The All Souls Network

The Oxford prize-fellowship college that served as the Milner Group's intellectual headquarters and recruiting ground

Also known as: All Souls, All Souls College, Fellow of All Souls, the All Souls group

All Souls College, Oxford — the prize-fellowship college founded in 1438 — became, in Quigley's reconstruction, the Milner Group's intellectual headquarters and chief recruiting ground from roughly 1900 onward. 'The Milner Group's relationships with All Souls were also strengthened after Milner returned to England in 1905, and especially after the Kindergarten returned to England in 1909-1911 . . . All Souls, in fact, became the chief recruiting agency for the Milner Group, as it had been before 1903 for the Cecil Bloc' (AAE 77). Fellowship at All Souls is Quigley's principal diagnostic marker of Milner Group membership.

The College as Institution

All Souls College has no undergraduates. It is, by its 1438 foundation, a college of fellows — academics elected on examination or by a Warden-and-Fellows vote. The prize fellowship, awarded each year to two or three exam candidates after a notoriously gruelling sit-down, confers a stipend, dining rights, college rooms, and — for the generation that interests Quigley — an entry ticket into the British establishment that no other Oxbridge fellowship matched. Fellows in Quigley's period included Cabinet ministers (Salisbury, Curzon, Halifax, Simon, Hoare), judges, ambassadors, viceroys, and the editorial leadership of The Times and The Round Table. Lord Salisbury was a Fellow from 1853; he was Prime Minister at the moment the Milner Group was being conceived (AAE 13). 'In the field of education,' Quigley writes of the Cecil Bloc, 'its influence was chiefly visible at Eton and Harrow and at All Souls College, Oxford' (AAE 7). The Cecil Bloc had used All Souls as its credentialing house through the late 19th century. The Milner Group inherited and extended that use.

Milner Group Capture

Quigley dates the Milner Group's hold on All Souls from Milner's return from South Africa in 1905, and especially from the return of the Kindergarten in 1909-1911 (AAE 77). 'The Milner Group's strength in All Souls, however, was apparently not sufficiently strong for them to elect a member of the Milner Group as Warden when Anson died in 1914, for his successor, Francis W. Pember, onetime assistant legal adviser to the Foreign Office, and a Fellow of All Souls since 1884, was of the Cecil Bloc rather than of the Milner Group' (AAE 77). But Pember did not resist; both his successors as Warden — W. G. S. Adams (1933-1945) and B. H. Sumner (1945- ) — were Milner Group members (AAE 77). The transit was complete by the inter-war period. Quigley's appendix lists six members of Milner's Kindergarten as Fellows of All Souls: Robert Brand (1901-), Lionel Curtis (1921-), Geoffrey Dawson (1898-1905, 1915-1944), Dougal Malcolm (1899-1955), Basil Williams (1924-1925), and Leopold Amery (1897-1911, 1938-) (AAE 44-45). Their fellowships totalled 'an aggregate of one hundred and sixty-nine years, or an average of over twenty-eight years each' by 1947 (AAE 45).

Recruitment Mechanism

Quigley describes the All Souls recruiting function in operational detail. 'The inner circle of this Group, because of its close contact with Oxford and with All Souls, was in a position to notice able young undergraduates at Oxford. These were admitted to All Souls and at once given opportunities in public life and in writing or teaching, to test their abilities and loyalty to the ideals of the Milner Group. If they passed both of these tests, they were gradually admitted to the Milner Group's great fiefs such as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Times, The Round Table, or, on the larger scene, to the ranks of the Foreign or Colonial Offices' (AAE 77). Quigley adds an important qualification: 'So far as I know, none of these persons recruited through All Souls ever reached the inner circle of the Milner Group, at least before 1939. This inner circle continued to be largely monopolized by the group that had been in South Africa in the period before 1909' (AAE 77). The All Souls pipeline produced loyal lieutenants — Coupland, Salter, Hancock, Gwyer, Somervell, Steel-Maitland — but rarely promoted them to the inner core. The inner core was dynastic: South African Kindergarten alumni and their hand-picked successors.

Notable Fellows in the Group

The roster of All Souls Fellows who were Milner Group members or close affiliates reads like a foreign-policy almanac of the inter-war period. Arthur Balfour, Salisbury's nephew and Prime Minister, was a Cecil Bloc figure who became a senior Milner Group ally. George Curzon, Viceroy of India 1899-1905, Foreign Secretary 1919-1924, a Salisbury protégé and All Souls Fellow. Robert Brand, Lazard Brothers; All Souls 1901 onward. Lionel Curtis, organizer of the Round Table; All Souls 1921 onward. Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times; All Souls 1898-1905 and again 1915-1944. Leopold Amery, Colonial Secretary 1924-1929 and Secretary of State for India 1940-1945; All Souls 1897-1911, 1938- (AAE 44-45). Reginald Coupland, Beit Professor of Colonial History from 1920, All Souls 1920 onward, chief author of the Peel Commission Report on Palestine (1937) (AAE 76). Alfred Zimmern, Montague Burton Professor 1930-1944. Maurice Gwyer, Chief Justice of India 1937-1943. Donald Somervell, Attorney General 1936-1945. Arthur Salter, Director of the Economic and Finance Section of the League of Nations. Isaiah Berlin, Fellow from 1932. Arnold J. Toynbee, the historian, son of the Milner-circle Toynbee and a Fellow through the Royal Institute. The collective weight of this fellowship in the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, the Treasury, The Times, the BBC, and the Indian Civil Service was, through the 1930s, decisive.

All Souls as the Group's Intellectual Headquarters

Beyond recruitment, All Souls served as the Milner Group's confidential think tank. Group members gathered there — at high table, in the Common Room, at Encaenia, at the Sunday Evening discussions — to coordinate policy lines that would surface, in the same week, in The Times editorial pages, on the Round Table editorial committee, and at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Quigley notes that the College, on his analysis, 'has been the most powerful single influence in All Souls, Balliol, and New Colleges at Oxford for more than a generation' (AAE 5). The famous All Souls weekend gatherings on appeasement in the mid-1930s — recorded in the diary of Sir John Simon and discussed in the post-war memoirs of A. L. Rowse — bear this out: All Souls in the late 1930s was, alongside Cliveden and Blickling, one of the three country-house manifolds of Milner Group policy debate. Across the Atlantic, Quigley reads the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton as an explicit copy of All Souls: 'It set up in Princeton a reasonable copy of the Round Table Group's chief Oxford headquarters, All Souls College. This copy, called the Institute for Advanced Study . . . was organized by Abraham Flexner of the Carnegie Foundation and Rockefeller's General Education Board after he had experienced the delights of All Souls while serving as Rhodes Memorial Lecturer at Oxford. The plans were largely drawn by Tom Jones, one of the Round Table's most active intriguers' (T&H 952).

Method of Influence on Policy and Historiography

Quigley's most pointed claim about All Souls concerns its grip on the writing of imperial history. 'It controlled and still controls, to a very considerable extent, the sources and the writing of the history of British Imperial and foreign policy since the Boer War' (AAE 6). The Beit Chair of Colonial History (Coupland), the Chichele Chair of Economic History (Hancock), the Rhodes Chair at London, the Montague Burton Chair at Oxford (Zimmern), the Stevenson Chair at Chatham House, and the Wilson Chair at Aberystwyth — all were occupied, at various times, by Group members or sympathisers (AAE 76; T&H 146). The relevant Cambridge History of the British Empire chapter on the formation of the Union of South Africa was written by Hugh A. Wyndham of Milner's Kindergarten (AAE 62). 'It is one of the marvels of modern British scholarship how the Milner Group has been able to keep control of the writing of history concerned with those fields in which it has been most active,' Quigley writes (AAE 62). The College's grant of fellowships, the disposition of chair appointments, and the editorial control of The Times Literary Supplement combined to make Milner Group historiography the standard historiography of the British Empire from roughly 1925 to 1955.

Wartime Embassy

During the Second World War, the All Souls–Milner Group axis effectively relocated to the British Embassy in Washington. With Halifax as Ambassador from 1941, Brand as head of the British Food Mission, Salter as head of the British Merchant Shipping Mission, Harold Butler as Minister, and four further Fellows of All Souls — Isaiah Berlin, J. G. Foster, R. M. Makins, J. H. A. Sparrow — in junior diplomatic roles, Quigley writes that 'it was almost impossible to turn around in the British Embassy without running into a member of that select academic circle' (AAE 252-253). The wartime concentration was unprecedented: a single Oxford college had supplied the British ambassador, three top-rank mission heads, and a dozen first secretaries in the most important British diplomatic post in the world. The arrangement persisted through Lend-Lease, the Atlantic Charter, the Casablanca Conference, the negotiation of UNRRA, and the early planning for Bretton Woods. After 1945 the All Souls–Washington connection thinned but never broke; through the 1950s, All Souls continued to seed senior posts at the Foreign Office, the Treasury, and the British delegation to the United Nations.

Cited in

anglo-american-establishment · p. 2 Quigley
They have been held in all the British Dominions, starting in South Africa about 1903; in various places in London, chiefly 175 Piccadilly; at various colleges at Oxford, chiefly All Souls.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 5 Quigley
It has been the most powerful single influence in All Souls, Balliol, and New Colleges at Oxford for more than a generation.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 7 Quigley
In the field of education, its influence was chiefly visible at Eton and Harrow and at All Souls College, Oxford.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 44 Quigley
Of the twenty-three [Kindergarten members], eleven were from New College. Seven were members of All Souls, six as Fellows.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 45 Quigley
These six had held their fellowships by 1947 an aggregate of one hundred and sixty-nine years, or an average of over twenty-eight years each.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 62 Quigley
It is one of the marvels of modern British scholarship how the Milner Group has been able to keep control of the writing of history concerned with those fields in which it has been most active.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 76 Quigley
Reginald Coupland . . . has been a Fellow of All Souls (since 1920) and a Fellow of Nuffield College (since 1939). He was also editor of The Round Table after Lord Lothian left.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 77 Quigley
All Souls, in fact, became the chief recruiting agency for the Milner Group, as it had been before 1903 for the Cecil Bloc.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 77 Quigley
These were admitted to All Souls and at once given opportunities in public life and in writing or teaching, to test their abilities and loyalty to the ideals of the Milner Group.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 77 Quigley
If they passed both of these tests, they were gradually admitted to the Milner Group's great fiefs such as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Times, The Round Table, or, on the larger scene, to the ranks of the Foreign or Colonial Offices.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 77 Quigley
This inner circle continued to be largely monopolized by the group that had been in South Africa in the period before 1909.
anglo-american-establishment · p. 252 Quigley
He was surrounded by members of the Milner Group, chiefly Fellows of All Souls, so that it was almost impossible to turn around in the British Embassy without running into a member of that select academic circle.
tragedy-and-hope · p. 146 Quigley
They have also established and influenced numerous university and other chairs of imperial affairs and international relations. Some of these are the Beit chairs at Oxford, the Montague Burton chair at Oxford, the Rhodes chair at London, the Stevenson chair at Chatham House, the Wilson chair at Aberystwyth.
tragedy-and-hope · p. 952 Quigley
It set up in Princeton a reasonable copy of the Round Table Group's chief Oxford headquarters, All Souls College. This copy, called the Institute for Advanced Study, and best known, perhaps, as the refuge of Einstein, Oppenheimer, John von Neumann, and George F. Kennan, was organized by Abraham Flexner.