became organizing secretary of the Rhodes Trust in 1902. In 1908, for example, he was
transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean by radio.
In 1902, Parkin became the first secretary of the Rhodes Trust, and he assisted Milner
in the next twenty years in setting up the methods by which the Rhodes Scholars would
be chosen. To this day, more than a quarter-century after his death, his influence is still
potent in the Milner Group in Canada. His son-in-law, Vincent Massey, and his
namesake, George Parkin de T. Glazebrook, are the leaders of the Milner Group in the
Dominion. (2)
Another member of this Balliol group of 1875 was Thomas Raleigh (later Sir Thomas,
1850-1922), close friend of Parkin and Milner, Fellow of All Souls (1876-1922), later
registrar of the Privy Council (18961899), legal member of the Council of the Viceroy of
India (1899-1904), and member of the Council of India in London (19091913). Raleigh's
friendship with Milner was not based only on association at Balliol, for he had lived in
Milner's house in Tubingen, Germany, when they were both studying there before 1868.
Another student, who stayed only briefly at Balliol but remained as Milner's intimate
friend for the rest of his life, was Philip Lyttelton Gell (1852-1926). Gell was a close
friend of Milner's mother's family and had been with Milner at King's College, London,
before they both came up to Balliol. In fact, it is extremely likely that it was because of
Gell, two years his senior, that Milner transferred to Balliol from London. Gell was made
first chairman of Toynbee Hall by Milner when it was opened in 1884, and held that post
for twelve years. He was still chairman of it when Milner delivered his eulogy of
Toynbee there in 1894. In 1899 Milner made Gell a director of the British South Africa
Company, a position he held for twenty-six years (three of them as president).
Another intimate friend, with whom Milner spent most of his college vacations, was
Michael Glazebrook (1853-1926). Glazebrook was the heir of Toynbee in the religious
field, as Milner was in the political field. He became Headmaster of Clifton College
(1891-1905) and Canon of Ely (1905-1926) and frequently got into conflict with his
ecclesiastical superiors because of his liberal views. This occurred in its most acute form
after his publication of
Arthur James Glazebrook, was the founder and chief leader of the Canadian branch of the
Milner Group until succeeded by Massey about 1935.
While Milner was at Balliol, Cecil Rhodes was at Oriel, George E. Buckle was at New
College, and H. E. Egerton was at Corpus. It is not clear if Milner knew these young men
at the time, but all three played roles in the Milner Group later. Among his
contemporaries at Balliol itself, we should list nine names, six of whom were later
Fellows of All Souls: H. H. Asquith, St. John Brodrick, Charles Firth, W. P. Ker, Charles
Lucas, Robert Mowbray, Rowland E. Prothero, A. L. Smith, and Charles A. Whitmore.
Six of these later received titles from a grateful government, and all of them enter into
any history of the Milner Group.
In Milner's own little circle at Balliol, the dominant position was held by Toynbee. In
spite of his early death in 1883, Toynbee's ideas and outlook continue to influence the
Milner Group to the present day. As Milner said in 1894, "There are many men now
active in public life, and some whose best work is probably yet to come, who are simply
working out ideas inspired by him." As to Toynbee's influence on Milner himself, the
latter, speaking of his first meeting with Toynbee in 1873, said twenty-one years later, "I
feel at once under his spell and have always remained under it." No one who is ignorant
of the existence of the Milner Group can possibly see the truth of these quotations, and,
as a result, the thousands of persons who have read these statements in the introduction to
Toynbee's famous
Milner's insistence on the importance of a man who died at such an early age and so long
ago. Most readers have merely dismissed the statements as sentimentality inspired by
personal attachment, although it should be clear that Alfred Milner was about the last
person in the world to display sentimentality or even sentiment.
Among the ideas of Toynbee which influenced the Milner Croup we should mention
three: (a) a conviction that the history of the British Empire represents the unfolding of a
great moral idea—the idea of freedom—and that the unity of the Empire could best be
preserved by the cement of this idea; (b) a conviction that the first call on the attention of
any man should be a sense of duty and obligation to serve the state; and (c) a feeling of