Samuel John Gurney Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood (24 February 1880 – 7 May 1959), more commonly known as Sir Samuel Hoare, was a senior British Conservative politician who served in various Cabinet posts in the Conservative and National governments of the 1920s and 1930s. He was ambitious and his expedience and flexibility gave him a reputation for being unprincipled and two-faced, being nicknamed "Slippery Sam" or "Soapy Sam".
Hoare was Secretary of State for Air during most of the 1920s. As Secretary of State for India in the early 1930s, he authored the Government of India Act 1935, which granted self-government at a provincial level to India. He was most famous for serving as Foreign Secretary in 1935, when he authored the Hoare–Laval Pact with French Prime Minister Pierre Laval. This partially recognised the Italian conquest of Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) and Hoare was forced to resign by the ensuing public outcry. In 1936 he returned to the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, then served as Home Secretary from 1937 to 1939 and was again briefly Secretary of State for Air in 1940. He was seen as a leading "appeaser" and his removal from office (along with that of Sir John Simon and of Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister) was a condition of Labour's agreement to serve in a coalition government in May 1940.
Hoare also served as British ambassador to Spain from 1940 to 1944.
Youth Hoare was born in LondonArticle by R. J. Q. Adams. on 24 February 1880, the eldest son of Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Baronet, who was a Conservative MP from a by-election in 1886 until 1906, and to whose baronetcy he succeeded in 1915. His family were the Anglo-Irish branch of an old Quaker family, with a long history of involvement in banking. He was a descendant of Samuel Hoare, but the family had abandoned Quakerism in the mid-18th century and Hoare was brought up an Anglo-Catholic.Matthew 2004, p364
Hoare was educated at Harrow School, where he was a classical scholar, and New College, Oxford. As an undergraduate he was awarded a blue in racquets and was a member of the Gridiron and Bullingdon Clubs. Initially he studied classics, taking a first in Mods in 1901, before switching to Modern History, graduating with a first class B.A. in 1903. He was awarded his M.A. in 1910.Matthew 2004 p.364 An Oxford or Cambridge MA is essentially an "automatic upgrade" for which a student may apply a few years after graduation He later became an Honorary Fellow of New College.Matthew 2004 p.368
Michael Bloch comments that Hoare was "indubitably homosexual", but being highly ambitious and discreet (his nickname amongst colleagues was 'Slippery Sam'), may not have acted much upon it.Michael Bloch,Closet Queens, Little Brown 2015, p153 On 17 October 1909, he married Lady Maud Lygon (1882–1962), youngest daughter of The 6th Earl Beauchamp. Their marriage was childless. It was, in the words of R. J. Q. Adams, "not at first a love match" but in time became "a devoted partnership".Matthew 2004 p.364 His biographer has stated, "it would probably be more appropriate to describe it as a mariage de convenance".J.A. Cross, Sir Samuel Hoare: A Political Biography, Cape 1977, p10. Hoare inherited Sidestrand Hall in 1915. His London home was 18 Cadogan Gardens.
Hoare was short, slightly built and a dapper dresser. As a youth he took up games to bolster his physique, including figure skating. He became a tournament-level shot and tennis player. He was a poor speaker but a good writer.Matthew 2004, p368 He was hard-working but cold.
Early political career In 1905, Hoare's father arranged for him to be secretary to the Colonial Secretary Alfred Lyttelton to gain political experience.Matthew 2004, p365 Hoare stood unsuccessfully in the 1906 General Election for Parliament at Ipswich, but became a justice of the peace for the county of Norfolk that year.
Hoare entered local politics in March 1907, when he was elected to the London County Council as a member of the Municipal Reform Party, the local government wing of the Conservative Party, representing Brixton. He served as Chairman of the London Fire Brigade Committee.The London County Council Election, Great Municipal Reform Victory, The Times, 4 March 1907, p. 6. He served on the LCC until 1910.
Hoare was elected to the House of Commons at the January 1910 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelsea. In the early years, he was a member of the Anti-Socialist Union.Markku Ruotsila, British and American Anticommunism Before the Cold War, Routledge, 2001, p. 8.
During the Conservative Party leadership contest of November 1911, Hoare wrote pledging support to both leading candidates, Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long. There is no evidence that he made such an offer to Bonar Law, who became leader after the two front-runners withdrew to avoid a potential party split.Blake 1985, p.194 Hoare showed little interest in the two largest issues of the day: House of Lords reform and Irish Home Rule. He supported tariff reform, female suffrage and public education. He opposed Welsh disestablishment quite strongly. He encouraged colleagues to call him "Sam" at the time to soften his hard and detached image.
Hoare was on the left wing of the Conservative party and once described himself as "a liberal amongst conservatives and a conservative amongst liberals". He joined the Unionist Social Reform Committee. Hoare held markedly "progressive" views, outside the mainstream of the Conservative Party, on issues such as education and penal reform. He was almost alone amongst the Conservatives in advocating the abolition of the death penalty.
First World War Aged 34 at the time, Hoare joined the Army soon after the outbreak of the First World War. He was commissioned into the Norfolk Yeomanry as a temporary lieutenant on 17 October 1914. To his disappointment, he was initially only a recruiting officer and illness prevented him from serving at the front. He was promoted to temporary captain on 24 April 1915.
While acting as a recruiting officer, he learnt Russian. In 1916, he was recruited by Mansfield Cumming to be the future MI6's liaison officer with the Russian Intelligence service in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg). He soon became head of the British Intelligence Mission to the Russian General Staff with the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was accompanied by Lady Maud and Winifred Spink. In his post, he reported to the British government the death of Rasputin and apologised, because of the sensational nature of the event, for having written it in the style of the Daily Mail.Jeffrey, Keith. MI6 The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909 - 1949, pp. 103–106. .
In March 1917 he was posted to Rome, where he remained until the end of the war. His duties included helping to dissuade Italy from dropping out of the war. In Italy, he administered the subsidisation of the former socialist leader Benito Mussolini's interventionist newspaper, , with a wage of £100 per week (equivalent to £ in ).
For his services in the war, Hoare was twice mentioned in despatches, appointed Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1917, and awarded the Orders of St Anne and St Stanislas of Russia, and of St Maurice and St Lazarus of Italy.
Interwar period Secretary of State for Air Hoare was re-elected to Parliament in 1918 as a Conservative; his party were then in Coalition with the Lloyd George Liberals. During the Russian Civil War, he strongly supported the call by the War Secretary Winston Churchill (by all accounts the most anti-Communist member of Lloyd George's cabinet) for British intervention in the Russian Civil War on the side of Whites. On 31 May 1919, he wrote to Churchill to say: "For the last six months, I have been convinced that the whole future of Europe and indeed of the whole world depends upon the Russian settlement and the destruction of Bolshevism". In late 1921-early 1922, Hoare served as the deputy League of Nations commissioner for Russian refugees in Asia Minor, and was charged with finding a country willing to accept them. By October 1922, he had become disillusioned with David Lloyd George after the honours scandal and the Chanak Crisis. He helped organise the backbench revolt at the Carlton Club meeting (19 October 1922), which brought down the Lloyd George Coalition. In Bonar Law's new Conservative government he was made a Privy Councillor and Secretary of State for Air, but he was not made a member of the Cabinet until Stanley Baldwin succeeded Law as Prime Minister in May 1923.
In 1923, Hoare presided over the merger (with £1 million state subsidy) of the four principal private air carriers to form Imperial Airways, an ancestor of today's British Airways. The Conservatives fell from power in January 1924, but Hoare was once again Secretary of State for Air in Baldwin's Second Government (1924-1929). As Secretary of State for Air he sided with Lord Trenchard on the importance of the Royal Air Force remaining an independent service. Hoare often quarrelled with the First Sea Lord, Admiral Earl Beatty, over where to allocate defence expenditure, leading Beatty to label Hoare "an intriguing little brute" who was intent upon starving the Royal Navy of funds in order to build up the Royal Air Force. He established air squadrons at Oxford University and Cambridge University to train students as potential RAF officers and re-established a permanent air cadet college at Cranwell.
Lady Maud was awarded the DBE in February 1927, and Hoare was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire (GBE) in June 1927. Hoare and Lady Maud travelled by air whenever possible, including the first civilian flight to India in 1927. In 1927 he published a book, India by Air. By 1929 there were regular scheduled routes to India and Cape Town.
Hoare continued his interest in aviation affairs as Honorary Air Commodore of No 601 (County of London) (1930–32) and No 604 (County of Middlesex) (1932–57) Bomber Squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force.
In opposition Hoare was treasurer of the Conservative Party in opposition in 1929–1931.
In 1930, he published The Fourth Seal on World War I Russia.
Hoare was a delegate to the First Round Table Conference on India's constitutional future in 1930–1931. He also helped to mediate between Baldwin and the press barons Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook, who were intriguing for his removal as Conservative leader.
Secretary of State for India Hoare was one of the Conservative negotiators in talks with Ramsay MacDonald in August 1931 over the formation of the National Government. On 26 August 1931 Hoare was appointed Secretary of State for India.