Nice to see a new portrait of Neville Chamberlain on display in Portcullis House. Chamberlain was the only British Prime Minister without a portrait in the House of Commons, but this was rectified in December when the Speaker's Arts Fund forked out £84,500 for a superb 1929 portrait of him by Sir William Orpen at a Sotheby's auction. The catalogue note says...
Chamberlain sat to Orpen early in 1929 in the run-up to the General Election which took place at the end of May. His portrait is likely to have coincided with a series of six portrait photographs by Bassano taken at the end of February (National Portrait Gallery, London). These show the sitter dressed in similar attire, in a number of poses, one of which includes clasped hands, as in the present work. One can imagine Orpen using this for reference, to assist in resolving composition and pose. This and the canvas size, may have reduced the number of sittings required and could help explain the relatively low fee of £1000.
One thing strikes me from this portrait. It bears a remarkable similarity to our beloved current Prime Minister. You can just see 'courage' in his eyes, can't you? Er, Chamberlain's, I mean.
17 comments:
I think history may have been unkind to Chamberlain......perhaps his piece of paper gave us a chance to rearm in 1938....
Decent picture that, Iain. I think quite a few of the ones in and around Portcullis House are a bit off. Quite a few of them have that 'tiny head, gigantic body' thing going on. And then there's the one of Michael Foot that looks like one of Bacon's 'Screaming Pope' paintings.
Can't see any resemblance to Brown myself. At least Chamberlain looks human.
Which was better - to be a betrayed Czech or a saved Pole?
Very apt. He fits in well with todays politicians,a weak appeaser who avoided facing up to the truth.
Sad that all that public money has been spent on a wonderful painting to be hung somewhere where the public will never see it. Reminds me of the bit in Tom Bower's biography of Gordon Brown (which I am also reading) in which Brown boasts of having a Gainsborough in his office in the Treasury which he has never looked at.
It is said that the victors write the history. In this case it was Churchill who was the chancellor when the deepest defense cuts were made.
In 1918 when we had the most effective army in the world, the largest and most powerful navy as well as the largest airforce. All this was abandoned by politicians other than Chamberlain
Shame on you for slurring the name of an honourable man.
Chamberlain did, at least, stay on the right side of public opinion regarding Europe:
"Should Britain promise assistance to Czechoslovakia if Germany acts as it did towards Austria?" (Asked March 1938)
Yes: 33%
No: 43%
No opinion: 24%
"Which of these views comes closest to your views of Chamberlain's policy of appeasement?" (Asked February 1939)
1. It is a policy that will ultimately lead to a lasting peace in Europe: 28%
2. It will keep us out of war until we have time to rearm: 46%
3. It is bringing war nearer by whetting the appetite of the dictators: 24%
4. No opinion: 2%
Is the British government right in following a policy giving guarantees to preserve the independence of small European states? (Asked April 1939)
Yes: 83%
No: 17%
I am reading Duff Cooper's autobiography - "Old Men Forget" - having been given his [fascinating] Diaries last Christmas. I then found his Letters [to and from his wife] in a secondhand bookshop last year. This latest book 'triangulates' his life for me. Written shortly before he died in 1954, it is acerbic about Chamberlain's many deficiencies as a PM.
The events leading up to, and following, the Munich Crisis were handled by a tiny [almost Blairite] coterie of four, to the exclusion of the rest of the Cabinet, which was prented with a succession of 'faits accomplis'. Cooper's view throughout was that Germany was bluffing, was unprepared for war in 1936-8 and could have been seen off by Britain, France and the USSR. Chamberlain also hamfistedly alienated Mussolini, driving Italy into the Axis. Yes, Mussolini was a Fascist but his was a humane government by contrast with that of Germany. Chamberlain and his chums betrayed Czecho-Slovakia shamefully. His, and Sir John Simon's [Chancellor of the Exchequer], erosion of the military budget left us wholly unprepared for war. His portrait should be there, for completeness, but his record as PM was lamentable.
Anyway, for anyone interested in the inter-war period [and I wasn't especially, until I started reading these 3 glorious books], Duff Cooper is a very fine author, providing a engaging view of the social, artistic and political life of the period.
Anonymous at 8.05
To be fair to Churchill, he was Chancellor in a period of relative international peace, between 1924 and 1929, and global economic turmoil. Britain was exhausted, and its coffers depleted, after WW1. After the 1929 election, and especially after Hitler's accession in 1933, Churchill was tireless in his advocacy of investment in and for the armed forces.
Chamberlain is a pariah in the USA, far more so than over here. The only reason I can think of is that he restricted immigration into the British Mandate of Palestine.
The US has never been able to accept the role of Wall Street financiers in bringing the Nazis to power and constructing the German industrial-military complex (at breakneck speed) in the '30s. Blaming Chamberlain and, by implication, Britain for inaction is easier than facing the reality that the USA and some Jewish financiers were part of the Nazi project.
Chamberlain deserves more respect than he gets these days. He was certainly respected at the time, by his own party and by a majority in the country. I think they were probably in a rather better position to judge than us, today.
Old school at 12.27
I agree that the contemporary views of the man are more pertinent than our 20:20 hindsight. It was for that reason that the opinion of the First Lord of the Admiralty, having resigned in protest at the spineless betrayal of Czecho-Slovakia, and the feeble absence of any response to Germany's successive breaking of the Locarno Treaties is of value.
Chamberlain certainly reflected popular opinion at the time, but popular opinion was emphatically wrong. Duff Cooper was 'cut' by many Tories after he resigned, and was ilified for his disloyalty and warmongering by 'The Times'. He and Churchill, and the rest of the minority, were proved to be right. It was only because Tommy Sopwith saw what Hitler was up to, and funded an entire aircraft factory out of his own pocket, that we had any Hurricanes in 1939, since the RAF was unable to commit itslef to any purchases.
Even by 1940 after Dunkirk, most Conservatives still wanted to parley with Hitler and not to fight on.
Only when Churchill was supported by Labour politicians, was he able to get the political support he needed to resist Hitler and fight.
Neville Chamberlain's Munich agreement bought time for the RAF to be fitted with just enough mono plane fighters, just enough radar stations, just enough barage balloons, just enough forward fighter bases...
Brown and Blair have bought in enough immigrants, and Muslim ones in particular, to mean that domestic policies of appeasment of Islam will mean the end of our culture in our country.
There is no comparison with Brown and Chamberlain. Chamberlain tried to prevent war and then realised his mistake. Brown/Blair will never even realise they made a mistake, even from their retirement homes in the USA.
Chamberlain tried hard for peace and even Churchill admitted that ,as a result,the nation went to war united,knowing all other efforts were exhausted.Still, Lloyd George had a great description of him-he made a reasonable Lord Mayor of Birmingham in a bad year.
old school: Those polls results are interesting, where did you get them from?
Nicholas,
They were on a website. If you copy one of the questions into Google it will take you there.
If intrigued by polls, you may also be interested in the following quote from Time magazine dated 31.10.38 -
"The London affiliate of the Gallup poll found opinion in the British Isles 57% "satisfied" with the Chamberlain foreign policy. Simultaneously U. S. citizens were Galluped in the same direction, favored the Prime Minister by 59%, although only 30% thought the Chamberlain "peace" permanent."
As you may guess, by the brevity of my answer, I am not a historian.
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