Interconnect

A rogue gene at work

No commemorative blue plaque adorns the wall of 112 Eaton Square, ‘that curious house’, in Barbara Pym’s words, ‘with its oil paintings and smell of incense’. Yet, as David Faber reveals in this important history of the Amery family, for over 70 years the house was one of the foremost London political salons. The paterfamilias was Leo Amery, known as the ‘pocket Hercules’ for his gymnastic prowess at Harrow, where he once hurled Winston Churchill into the swimming pool. Balliol double first and All Souls prize fellow, author of the seven- volume history of the Boer war and one of Lord Milner’s ‘kindergarten’ in South Africa, his belief in Imperial Preference won Joseph Chamberlain’s patronage and the seat of Birmingham Sparkbrook for 34 unforgiving years. King-breaker rather than king-maker, Amery was a central figure in the demise of the prime ministers Asquith, Lloyd George (‘What a lovely room,’ said the Welsh Wizard when visiting the L-shaped library, ‘I suppose this is where you planned my downfall’) and, most notably, Neville Chamberlain. Amery’s call for Arthur Greenwood to ‘speak for England’ on 2 September 1939, as Chamberlain prevaricated over Hitler’s invasion of Poland, was one of the iconic moments of anti-appeasement. Under his son, Julian, the family home became ‘an alternative foreign office’, to which a variety of political figures from around the world beat a path, not to mention the historians who recorded their activities.

The political wags said that had Leo Amery been half a head taller and his speeches half an hour shorter, he could have become prime minister. Yet under Bonar Law, Baldwin and Churchill, he was first lord of the admiralty, colonial secretary, and secretary of state for India. David Faber’s eye for the telling detail of the career’s undertow makes for a compelling read.

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