Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Three-time Conservative Prime Minister, patriarch of the Cecil Bloc (1830-1903)
Also known as: Salisbury, Lord Salisbury, Robert Cecil, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903), was three times Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902) and is, in Quigley's analysis, the patriarch of the Cecil Bloc — the nexus of political and social power formed around the extended Cecil family that absorbed and continued the The Milner Group's program after Salisbury's death in 1903.
Three Salisbury governments
Salisbury served as Conservative Prime Minister for a total of fourteen years between 1885 and 1902, with the Foreign Office portfolio held simultaneously through most of that period — an unparalleled concentration of executive authority in Victorian Britain. Quigley summarizes: 'At the beginning of the twentieth century the inner clique of the Conservative Party was made up almost completely of the Cecil family and their relatives. This was a result of the tremendous influence of Lord Salisbury' (T&H 485). 'On retirement he handed over the leadership of the party and the prime minister's chair to his nephew, protege, and hand-picked successor, Arthur James' Balfour (T&H 487).
The Cecil Bloc
Quigley's analytical category — the Cecil Bloc — names the political faction Salisbury constructed. 'The Cecil Bloc was a nexus of political and social power formed by Lord Salisbury and extending from the great sphere of politics into the fields of education and publicity. In the field of education, its influence was chiefly visible at Eton and Harrow and at All Souls College, Oxford' (AAE 7). The bloc was held together by 'practice of nepotism' — Salisbury 'had two brothers and two sisters and had five sons and three daughters of his own. One of his sisters was the mother of Arthur J. Balfour and Gerald W. Balfour' (AAE 14). Beyond family, the Bloc was filled by 'persons without family connections who were brought into the Bloc by Lord Salisbury. Most of these persons were recruited from All Souls and, like Arthur Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, Baron Quickswood, Sir Evelyn Cecil, and others, frequently served an apprenticeship in a secretarial capacity to Lord Salisbury' (AAE 17). Curzon was one of these: 'George N. Curzon, (later Lord Curzon) a Fellow of All Souls, ex-secretary and protege of Lord Salisbury, was Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs (1895-1898) and Viceroy of India (1899-1905)' (AAE 16).
Cecil Bloc and Milner Group
Quigley treats the relationship between the Cecil Bloc and the The Milner Group as one of mutual absorption. 'By 1902, when the leadership of the Cecil Bloc had fallen from the masterful grasp of Lord Salisbury into the rather indifferent hands of Arthur Balfour, and Rhodes had died, leaving Milner as the chief controller of his vast estate, the Milner Group was already established and had a most hopeful future' (AAE 7). Goschen, Salisbury's Chancellor of the Exchequer, was 'one of the instruments by which Milner obtained political influence. For one year (1884-1885) Milner served as Goschen's private secretary' (AAE 11). Through the Goschen link, the personnel-and-family architecture of the Cecil Bloc fed directly into the Milner Group's recruitment funnel.
Africa policy
Salisbury's Foreign Office tenure overlapped the formative period of Rhodes's African expansion. Quigley records Salisbury's role in the Nyasaland-Mozambique negotiations: 'Lord Salisbury made Nyasaland a British Protectorate after a deal with Rhodes in which the South African promised to pay £10,000 a year toward the cost of the new territory. About the same time Rhodes gave the Liberal Party a substantial financial contribution' (T&H 148). Salisbury died in 1903, the year after he retired from office; in Quigley's reckoning, his death marked the close of the high-Victorian period of British dominance over the world system.
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 7 Quigley
The Cecil Bloc was a nexus of political and social power formed by Lord Salisbury and extending from the great sphere of politics into the fields of education and publicity. In the field of education, its influence was chiefly visible at Eton and Harrow and at All Souls College, Oxford.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 14 Quigley
Lord Salisbury's practice of nepotism was aided by the fact that he had two brothers and two sisters and had five sons and three daughters of his own. One of his sisters was the mother of Arthur J. Balfour and Gerald W. Balfour.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 17 Quigley
Most of these persons were recruited from All Souls and, like Arthur Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, Baron Quickswood, Sir Evelyn Cecil, and others, frequently served an apprenticeship in a secretarial capacity to Lord Salisbury.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 485 Quigley
At the beginning of the twentieth century the inner clique of the Conservative Party was made up almost completely of the Cecil family and their relatives. This was a result of the tremendous influence of Lord Salisbury.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 487 Quigley
By 1898 the Conservative Party was little more than a tool of the Cecil family. The prime minister and leader of the party was Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil (Lord Salisbury), who had been prime minister three times for a total of fourteen years.