Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor
Anglo-American newspaper proprietor, host of the Cliveden Set (1879-1952)
Also known as: Astor, Lord Astor, Waldorf Astor, Viscount Astor
Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor (1879-1952), was the American-born British politician and proprietor of The Observer, co-owner with his brother John Jacob Astor V of The Times, and host — with his wife Nancy Astor — of the country-house circle that became known in the late 1930s as the Cliveden Set. Quigley names him a member of the inner core of the The Milner Group from at least the First World War, and notes that 'since 1925 [the Group's financial backing] has been increasingly dominated by Lord Astor' (AAE 39).
Life and the New-College cohort
Born in New York in 1879, Waldorf Astor came to England as a child after his father William Waldorf Astor moved the family to England in 1889 to escape American taxation and the New York social wars. Educated at Eton and New College, Oxford (1898-1902), Astor was a contemporary of Curtis, Kerr, Brand, and Dougal Malcolm — the New-College cohort that Milner would recruit into the Kindergarten and that would become the operational core of the The Milner Group after 1910. He was elected Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton in 1910 and served as parliamentary private secretary to Lloyd George during the wartime government (1917-1918), giving the Group its second direct line into the Prime Minister's office alongside Kerr.
The press empire
Astor inherited Cliveden House and a vast American fortune in 1919. His brother John Jacob Astor V bought The Times in 1922 from the Harmsworth estate; Waldorf already owned The Observer (acquired by his father in 1911 and managed by Waldorf from 1915). Quigley treats these two papers as the most consequential pieces of the The Milner Group's media architecture: 'Because The Times has been owned by the Astor family since 1922, this Rhodes-Milner group was sometimes spoken of as the "Cliveden Set," named after the Astor country house where they sometimes assembled' (T&H 146). On 'Numerous other papers and journals have been under the control or influence of this group' — but The Times under Dawson was the editorial bellwether.
Cliveden
Cliveden, the Astors' Buckinghamshire country house, became the venue for a regular weekend circuit of The Milner Group figures and visiting Americans through the 1920s and 1930s. Quigley records that the inner-core meetings '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; and at many English country houses such as Tring Park...' — and Cliveden (AAE 2). The 'Cliveden Set' as a label was the 1937-1939 invention of left-wing journalist Claud Cockburn at The Week, but Quigley treats the underlying circle as the Group's social-public face in the appeasement decade: 'These people, with others, urged Chamberlain at the decisive moment to have the courage of his convictions and place Halifax, even though he was a Peer, in the office to which his experience and record so richly entitled him' (AAE 62). Quigley insists that 'it would be entirely unfair to believe that the connotations of superficiality and conspiracy popularly associated with the expression "Cliveden set" are a just' picture of the underlying network (AAE 5).
Financial backing of the Group
Quigley notes that after 1925 the Astor fortune became the principal financial reservoir of the The Milner Group, displacing Sir Abe Bailey's earlier role. 'These were supplemented by access to the funds in the foundation of All Souls, the Rhodes Trust and the Beit Trust, the fortune of Sir Abe Bailey, the Astor fortune, certain powerful British banks (of which the chief was Lazard Brothers and Company), and, in recent years, the Nuffield money' (AAE 7). Astor was chairman of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) from 1935 to 1949 — the chair of the Group's principal external institution during the critical appeasement and wartime decade. He died in 1952.
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 5 Quigley
Since 1920, this Group has been increasingly dominated by the associates of Viscount Astor. In the 1930s, the misnamed 'Cliveden set' was close to the center of the society, but it would be entirely unfair to believe that the connotations of superficiality and conspiracy popularly associated with the expression 'Cliveden set' are a just picture.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 6 Quigley
Viscount Astor, also close to the Group from its first beginnings (and much closer than Halifax), moved rapidly to the center of the Group after 1916, and especially after 1922, and in later years became increasingly a decisive voice in the Group.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 39 Quigley
These financial contributions still continue, although since 1925 they have undoubtedly been eclipsed by those of Lord Astor.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 146 Quigley
Because The Times has been owned by the Astor family since 1922, this Rhodes-Milner group was sometimes spoken of as the 'Cliveden Set,' named after the Astor country house where they sometimes assembled.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 594 Quigley
this group was known in those days as the Round Table Group, and came later to be called, somewhat inaccurately, the Cliveden Set, after the country estate of Lord and Lady Astor. It included Lord Milner, Leopold Amery, and Edward Grigg (Lord Altrincham), as well as Lord Lothian, Smuts, Lord Astor, Lord Brand.