Marcia Williams
Marcia Matilda Williams, Baroness Falkender, CBE, also known as Marcia Falkender, was the private secretary for, and then the political secretary and head of political office to, UK Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.
Marcia Wiliiams was known as Harold Wilson's closest confidant. Clever and sharp-witted, she had more power than most cabinet ministers, but her tirades caused tensions within Number 10. As a result, she was a deeply divisive figure. There was also speculation that Wilson had an affair with her, but if that had happened it appears to have been over long before Wilson came to power.
Background
Marcia Mathilda Field was born at Watson Road, Long Buckby, Northampshire as the third and youngest child of Harry Field en his wife Dorothy Mathilda Falkender, née Cowley. Harry Field was a brick maker. Marcia was educated at Northampton High School as a scholarship girl. She developed during her youth strong political commitments as a rejection of the conservatism of her parents. Marcia identified herself with the have-nots in her history books as well as with the less well-off children in her class and adopted socialism. In her late teens, this became a serious commitment, linked to plans for a career. In the sixth form, she set her sights on becoming the assistant to a Labour MP, in order to work in Parliament. She brushed aside her teachers’ suggestions that she should try for Oxford or Manchester University. Instead, she read history at Queen Mary College, London, because of its relative proximity to Westminster. While at Queen Mary she became president of the Labour Club. She fell in love with George Edmund Charles Williams. Ed Williams was president of the Conservative Club. After his study he became an aeronautical engineer. They married in West Haddon, Northamptonshire, on 1 December 1955.There is an unconfirmed rumour that her mother was an illegitimate daughter of King Edward VII. It is supposed the story was invented to hide the humble status of the Williams family. It is said Queen Elizabeth II was reluctant to meet Marcia Williams because of this story.
Early career and serving Harold Wilson
After graduation at Queen Mary College Marcia Field took a secretarial course at St Godric’s Secretarial College, Hampstead. In 1955 she was appointed as a secretary to the Labour Party general secretary, Morgan Phillips. Within one year became Marcia became repelled by the right-wing trades union atmosphere at Transport House, and secretly became a sympathizer of Bevanism. An escape route to more congenial political company came in the person of Harold Wilson. Wilson, a prominent Bevanite, was looking for a secretary. She applied and was appointed in 1956. It was a post she retained for the rest of her professional life. Her position became more various and important while Wilson proceeded to be leader of the Labour Party and eventually prime minister. The relationship was said to be one of the most famous, and mysterious, partnerships, of modern political history.Harold Wilson was Member of Parliament for Huyton. Williams became his secretary in 1956. This position she retained until 1964. In October 1964, Wilson became Prime Minister; Williams rose to be his political secretary and head of the political office. Wilson was in office as Prime Minister from 1964 until 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976.
Harold Wilson was also leader of the Labour Party. Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell died in January 1963, Wilson won the subsequent leadership election to replace him, becoming Leader of the Opposition. According to Harold Wilson, Williams "greatly assisted" him in all this work on party organisation as member of the staff of Morgan Philips. 'The following year she joined me as my full-time political secretary to deal with my enormous mailbag. She worked first out of my office at Montague Meyer and stayed with me through all the vicissitudes of the following twenty years.'
Williams started her career as a conventional secretary. She kept Wilson's diary, dealt with his correspondence, typed his speeches, and organised and accompanied him on his overseas trips. As time went on, and her personal relationship with Harold Wilson deepened, she also began assuming other, more significant roles. According to her biographer in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Williams became Wilson's inspiration and muse. For instance, at the Labour Party conference of 1963, it was Williams who inspired and pushed Wilson to deliver the "white heat of technology" speech. This speech was widely regarded as an important staging post on Labour's path to its general election victory the following year. Williams frequently dispensed invaluable advice and was thought by many to have "one of the sharpest political brains in the country".
In 1964, Wilson became Prime Minister. Williams had made herself so indispensable that there was no question of her being removed or sidelined. This initially caused some tension, because the civil service already provided the Prime Minister with a principal private secretary. Williams was given the title "personal political secretary". Behind the cabinet room in 10 Downing Street, she had a little office for herself. According to Wilson's biographer, Ben Pimlott, Williams had a very clear sense of her own role. She saw herself as the new Prime Minister's political arm: keeping him in touch with the Labour party, Parliament and the country. The machinery of Downing Street threatened to overwhelm Wilson with the establishment business of being Prime Minister. Being a Prime Minister took up eighty percent of Wilson's time and just twenty percent for his leadership of the Labour party. The civil service wanted Wilson to get on with running the country. However, Williams was determined not to let him forget who it was that made it possible for him to do it. It was said that "she saw herself as his socialist conscience". After some conflicts within the service of Downing Street, Williams secured her niche. She did not rule in No. 10, but she was unquestionably powerful. Her significance remained what it always had been: Wilson depended on her, practically, psychologically and also intellectually. As before, she kept Wilson's political files, typed his speeches, paid private bills, and since 1964 she increasingly did his constituency work as well. She supervised Wilson's secretarial staff in the morning in Downing Street. In the afternoon, she worked in the Prime Minister's Office in the Houses of Parliament. According to Ben Pimlott, Wilson's biographer, these secretarial activities were merely the scaffolding. Her important role was to be the person who thought about Wilson's needs and cared about his well-being more than anybody else outside his family. Unlike other staff, civil service or political, her dedication did not depend on her official position. "She has stuck by me though thick and thin," Harold Wilson told a colleague when they were abroad together in the company of Williams. "If I get thrown out, she's still going to be my most loyal supporter". Williams was part of Wilson's protective shield towards other Labour politicians.
Williams served Wilson as a personal and political confidante while having few close personal friends in the Cabinet. Wilson completely trusted her. He used her to test out his policy ideas, to share his fears of political threats, to confide his thoughts on cabinet reshuffles and consulting her on how to handle the party. Their relationship was peculiarly intense. Williams said it was because she was the only one who told him exactly what she thought. Wilson said it was because she was the only one whose loyalty was undoubted.
As a result of closeness to Harold Wilson, Williams was controversial. However, it was also because of her behaviour. According to Ben Pimlott, Williams used to shout out all her happiness and frustrations. Officials were startled, not just by the lack of deference contained in the shouting, but also by the apparent reversal of roles. The Prime Minister seemed to be seeking his assistant's approval, rather than the other way round. She exercised considerable control, seemingly because Harold Wilson wanted her to be happy. As she saw herself as his socialist conscience, who needed him to say what he couldn't say himself, he had to speak in soft terms because of his role as Prime Minister. In contrast to that, Marcia had the habit of saying things loudly and angrily enough to grab his attention. She had both enemies in personal and professional circles. In the tabloid press, Williams became an increasingly controversial figure.
Enemies within Downing Street
Linda MacDougall made a statement in her book on Williams. Williams's story is dominated by two former assistants of Harold Wilson: Bernhard Donoughue and Joe Haines. Both despised Williams.Bernard Donoughue, Baron Donoughue wrote a nightly diary which he published much later, in 2005: Downing Street Diary. With Harold Wilson in No. 10. Donoughue was in 1974 appointed as Wilson's newly formed policy research unit. Donoughue described Williams as constantly lively and a bright personality, but also a cynically realistic about Harold Wilson. She knew all his faults, but seemed always loyal and affectionate towards Wilson. Donoughue's verdict on Williams: always constructive, looking for decisions, handling people with rather brutal honesty, but always getting a solution. A much better politician than Harold Wilson and most other MP's, but sometimes very heavy on fools. According to Donoughue's diary notes, Williams totally lacked deference to Harold Wilson. She simply told him the brutal truth as she saw it. She was a pushing woman.
Joe Haines, Wilson's former press secretary, wrote Glimmers of Twilight: Harold Wilson in Decline. In this memoir he portrayed Marcia as dangerous and difficult; as the woman who was responsible for the destruction of Harold Wilson's legacy. Joe Haines joined Mirror Group Newspapers when he left Downing Street. Joe Haines blamed Williams: Harold Wilson's decline was the result of "the tantrums, tirades and tyranny of Marcia Williams". Haines was vitriolic about Williams's personality and the way he felt she dominated Harold Wilson. After her death, he paid a grim tribute to the woman with her "lethal technique" to show people their place. "She was officially described as his political secretary. For the political part she was great. As a secretary she was lousy."
Philip Ziegler, Wilson's authorized biographer, stated it is difficult to overestimate the importance of Williams in Wilson's political career. In a sense, Williams was his political wife. Wilson wanted to discuss politics or to gossip about politicians: the nuts and bolts of who would vote for whom, how X could be persuaded to do this, Y prevented from doing that. If his wife Mary had wanted it, her husband would have been happy for her to fill the role, but she hated the political world. Mary Wilson was concerned with political issues, was prepared to smile loyally at election times, to rejoice in his triumphs and lament at his disasters. However, endless late-night debate about the state of the party was not for her. Wilson, therefore, needed a supplementary, a political wife. His specifications for such an adjunct were unusual. Perhaps as a legacy of his childhood, Wilson relished assertive and bullying women. Mary Wilson was strong but tranquil. Mary abhorred rows and regarded the making of scenes in public as vulgar and distasteful. In contrast, Williams had an explosive temper was explosive and was in possession of a wayward and sometimes non-existent self-control. Wilson viewed her excesses with mingled tolerance and admiration. She was prepared to tell other people the things Wilson would have liked to have told them himself but could not bring himself to say aloud. He was frightened of her, because she was formidable in her ferocity – but frightened with the delighted glee of one to whom a frisson of terror adds savour to a relationship. Those who marvelled at the patience with which Wilson endured Williams's threats and insults missed the point: it was those very threats and insults which enhanced her value in his eyes. Wilson was not a weak man; he was perfectly capable of ignoring Marcia's objurgations and continuing along his chosen route indifferent to her protests. Often he did so. However, he was incapable, chose to be incapable, of shutting her up and cutting off the lava flow of protest in midstream. Largely, this was because he had confidence in Williams's loyalty and dedication. She might sometimes be obstreperous, perverse, but she was on his side.