the necessity to do social service work (especially educational work) among the working
classes of English society.(3) These ideas were accepted by most of the men whose
names we have already mentioned and became dominant principles of the Milner Group
later. Toynbee can also be regarded as the founder of the method used by the Group later,
especially in the Round Table Groups and in the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
As described by Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol, in his preface to the 1884 edition of
Toynbee's
gather his friends around him; they would form an organization; they would work on
quietly for a time, some at Oxford, some in London; they would prepare themselves in
different parts of the subject until they were ready to strike in public." In a prefatory note
to this same edition, Toynbee's widow wrote: "The whole has been revised by the friend
who shared my husband's entire intellectual life, Mr. Alfred Milner, without whose help
the volume would have been far more imperfect than it is, but whose friendship was too
close and tender to allow now of a word of thanks." After Milner published his
After leaving Oxford in 1877, Milner studied law for several years but continued to
remain in close contact with his friends, through a club organized by Toynbee. This
group, which met at the Temple in London as well as at Oxford, worked closely with the
famous social reformer and curate of St. Jude's, Whitechapel, Samuel A. Barnett. The
group lectured to working-class audiences in Whitechapel, Milner giving a course of
speeches on "The State and the Duties of Rulers" in 1880 and another on "Socialism" in
1882. The latter series was published in the
In this group of Toynbee's was Albert Grey (later Earl Grey, 1851-1917), who became
an ardent advocate of imperial federation. Later a loyal supporter of Milner's, as we shall
see, he remained a member of the Milner Group until his death. Another member of the
group, Ernest Iwan-Muller, had been at King's College, London, with Milner and Gell,
and at New College while Milner was at Balliol. A close friend of Milner's, he became a
journalist, was with Milner in South Africa during the Boer War, and wrote a valuable
work on this experience called
by writing his sketch in the
At the end of 1881 Milner determined to abandon the law and devote himself to work
of more social benefit. On 16 December he wrote in his diary: "One cannot have
everything. I am a poor man and must choose between public usefulness and private
happiness. I choose the former, or rather, I choose to strive for it."(4)
The opportunity to carry out this purpose came to him through his social work with
Barnett, for it was by this connection that he met George J. (later Lord) Goschen,
Member of Parliament and director of the Bank of England, who in the space of three
years (1880-1883) refused the posts of Viceroy of India, Secretary of State for War, and
Speaker of the House of Commons. Goschen became, as we shall see, one of the
instruments by which Milner obtained political influence. For one year (1884-1885)
Milner served as Goschen's private secretary, leaving the post only because he stood for
Parliament himself in 1885.
It was probably as a result of Goschen's influence that Milner entered journalism,
beginning to write for the
number of personal relationships of later significance. At the time, the editor was John
Morley, with William T. Stead as assistant. Stead was assistant editor in 1880-1883, and
editor in 1883-1890. In the last year, he founded
imperialist, at the same time that he was a violent reformer in domestic matters, he was
"one of the strongest champions in England of Cecil Rhodes." He introduced Albert Grey
to Rhodes and, as a result, Grey became one of the original directors of the British South
Africa Company when it was established by royal charter in 1889. Grey became
administrator of Rhodesia when Dr. Jameson was forced to resign from that post in 1896
as an aftermath of his famous raid into the Transvaal. He was Governor-General of
Canada in 1904-1911 and unveiled the Rhodes Memorial in South Africa in 1912. A
Liberal member of the House of Commons from 1880 to 1886, he was defeated as a
Unionist in the latter year. In 1894 he entered the House of Lords as the fourth Earl Grey,
having inherited the title and 17,600 acres from an uncle. Throughout this period he was