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Maurice Harold Macmillan is a British dissident, politician and publisher, having been an MP for the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party. Macmillan would come to minor prominence in 1927 when he would famously win a by-election in Kent to the Provincial Parliament on an Independent 'anti-corruption ticket' appearing in a white suit. Initially nicknamed 'the Man in the White Jacket', this would quickly be dropped for the far more famous 'SuperMac', initially started as an insult and quickly becoming a term of endearment.
Macmillan would lead an obscure term as an MP, establishing the small but mildly successful New Democratic Party around him but be arrested in late 1932. Able to weather the storm of the 1932 Parliamentary Crisis, he would later be arrested for sedition and membership of a banned organisation. Macmillan is perhaps most well known for being the only Conservative MP to have been arrested on the floor of the House of Commons.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Macmillan was born on 10 February 1894, at 52 Cadogan Place in Chelsea, London, to Maurice Crawford Macmillan, a publisher, and his wife, the former Helen (Nellie) Artie Tarleton Belles, an artist and socialite from Spencer, Indiana. He had two brothers, Daniel, eight years his senior, and Arthur, four years his senior. His paternal grandfather, Daniel Macmillan, who founded Macmillan Publishers, was the son of a Scottish crofter from the Isle of Arran.
Macmillan received an intensive early education, closely guided by his American mother. He learned French at home every morning from a succession of nursery maids, and exercised daily at Mr Macpherson's Gymnasium and Dancing Academy, around the corner from the family home. From the age of six or seven he received introductory lessons in classical Latin and Greek at Mr Gladstone's day school, close by in Sloane Square.
Macmillan attended Summer Fields School, Oxford (1903–06). He was Third Scholar at Eton College, but his time there (1906–10) was blighted by recurrent illness, starting with a near-fatal attack of pneumonia in his first half; he missed his final year after being invalided out, and was taught at home by private tutors (1910–11), notably Ronald Knox, who did much to instil his High Church Anglicanism. Soon after, he won an Exhibition (scholarship) to Balliol College, Oxford. As a child, teenager and later young man, he would become an admirer of the policies and leadership of a succession of Liberal Prime Ministers, starting with Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who came to power when Macmillan was only 11 years old, and then H. H. Asquith, whom he would later describe as having "intellectual sincerity and moral nobility", and particularly of Asquith's successor, David Lloyd George, whom he regarded as a "man of action", likely to accomplish his goals.
Macmillan went up to Balliol College in 1912, where he joined many political societies. His political opinions at this stage were an eclectic mix of moderate Conservatism, moderate Liberalism and Fabian Socialism. He read avidly about Disraeli, but was also particularly impressed by a speech by Lloyd George at the Oxford Union Society in 1913, where he had become a member and debater. Macmillan was a protégé of the Union President Walter Monckton, later a Cabinet colleague; as such, he became Secretary then Junior Treasurer (elected unopposed in March 1914, then an unusual occurrence) of the Union. He obtained a First in Honours Moderations, informally known as Mods (consisting of Latin and Greek, the first half of the four-year Oxford Literae Humaniores course, informally known as Greats), in 1914. With his final exams over two years away, he enjoyed an idyllic Trinity (summer) term at Oxford, just before the outbreak of the Weltkrieg.
The Weltkrieg and aide-de-campship[]
Volunteering as soon as war was declared, Macmillan was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps on 19 November 1914. Promoted to lieutenant on 30 January 1915, he soon transferred to the Grenadier Guards. He fought on the front lines in France, where the casualty rate was high, as was the probability of an "early and violent death". He served with distinction as a captain and was wounded on three occasions. Shot in the right hand and receiving a glancing bullet wound to the head in the Battle of Loos in September 1915, Macmillan was sent to Lennox Gardens in Chelsea for hospital treatment, then joined a reserve battalion at Chelsea Barracks from January to March 1916, until his hand had healed. He then returned to the front lines in France. Leading an advance platoon in the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) in September 1916, he was severely wounded, and lay for over twelve hours in a shell hole, sometimes feigning death when German troops passed, and reading the classical playwright Aeschylus in the original Greek. Prime Minister Asquith's own son, Raymond Asquith, was a brother officer in Macmillan's regiment, and was killed that month.
Macmillan spent the next two years of the war in hospital undergoing a long series of operations. Though by 1919, he would rejoin a reservist battalion in expectation of returning the frontlines as soon as his wounds had recovered. He would briefly return to France just prior to the evacuation but see no more combat. His hip wound took four years to heal completely, and he is still left with a slight shuffle to his walk and a limp grip in his right hand from his previous wound, which affects his handwriting.
Of the 28 students who started at Balliol with Macmillan, only he survived the war. As a result, he refused to return to Oxford to complete his degree, saying the university would never be the same; in later years he would joke that he had been "sent down by the Kaiser". Owing to the impending contraction of the Army after the war, a regular commission in the Grenadiers was out of the question. However, at the end of 1919 Macmillan joined the Guards Reserve Battalion at Chelsea Barracks for "light duties".
Macmillan then served in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in 1919 as ADC to Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, then Governor General of Canada, and his future father-in-law. The engagement of Captain Macmillan to the Duke's daughter Lady Dorothy was announced on 7 January 1920. He relinquished his commission on 1 April 1920 and returned to London to work at the family publishing business. As was common for contemporary former officers, he continued to be known as 'Captain Macmillan' until the mid 1920s but would be nicknamed 'the Captain' by NDP members.
Early Political Career and Civil War[]
Macmillan would contest the depressed northern industrial constituency of Stockton-on-Tees in 1923 with the campaign costing him about £400 out of his own pocket. He would enter win the seat and enter parliament, publishing a small pamphlet with some Conservative MPs advocating 'radical measures' to deal with economic troubles. Macmillan would be regarded with suspicion by fellow Conservative MPs owing to his sympathy to Oswald Mosley's radical economic proposals.
Macmillan would make his first visit to the Commune of France in 1924 and return to write 'The Next Step', advocating cheap money, state direction of investment and conciliatory relations with trade unions. During this period, "Chips" Channon described him as the 'unprepossessing, bookish, eccentric member for Stockton-on-Tee' and noted that Macmillan had received a note from then Prime Minister, Austen Chamberlain, warning him about 'continuous flirting with the Labour Party'. Macmillan would later write 'Planning for Employment' just prior the Plymouth Riots.
Macmillan would take a sympathetic tone to the strikers during the period of political unrest, but would repeatedly call for 'calmness and reconciliation' over perceived violence and anarchy. In the early summer, Macmillan would travel to the South of England to meet his political hero David Lloyd George, who was still taking appointments with friends and well-wishers. Little documentation of their meeting is available though it is believed the meeting was cordial and Macmillan would continue to praise his hero.
Returning to London, Macmillan would be present for the special session of parliament that would see emergency laws take place and speak out against each one. In his most famous moment, Macmillan would be the only Conservative MP to openly speak in favour of the strikers and accuse the government of 'unrestrained tyranny' to shouts outrage from the government benches and support from the Opposition. Mid-way through his speech, and just as he was preparing to sit as an independent, he would be arrested on the floor of the House and interned at a prison camp in the South of England. Until the very last days of the Civil War, Macmillan would remain at the camp, primarily speculating on new economic ideas.
Following the collapse of the Royalist Front in the latter part of 1925, his jailers would desert and Macmillan would be effectively free to leave. Returning to the outside world, he would only narrowly avoid being arrested by a syndicalist militia unit and attempt to return to Stockton-on-Tees. Following the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, he would relocate to London and then later on Hampshire, working for a national publishing house that had amalgamated Macmillan publishers. He would continue to write on economics, using his position to have his works published.
Post-Revolution Politics[]
Macmillan would not participate in national politics again until 1927. He had briefly considered attempting to stand as an independent member for the Constitutional Convention but would opt against it. In late 1926, he would win election to a local council as an independent candidate but shy away from joining mainstream parties. He had briefly considered joining the Liberals but ultimately opted to remain an independent.
In 1927, a by-election in the Southeast for a Provincial Parliament seat had emerged following the Liberal incumbent's sudden death. The electoral race was marked by allegations of corruption in politics and questions regarding the future of political expenses. Macmillan would be encouraged by friends to stand for election and do so as an independent 'anti-corruption' candidate. Dressed in a distinctive all white suit and light blue tie, Macmillan would launch a formidable campaign and often appear on doorsteps. He would be nick-named the 'Man in the White Jacket', owing to his eponymous dress, and go onto win the election.
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Arrest and Imprisonment[]
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Political Views[]
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Personal Life[]
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