in the middle 1930s, and domestic bursar of All Souls a little later. He has written a
number of historical works, of which the best known are Volume XIII of the
These twenty-five names give the chief members of All Souls, in the period before
1939, who became links with the Milner Group and who have not previously been
discussed. In the same period the links with New College and Balliol were also
strengthened. The process by which this was done for the former, through men like H. A.
L. Fisher, has already been indicated. Somewhat similar but less intimate relationships
were established with Balliol, especially after A. L. Smith became Master of that college
in 1916. Smith, as we have indicated, was a contemporary and old friend of Milner at
Balliol and shared his (and Toynbee's) ideas regarding the necessity of uplifting the
working classes and preserving the Empire. His connections with Fisher and with All
Souls were intimate. He was a close friend of Lord Brassey, whose marital relationships
with the Rosebery and Brand families and with the Cecil Bloc have been mentioned
already. Through A. L. Smith, Brassey reorganized the financial structure of the Balliol
foundation in 1904. He was, as we have shown, a close collaborator of Milner in his
secret plans, by intimate personal relationships before 1897 and by frequent
correspondence after that date. There can be no doubt that A. L. Smith shared in this
confidence. He was a collaborator with the Round Table Group after 1910, being
especially useful, by his Oxford position, in providing an Oxford background for Milner
Group propaganda among the working classes. This will be mentioned later. A. L.
Smith's daughter Mary married a Fellow of All Souls, F. T. Barrington-Ward, whose
older brother, R. M. Barrington-Ward, was assistant editor of
and succeeded Dawson as editor in 1941. Smith's son, A. L. F. Smith, was elected to All
Souls in 1904, was director, and later adviser, of education to the Government of Iraq in
1920-1931, and was Rector of Edinburgh Academy from 1931 to 1945.
A. L. Smith remained as Master of Balliol from 1916 to his death in 1924. His
biographical sketch in
All Souls.
The influence of the Milner Group and the Cecil Bloc on Balliol in the twentieth
century can be seen from the following list of persons who were Fellows or Honorary
Fellows of Balliol:
Archbishop Lang K. N. Bell
Lord Asquith H. W. C. Davis
Lord Brassey J. H. Hofmeyr
Lord Curzon Vincent Massey
Lord Ernle F. W. Pember
Lord Grey of Fallodon A. L. Smith
Lord Lansdowne B. H. Sumner
Lord Milner A. J. Toynbee
Leopold Amery E. L. Woodward
Of these eighteen names, nine were Fellows of All Souls, and seven were clearly of
the Milner Group.
There was also a close relationship between the Milner Group and New College. The
following list gives the names of eight members of the Milner Group who were also
Fellows or Honorary Fellows of New College in the years 1900-1947:
Lothian
Lord Milner
Isaiah Berlin
H. A. L. Fisher
Sir Samuel Hoare (Lord Templewood)
Gilbert Murray
W. G. A. Ormsby-Gore (Lord Harlech)
Sir Alfred Zimmern
If we wished to add names to the Cecil Bloc, we would add those of Lord David Cecil,
Lord Quickswood (Lord Hugh Cecil), and Bishop A. C. Headlam.
It is clear from these lists that almost every important member of the Milner Group
was a fellow of one of the three colleges—Balliol, New College, or All Souls. Indeed,
these three formed a close relationship, the first two on the undergraduate level and the
last in its own unique position. The three were largely dominated by the Milner Group,
and they, in turn, largely dominated the intellectual life of Oxford in the fields of law,
history, and public affairs. They came close to dominating the university itself in
administrative matters. The relationships among the three can be demonstrated by the
proportions of All Souls Fellows who came from these two colleges, in relation to the
numbers which came from the other eighteen colleges at Oxford or from the outside
world. Of the one hundred forty-nine Fellows at All Souls in the twentieth century, forty-
eight came from Balliol and thirty from New College, in spite of the fact that Christ
Church was larger than these and Trinity, Magdalen, Brasenose, St. John's, and
University colleges were almost as large. Only thirty-two came from these other five
large colleges, while at least fifteen were educated outside Oxford.
The power of the Cecil Bloc and the Milner Group in Oxford in the twentieth century