Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane
Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, was a Scottish lawyer, philosopher, influential Liberal and later Labour politician and statesman. He was Secretary of State for War between 1905 and 1912 during which time the "Haldane Reforms" of the British Army were implemented. As Secretary of State of War, he was instrumental in founding MI5, MI6, the Territorial Army, the British Expeditionary Force, and the Royal Flying Corps. Beyond his military contributions, Haldane was a significant figure in education, contributing to the founding of institutions such as Imperial College London and the London School of Economics. His efforts have left a lasting impact on both the UK's defence and educational landscapes.
As an intellectual he was fascinated with German thought. That led to his role in seeking detente with Germany in 1912 in the Haldane Mission. The mission was a failure and tensions with Berlin forced London to work more closely with Paris.
Raised to the peerage as Viscount Haldane in 1911, he was Lord Chancellor between 1912 and 1915, when he was forced to resign because of allegations of German sympathies. He later joined the Labour Party and again served as Lord Chancellor in 1924 in the first Labour administration. Apart from his legal and political careers, Haldane was an influential writer on philosophy, in recognition of which he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1914.
Background and education
Haldane was born at 17 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, the son of Robert Haldane and his wife Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Burdon-Sanderson. He was the grandson of the Scottish evangelist James Alexander Haldane, the brother of respiratory physiologist John Scott Haldane, Sir William Haldane and author Elizabeth Haldane, and the uncle of J. B. S. Haldane, Robert Haldane Makgill and Naomi Mitchison.He received his first education at the Edinburgh Academy, and then at the University of Göttingen. He gained a first and MA at University of Edinburgh where he received first-class honours in Philosophy and was Gray scholar and Ferguson scholar.
After studying law in London, he was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn, in 1879, and became a successful lawyer. He was taken on at 5 New Square Chambers by Horace Davey in 1882 as the junior. Haldane's practice was a specialism in conveyancing; a particular skill for pleadings at appeal and tribunal cases, bringing cases to the Privy Council and House of Lords. By 1890 he had become a Queen's Counsel. By 1905 he was earning £20,000 per annum at the Bar. He became a bencher at Lincoln's Inn in 1893. Amongst his early friends was Edmund Gosse, the librarian of the House of Lords library.
Haldane was a deep thinker, an unusual breed: a philosopher-politician. During his stay at Göttingen he expanded an interest in the German philosophers, Schopenhauer and Hegel. He had refused a place at Balliol, but in nodding respect for the Master and philosopher, T. H. Green, he dedicated his Essays in Philosophical Criticism to him.
Early political career
A cousin, the Whig politician Lord Camperdown encouraged the young barrister into standing as a Liberal at the General Election of 1880. Although not elected that year Haldane joined the Eighty Club, a political dining and discussion club formed in 1879. Membership was restricted to Liberals under the age of forty. In 1881 Haldane met H. H. Asquith, and they soon became firm friends often meeting at the Blue Post Public house on Cork Street. They were founders of the Albert Grey committee, named after Albert Grey, regularly discussing burning social issues, such as education.In November 1885, Haldane was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for Haddingtonshire, a seat he held until 1911. The philosopher-politician wrote several articles for the advanced and progressive Contemporary Review. In October 1888, "The Liberal Creed" was published summarising his belief in the direction of New Liberalism. In the 1890 article "The Eight Hours Question" Haldane rejected the idea of the eight-hour day. In 1888, he courted Emma Valentine Ferguson, sister of his Liberal party friend, Ronald Munro-Ferguson; she broke off the engagement and subsequently lampooned him in her novel Betsy in 1892. Haldane became firmly ensconced in the Imperialist wing of Liberalism, led by Sir Edward Grey. At the 1892 General Election, he received a shock when nearly defeated by the Liberal Unionist, Walter Hepburne-Scott, Master of Polwarth. Beatrice Webb, the socialist who was a close intimate, remarked on how alone Haldane was in the world. Haldane added the preface to Leonard Hobhouse's The Labour Movement in 1893. Emma Ferguson died insane in 1897. Webb remarked, "He had pathos in his personality, a successful lawyer tinged with socialism."
Liberal Imperialist
Focusing on his writings, Haldane was passed over for political office, being the only one of his group left out in the wilderness. Haldane remained an ally of Asquith and Grey in the Liberal Imperialist wing of the party, followers of Lord Rosebery rather than of Sir William Harcourt. Rosebery admired Haldane's intellect, and the Scotsman urged upon his friend, whom he had known since 1886, an assault on Tory power in the Lords in 1894. Haldane joined friends at the Articles Club, including Asquith and Grey. Haldane was disappointed having failed to secure the post of Solicitor-General in October 1894. Asquith wryly remarked "A very wrong decision come to upon inadequate grounds." Haldane was sounded out for the Speakership by Rosebery, but refused it, declaring it to be a political death.At a meeting with Beatrice Webb Haldane told her he was disconsolate at the condition of the Liberal Party: "Rot has set in there is no hope now but to be beaten and then reconstruct a new party". The leaders of the party were exasperated and believed Rosebery to lack planning and direction. "Although Asquith, Grey and I", wrote Haldane, "stuck by him... we never knew when he would retire and leave us in the lurch". When Rosebery offered the Speakership, he refused it that March. However, on 11 October 1896, he wrote to Rosebery that he "was the leader of a revolution in our party".
On 11 August 1902, Haldane was admitted to the Privy Council, following an announcement of the King's intention to make the appointment in the 1902 Coronation Honours list, published in June that year. The King used his influence and charm to cultivate allies, bringing cross-party groups like The Souls together in consensual amity. Balfour's administration leant on Haldane's philosophy for educational reforms.
After the Conservative government of Arthur Balfour fell in December 1905 there was some speculation that Asquith and his allies Haldane and Grey would refuse to serve unless Henry Campbell-Bannerman accepted a peerage, which would have left Asquith as the real leader in the House of Commons. Haldane had suggested involving the King at Balmoral to 'kick CB upstairs'. However, the plot collapsed when Asquith agreed to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Campbell-Bannerman.
Haldane wrote, "One longs for Rosebery had he been coming in to his right place at the head of affairs, we could have gone anywhere with confidence. But it seems now as if this were not to be and we have to do the only thing we can do, which is to resolutely follow a plan of concerted action".
On 13 December 1905, Haldane was appointed Secretary of State for War, but he may have been offered the jobs of Attorney-General and Home Secretary.. Unity in the Liberals helped them obtain the largest electoral majority in the party's history in the 1906 general election.
Secretary of State for War
As early as January 1906 Haldane was persuaded by fellow Liberal Imperialist Edward Grey to begin planning for a Continental war in support of the French against the Germans. However, Haldane's first estimates reduced the Army by 16,600 men and reduced expenditure by £2.6m to £28 million, as the Liberals had been elected on a platform of retrenchment. By 1914 Britain spent 3.4% of national income on defence, little more in absolute terms than Austria-Hungary's 6.1%. Army expenditure was determined according to a formula devised by the Esher Committee. In 1900, during the Boer War, army expenditure was £86.8m, by 1910 it had dropped to £27.6m and by 1914 it had risen back to £29.4m. In March 1914 effective expenditure on the Army, after allowing for increased pensions and £1m set aside for military aviation, was still less than in 1907–8, and £2m less than in 1905-6.In October 1907 Haldane was intimately involved with the negotiations at Windsor with Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Germanophile and linguist was thrilled to be summoned at 1 am to talk with the Emperor over whisky on arms reduction principles. But the import was the Berlin–Baghdad railway which Germany was hoping to construct with British approval. A fluent German-speaker, Haldane was lulled into a false sense of security believing 'like a bear with a sore head' that he had won a great deal. Another such conference took place at Balmoral in September 1909. But the Kaiser, refusing to converse with a mere secretary, arrogantly insisted that only the King was of equal rank.
Despite the budgetary constraints, Haldane implemented a wide-ranging set of reforms of the Army, aimed at preparing the army for an Imperial war but with the more likely task of a European war. The main element of this was the establishment of the British Expeditionary Force of six infantry divisions and one cavalry division. The Official Historian Brigadier James Edmonds later wrote that "in every respect the Expeditionary Force of 1914 was incomparably the best trained, best organised and best equipped British Army ever to leave these shores"
Image:Haldane a West Point.jpg|thumb|right|Haldane at West Point sometime before the Great War.