Maurice Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey
Secretary of the British War Cabinet 1916-1938, ultimate institutional insider (1877-1963)
Also known as: Hankey, Sir Maurice Hankey, Lord Hankey, Maurice Hankey
Maurice Pascal Alers Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey (1877-1963), served continuously as Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence (1912-1938), Secretary of the British War Cabinet (1916-1938), and Secretary of the Cabinet (1916-1938). For Quigley, he was 'the documentary center of British grand strategy across two decades' — the human archive through which the The Milner Group maintained continuity from one government to the next. Quigley names him among the Group members he personally admires (AAE 3).
The permanent secretary
Hankey began his career as a Royal Marines officer and naval intelligence specialist. Recruited by Esher to the new Committee of Imperial Defence in 1908, he became its Secretary in 1912 and held the post for 26 years. When Lloyd George created the Cabinet Office in December 1916, Hankey was the natural choice to head it. Quigley: 'Hankey was assistant secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence from 1908 to 1912 and was secretary from 1912 to 1938. Swinton was assistant secretary from 1917 to 1925. Both became closely associated with the Group' (AAE 127). Quigley records him as 'a member of the Milner Group' from at least the mid-1920s (AAE 119); he had been an Esher protégé from the start.
Secretary at Versailles
Hankey served as secretary of the Supreme Council at the Paris Peace Conference. Quigley records the institutional architecture: 'the agenda for the meetings of the Council of Four were drawn up by Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian), while the minutes of the Council of Four, from which we get the record of those demands, were taken down by Sir Maurice Hankey (as secretary to the Supreme Council, a position obtained through Lord Esher)' (T&H 596). Quigley uses this pairing — Lothian writing the agenda, Hankey writing the minutes — as a textbook case of how the Group operated as a coordinated documentary apparatus. Hankey was also secretary at the Washington Naval Conference (1921-22), the Imperial Conferences of 1926 and 1930, and most of the inter-war international conferences.
Wartime
Hankey retired from the Cabinet Secretaryship in 1938 (succeeded by Edward Bridges) and was raised to the peerage. He returned to office in September 1939 as Minister Without Portfolio in the War Cabinet, serving until 1942. Quigley's overall judgment, expressed in the AAE preface: 'In this Group were persons like Esher, Grey, Milner, Hankey, and Zimmern, who must command the admiration and affection of all who know of them' (AAE 3). For Quigley, Hankey is the model of the The Milner Group insider: ideologically committed but operationally indispensable, his admiration of the British state matched by an institutional competence that made him irreplaceable across four prime ministers.
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 3 Quigley
In this Group were persons like Esher, Grey, Milner, Hankey, and Zimmern, who must command the admiration and affection of all who know of them.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 119 Quigley
and Smuts—that is, two members of the Milner Group, one of the Cecil Bloc, with the Prime Minister himself. The secretary to these groups was Maurice Hankey (later a member of the Milner Group), and the editor of the published reports of the War Cabinet was W. G. S. Adams.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 127 Quigley
Hankey was assistant secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence from 1908 to 1912 and was secretary from 1912 to 1938. Swinton was assistant secretary from 1917 to 1925. Both became closely associated with the Group.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 158 Quigley
These men included (Sir) Maurice (later Lord) Hankey and (Sir) Ernest Swinton (who invented the tank in 1915). When, in 1916-1917, Milner and Esher persuaded the Cabinet to create a secretariat for the first time, the task was largely given to this secretariat from the Committee on Imperial Defence.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 596 Quigley
the minutes of the Council of Four, from which we get the record of those demands, were taken down by Sir Maurice Hankey (as secretary to the Supreme Council, a position obtained through Lord Esher).