that they didnot want an outsider. Markhams assessment of the factors leading toher appointment was that the Treasury wanted to save a salary, whilethe chairman did not want an unwelcome stranger and would nothave Hallsworth or Reynard; and so by a process of elimination theyhave got down to the dogs body namely V.M. 57

Strohmengers retirement was marked by a GBE in the Coronationhonours list which, Eady wrote, will please him and will remove anylingering doubts that he may ever have had that he is a Great Man -though Sir Horace Wilson was heard to observe that it was an RIP aswell as a GBE. 58 When Strohmenger died in 1967, at the age of 94, theTimes obituary column barely mentioned his passing, in contrast to thelengthy and appreciative notice which had appeared on Sir WilfredEadys death five years earlier.

Although Violet Markham did not inherit Strohmengers 3,000 salary,she continued to devote a large amount of her time to the board, takinga particular interest in the problems of unemployed women and in theboards training and welfare functions. As in the past, she oftencomplained of being kept in the dark by the officials. In October 1938she aptly summed up her feelings in a quotation from Alice with which,she wrote, I should like to circularise the Civil Service and especiallyour own office:

I sent a message to the fish:I told them This is what I wish.

The little fishes of the sea They sent an answer back to me.

The little fishes answer wasWe cannot do it, Sir, because -.

I sent to them again to sayIt will be better to obey.

The fishes answered with a grin,Why what a temper you are in!

I told them once, I told them twice: They would not listen to advice.

Then someone came to me and said,The little fishes are in bed.

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Reinventing the dole: a history of the Unemployment Assistance Board 1934-1940 by Tony Lynesis licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license,visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street,Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.
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Reinventing the dole: Chapter 6

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