Union government twenty years later.
From 1908 on, Kerr was, as we shall see, one of the chief organizers of publicity in
favor of the South African Union. He was secretary to the Round Table Group in London
and editor of
Lloyd George (1916-1922), manager of the
Rhodes Trust (1925-1939). He obtained several governmental offices after the death of
his cousin, the tenth Marquess of Lothian, in 1930, gave him a title, 28,000 acres of land,
and a seat in the House of Lords. He was Chancellor to the Duchy of Lancaster (1931),
Parliamentary Under Secretary to the India Office (1931-1932), a member of the first and
second Round Table Conferences on India, and chairman of the Indian Franchise
Committee, before he finished his life as Ambassador to the United States (1939-1940).
In 1923 he and Lionel Curtis published a book called
of lectures which they had previously given at Williams College. After his death, Curtis
edited a collection of
Halifax and a biographical sketch by Edward Grigg (reprinted from
This was published, as might be expected, by Chatham House.
On his death, Lord Lothian left his ancestral estate, Newbattle Abbey in Midlothian,
as a residential college for adult education in Scotland, and left his Tudor country house,
Blickling (frequent assembly place of the Milner Group), as a national monument. He
never married and gave up his Roman Catholic faith for Christian Science in the course
of an almost fatal illness in 1914.
Geoffrey Dawson (1874-1944), who changed his name from Robinson in 1917, was
also one of the innermost members of the Milner Group. A member of the Colonial
Office under Chamberlain (1898-1901), he became for five years private secretary to
Milner in South Africa (1901-1905) and then was made South African correspondent of
the Union (1905-1910). Always a member of the Round Table Group and the Milner
Group, Dawson added to these the offices of editor of
and secretary to the Rhodes Trustees (1921-1922). During the period in which Dawson
was not editor of
estates bursar of All Souls, a director of Consolidated Gold Fields, Ltd., and of Trust
Houses, Ltd. (both Rhodes concerns), as well as being secretary to the Rhodes Trust. He
married in 1919 the daughter of Sir Arthur Lawley (later sixth Baron Wenlock), Kerr's
old chief in the Transvaal. Sir Arthur, who had started his career as private secretary to
his uncle, the Duke of Westminster, in 1892, ended it as Governor of Madras (1906-
1911).
Dawson was probably as close to Milner personally as any member of the
Kindergarten, although Amery must be regarded as Milner's political heir. The Times'
obituary of Dawson says: "To none was Milner's heart more wholly given than to
Dawson; the sympathy between the older and the younger man was almost that of father
and son, and it lasted unchanged until Milner's death." As editor of
was one of the most influential figures in England. He used that influence in the
directions decided by the Group. This was to be seen, in later years, in the tremendous
role which he played in the affairs of India and, above all, in the appeasement policy. In
1929 he visited his "long-standing friend" Lord Halifax, then Viceroy of India, and
subsequently wrote most of
Government of India Act of 1935. In 1937 he wrote
the last stage of appeasement, and personally guided The Times support of that policy.
After his retirement from the chair of editor of
three years of his life as editor of
William Flavelle Monypenny was assistant editor of
went to South Africa to become editor of the
the outbreak of the Boer War, since the publication of a pro-British paper was not
possible during the hostilities. After a short period as a lieutenant in the Imperial Light
Horse (1899-1900), Monypenny was made Director of Civil Supplies under Milner
(1900-1902) and then resumed his post as editor of the Star. In 1903 he resigned in
protest against Milner's policy of importing Chinese laborers and walked across Africa
from the Cape to Egypt. Resuming his position on
director of the firm for the last four years of his life (1908-1912). About this time Lord