Alan Barlow


Sir James Alan Noel Barlow, 2nd Baronet was a British civil servant and collector of Islamic and Chinese art. He was Principal Private Secretary to Ramsay MacDonald, 1933–1934, and later Under-secretary at HM Treasury.

Personal life and education

Barlow was born in London, the eldest son of Sir Thomas Barlow, 1st Baronet, Royal physician, and his wife Ada Dalmahoy. He attended Marlborough College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduating with a first class degree in literae humaniores in 1904.
In 1911 Barlow and Nora Darwin, the daughter of Horace Darwin and grand-daughter of Charles Darwin were married. They had six children:
He was a member of the Savile and Athenaeum clubs in London where he was able to meet political contacts during his career. He started collecting Islamic pottery and Chinese ceramics as a child and later donated pieces to museums and the University of Sussex. He was also a bibliophile and interested in archaeology. From 1948 until 1955 he was a trustee of the National Gallery, and its chair from 1949 – 1951. He was also a president of the Oriental Ceramic Society from 1943 – 1964.

Career

He began a career as a civil servant as a clerk in the House of Commons in 1906. He was then chosen as a junior examiner in the Board of Education and in 1914 became private secretary to the parliamentary secretary. The First World War altered the direction of his career since in 1915 he was moved to the Ministry of Munitions to be private secretary to Christopher Addison, who became the Minister. In 1917 he was promoted to be deputy controller of labour supply and in 1918 became controller of the labour department. When the war ended he was in charge of demobilization and training in the new Ministry of Labour. In 1924 he was promoted to principal assistant secretary in charge of the industrial relations department of the Ministry. His role focused on training after 1929 and the establishment of government training centres, although there remained a lack of training by industry.
In 1933 he was appointed as the principal private secretary to Ramsay MacDonald, the prime minister. However, the two men were not suited to each other and in 1934 Barlow was transferred to the Treasury where he remained, rising to a senior position and being a member of several committees that together were concerned with the machinery of government. It has been considered that he made creative changes that improved the civil service. However he did not lead on changes needed as the government intervened more in economic and social policy from the late 1940s onwards. He was in favour of education expenditure, especially in technical and scientific areas. He chaired a committee in 1945 - 1946 that recommended foundation of a new technological university and increasing the number of science graduates, but it was not implemented. He retired in 1948 but continued to be a member of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy.
Barlow was a knight three times over; a baronet and a knight of both the Order of the Bath and the Order of the British Empire: