surprise if he reaches the summit of power, but only disappointment if he falls short of
the opportunities that are set out before him. (1)
One Fellow of All Souls has confessed in a published work that his career was based
on his membership in this college. The Right Reverend Herbert Hensley Henson, who
rose from humble origins to become Bishop of Durham, wrote in his memoirs: "My
election to a fellowship, against all probability, and certainly against all expectation, had
decisive influence on my subsequent career. It brought me within the knowledge of the
late Lord Salisbury, who subsequently recommended me to the Crown for appointment to
a Canonry of Westminister.... It is to All Souls College that all the 'success' [!] of my
career is mainly due." (2)
It would appear that the College of All Souls is largely influenced not by the
illustrious persons whose names we have listed above (since they are generally busy
elsewhere) but by another group within the college. This appears when we realize that
the Fellows whose fellowships are renewed for one appointment after another are not
generally the ones with famous names. The realization is increased when we see that
these persons with the power to obtain renewing appointments are members of a shadowy
group with common undergraduate associations, close personal relationships, similar
interests and ideas, and surprisingly similar biographical experience. It is this shadowy
group which includes the All Souls members of the Milner Group.
In the nineteenth century, Lord Salisbury made little effort to influence All Souls,
although it was a period when influence (especially in elections to fellowships) was more
important than later. He contented himself with recruiting proteges from the college and
apparently left the wielding of influence to others, especially to Sir William Anson. In the
twentieth century, the Milner Group has recruited from and influenced All Souls. This
influence has not extended to the elections to the twenty-one competitive fellowships.
There, merit has unquestionably been the decisive factor. But it has been exercised in
regard to the seventeen ex-officio fellowships, the ten Distinguished Persons fellowships,
and the twelve re-elective fellowships. And it has also been important in contributing to
the general direction and policy of the college.
This does not mean that the Milner Group is identical with All Souls, but merely that
it is the chief, if not the controlling, influence in it, especially in recent years. Many
members of the Milner Group are not members of All Souls, and many members of All
Souls are not members of the Milner Group.
The fact that All Souls is influenced by some outside power has been recognized by
others, but no one so far as I know has succeeded in identifying this influence. The erratic
Christopher Hobhouse, in his recent book on Oxford, has come closer than most when he
wrote: "The senior common room at All Souls is distinguished above all others by the
great brains which meet there and by the singular unfruitfulness of their collaboration....
But it is not these who make the running. Rather is it the Editor of
circle of associates—men whom the public voice has called to no office and entrusted
with no responsibility. These individuals elect to consider themselves the powers behind
the scenes. The duty of purveying honest news is elevated in their eyes into the
prerogative of dictating opinion. It is at All Souls that they meet to decide just how little
they will let their readers know; and their newspaper has been called the
which a devotee of the humanities feels toward the practitioners of the social sciences,
but the writer was shrewd enough to see that an outside group dominates All Souls. He
was also able to see the link between All Souls and
his conclusion that the latter controls the former. As we shall see, the Milner Group
dominates both.
In the present chapter we are concerned only with the relationship between the Cecil
Bloc and All Souls and shall reserve our consideration of the relationships between the
Milner Group and the college to a later chapter. The former relationship can be observed
in the following list of names, a list which is by no means complete:
Name College Fellow of All Souls
C. A. Alington, 1872- Trinity, Oxford 1891-1895 1896-1903
W. R. Anson, 1843-1914 Balliol 1862-1866 1867-1914;
Warden 1881-1914
G. N. Curzon, 1859-1925 Balliol 1878-1822 1883-1890
A. H. Hardinge, 1859-1933 Balliol 1878-1881 1881-