City of London
The City of London is a city and county that contains the historic centre and the primary central business district of London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, but the agglomeration has since grown far beyond the City's borders; the City is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though it remains a notable part of central London. Administratively, it forms one of the 33 local authority districts of Greater London, it is a separate county of England, being an enclave surrounded by Greater London. It is the smallest county in the United Kingdom; the City of London is referred to as the City and is colloquially known as the Square Mile, as it is 1.12 sq mi in area. Both of these terms are often used as metonyms for the United Kingdom's trading and financial services industries, which continue a notable history of being based in the City; the name London is now ordinarily used for a far wider area than just the City.
London most denotes the sprawling London metropolis, or the 32 London boroughs, in addition to the City of London itself. This wider usage of London is documented as far back as 1888; the local authority for the City, namely the City of London Corporation, is unique in the UK and has some unusual responsibilities for a local council, such as being the police authority. It is unusual in having responsibilities and ownerships beyond its boundaries; the Corporation is headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, an office separate from the Mayor of London. The Lord Mayor, as of November 2018, is Peter Estlin; the City is a major business and financial centre. Throughout the 19th century, the City was the world's primary business centre, it continues to be a major meeting point for businesses. London came top in the Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index, published in 2008; the insurance industry is focused around Lloyd's building. A secondary financial district exists at Canary Wharf, 2.5 miles to the east.
The City work there. About three quarters of the jobs in the City of London are in the financial and associated business services sectors; the legal profession forms a major component of the northern and western sides of the City in the Temple and Chancery Lane areas where the Inns of Court are located, of which two—Inner Temple and Middle Temple—fall within the City of London boundary. Known as "Londinium", the Roman legions established a settlement on the current site of the City of London around 43 AD, its bridge over the River Thames turned the city into a road nexus and major port, serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its abandonment during the 5th century. Archaeologist Leslie Wallace notes that, because extensive archaeological excavation has not revealed any signs of a significant pre-Roman presence, "arguments for a purely Roman foundation of London are now common and uncontroversial."At its height, the Roman city had a population of 45,000–60,000 inhabitants.
Londinium was an ethnically diverse city, with inhabitants from across the Roman Empire, including natives of Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, North Africa. The Romans built the London Wall some time between 190 and 225 AD; the boundaries of the Roman city were similar to those of the City of London today, though the City extends further west than Londonium's Ludgate, the Thames was undredged and thus wider than it is today, with Londonium's shoreline north of the City's present shoreline. The Romans built a bridge across the river, as early as 50 AD, near to today's London Bridge. By the time the London Wall was constructed, the City's fortunes were in decline, it faced problems of plague and fire; the Roman Empire entered a long period of instability and decline, including the Carausian Revolt in Britain. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, the city was under attack from Picts and Saxon raiders; the decline continued, both for Londinium and the Empire, in 410 AD the Romans withdrew from Britain.
Many of the Roman public buildings in Londinium by this time had fallen into decay and disuse, after the formal withdrawal the city became uninhabited. The centre of trade and population moved away from the walled Londinium to Lundenwic, a settlement to the west in the modern day Strand/Aldwych/Covent Garden area. During the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, the London area came in turn under the Kingdoms of Essex and Wessex, though from the mid 8th century it was under the control or threat of the Vikings. Bede records that in 604 AD St Augustine consecrated Mellitus as the first bishop to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Saxons and their king, Sæberht. Sæberht's uncle and overlord, Æthelberht, king of Kent, built a church dedicated to St Paul in London, as the seat of the new bishop, it is assumed, although unproven, that this first Anglo-Saxon cathedral stood on the same site as the medieval and the present cathedrals. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex and arguably the first king of the "English", occupied and began the resettlement of the old Roman walled area, in 886, appointed his son-in-law Earl Æthelred of Mercia over it as part of their reconquest of the Viking occupied parts of Englan
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. The governing party since 2010, it is the largest in the House of Commons, with 313 Members of Parliament, has 249 members of the House of Lords, 18 members of the European Parliament, 31 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 12 members of the Welsh Assembly, eight members of the London Assembly and 8,916 local councillors; the Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party—the Conservatives' colloquial name is "Tories"—and was one of two dominant political parties in the nineteenth century, along with the Liberal Party. Under Benjamin Disraeli it played a preeminent role in politics at the height of the British Empire. In 1912, the Liberal Unionist Party merged with the party to form the Conservative and Unionist Party. In the 1920s, the Labour Party surpassed the Liberals as the Conservatives' main rivals. Conservative Prime Ministers — notably Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher — led governments for 57 years of the twentieth century.
Positioned on the centre-right of British politics, the Conservative Party is ideologically conservative. Different factions have dominated the party at different times, including One Nation Conservatives and liberal conservatives, while its views and policies have changed throughout its history; the party has adopted liberal economic policies—favouring free market economics, limiting state regulation, pursuing privatisation—although in the past has supported protectionism. The party is British unionist, opposing both Irish reunification and Welsh and Scottish independence, supported the maintenance of the British Empire; the party includes those with differing views on the European Union, with Eurosceptic and pro-European wings. In foreign policy, it is for a strong national defence; the Conservatives are a member of the International Democrat Union and the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe and sit with the European Conservatives and Reformists parliamentary group. The Scottish, Northern Irish and Gibraltan branches of the party are semi-autonomous.
Its support base consists of middle-class voters in rural areas of England, its domination of British politics throughout the twentieth century has led to it being referred to as one of the most successful political parties in the Western world. The Conservative Party was founded in the 1830s. However, some writers trace its origins to the reign of Charles II in the 1670s Exclusion Crisis. Other historians point to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party, that coalesced around William Pitt the Younger in the 1780s, they were known as "Independent Whigs", "Friends of Mr Pitt", or "Pittites" and never used terms such as "Tory" or "Conservative". Pitt died in 1806. From about 1812 on the name "Tory" was used for a new party that, according to historian Robert Blake, "are the ancestors of Conservatism". Blake adds that Pitt's successors after 1812 "were not in any sense standard-bearer's of true Toryism"; the term "Conservative" was suggested as a title for the party by a magazine article by J. Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review in 1830.
The name caught on and was adopted under the aegis of Sir Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative Party, which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto; the term "Conservative Party" rather than Tory was the dominant usage by 1845. The widening of the electoral franchise in the nineteenth century forced the Conservative Party to popularise its approach under Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, who carried through their own expansion of the franchise with the Reform Act of 1867. In 1886, the party formed an alliance with Spencer Compton Cavendish, Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain's new Liberal Unionist Party and, under the statesmen Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour, held power for all but three of the following twenty years before suffering a heavy defeat in 1906 when it split over the issue of free trade. Young Winston Churchill denounced Chamberlain's attack on free trade, helped organize the opposition inside the Unionist/Conservative Party.
Balfour, as party leader, followed Chamberlain's policy introduced protectionist legislation. The high tariff element called itself "Tariff Reformers" and in a major speech in Manchester on May 13, 1904, Churchill warned their takeover of the Unionist/Conservative party would permanently brand it as: A party of great vested interests, banded together in a formidable confederation. Two weeks Churchill crossed the floor and formally joined the Liberal Party. )He rejoined the Conservatives in 1925.) In December, Balfour lost control of his party, as the defections multiplied. He was replaced by Liberal Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman who called an election in January 1906, which produced a massive Liberal victory with a gain of 214 seats. Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith enacted a great deal of reform legislation, but the Unionists worked hard at grassroots organizing. Two general elections were held in one in January and one in December; the two main parties were now dead equal in seats.
The Unionists had more popular votes but the Liberals kept control with a coalition with the Irish Parliamentary Party. In 1912, the Liberal Unionis
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative Party statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany; when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, the UK declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Chamberlain led Britain through the first eight months of the Second World War. After working in business and local government, after a short spell as Director of National Service in 1916 and 1917, Chamberlain followed his father, Joseph Chamberlain, older half-brother, Austen Chamberlain, in becoming a Member of Parliament in the 1918 general election for the new Birmingham Ladywood division at the age of 49, he declined a junior ministerial position, remaining a backbencher until 1922. He was promoted in 1923 to Minister of Health and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
After a short-lived Labour-led government, he returned as Minister of Health, introducing a range of reform measures from 1924 to 1929. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the National Government in 1931; when Stanley Baldwin retired in May 1937, Chamberlain took his place as Prime Minister. His premiership was dominated by the question of policy towards an aggressive Germany, his actions at Munich were popular among the British at the time; when Hitler continued his aggression, Chamberlain pledged Britain to defend Poland's independence if the latter were attacked, an alliance that brought his country into war when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939. Chamberlain resigned the premiership on 10 May 1940 as the Allies were being forced to retreat from Norway, as he believed that a government supported by all parties was essential, the Labour and Liberal parties would not join a government he headed, he was succeeded by Winston Churchill but remained well regarded in Parliament among Conservatives.
Before ill health forced him to resign, he was an important member of Churchill's War Cabinet as Lord President of the Council, heading the Cabinet in the new premier's absence. Chamberlain died of cancer six months after leaving the premiership. Chamberlain's reputation remains controversial among historians, the initial high regard for him being eroded by books such as Guilty Men, published in July 1940, which blamed Chamberlain and his associates for the Munich accord and for failing to prepare the country for war. Most historians in the generation following Chamberlain's death held similar views, led by Churchill in The Gathering Storm; some historians have taken a more favourable perspective of Chamberlain and his policies, citing government papers released under the Thirty Year Rule and arguing that going to war with Germany in 1938 would have been disastrous as the UK was unprepared. Nonetheless, Chamberlain is still unfavourably ranked amongst British Prime Ministers. Chamberlain was born on 18 March 1869 in a house called Southbourne in the Edgbaston district of Birmingham.
He was the only son of the second marriage of Joseph Chamberlain, who became Mayor of Birmingham and a Cabinet minister. His mother was Florence Kenrick, cousin to William Kenrick MP. Joseph Chamberlain had had Austen Chamberlain, by his first marriage. Neville Chamberlain was educated at Rugby School. Joseph Chamberlain sent Neville to Mason College. Neville Chamberlain had little interest in his studies there, in 1889 his father apprenticed him to a firm of accountants. Within six months he became a salaried employee. In an effort to recoup diminished family fortunes, Joseph Chamberlain sent his younger son to establish a sisal plantation on Andros Island in the Bahamas. Neville Chamberlain spent six years there but the plantation was a failure, Joseph Chamberlain lost £50,000. On his return to England, Neville Chamberlain entered business, purchasing Hoskins & Company, a manufacturer of metal ship berths. Chamberlain served as managing director of Hoskins for 17 years during which time the company prospered.
He involved himself in civic activities in Birmingham. In 1906, as Governor of Birmingham's General Hospital, along with "no more than fifteen" other dignitaries, Chamberlain became a founding member of the national United Hospitals Committee of the British Medical Association. At forty, Chamberlain was expecting to remain a bachelor, but in 1910 he fell in love with Anne Cole, a recent connection by marriage, married her the following year, they met through his Aunt Lilian, the Canadian-born widow of Joseph Chamberlain's brother Herbert, who in 1907 had married Anne Cole's uncle Alfred Clayton Cole, a director of the Bank of England. She encouraged and supported his entry into local politics and was to be his constant companion and trusted colleague sharing his interests in housing and other political and social activities after his election as an MP; the couple had a daughter. Chamberlain showed little interest in politics, though his father and half-brother were in Parliament. During the "Khaki election" of 1900 he made speeches in support of Joseph Chamberlain's Liberal Unionists.
The Liberal Unionists were allied with the Conservatives and merged with them under the name "Unionist Party", which in 1925 became known as the "Conservative and Unionist Party". In 1911, Neville Chamberlain stood as a Liberal Unionist for Birmingham City Council for the All Saints' Ward, located within his father's parliamentary constituency. Chamberlain was ma
Lord Privy Seal
The Lord Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. Its holder was responsible for the monarch's personal seal until the use of such a seal became obsolete; the office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state. Today, the holder of the office is invariably given a seat in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. Though one of the oldest offices in government anywhere, it has no particular function today because the use of a privy seal has been obsolete for centuries. Since the premiership of Clement Attlee, the position of Lord Privy Seal has been combined with that of Leader of the House of Lords or Leader of the House of Commons; the office of Lord Privy Seal, unlike those of Leader of the Lords or Commons, is eligible for a ministerial salary under the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975. The office does not confer membership of the House of Lords, leading to Ernest Bevin's remark on holding this office that he was "neither a Lord, nor a Privy, nor a Seal".
During the reign of Edward I, prior to 1307, the Privy Seal was kept by the Controller of the Wardrobe. The Lord Privy Seal was the president of the Court of Requests during its existence. Notes – Keeper of the seals of France Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan Keeper of the Rulers' Seal of Malaysia Keeper of the seals Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland Lord Keeper of the Great Seal Lord Privy Seal Sergeant, John. Give me ten seconds. Pan Books. ISBN 0-330-48490-7
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, was a British economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. He built on and refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, was one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. Considered the founder of modern macroeconomics, his ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, its various offshoots. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Keynes with a great help from Maiteeg spearheaded a revolution in economic thinking, challenging the ideas of neoclassical economics that held that free markets would, in the short to medium term, automatically provide full employment, as long as workers were flexible in their wage demands, he argued that aggregate demand determined the overall level of economic activity, that inadequate aggregate demand could lead to prolonged periods of high unemployment. Keynes advocated the use of fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions.
He detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment and Money, published in 1936. In the mid to late-1930s, leading Western economies adopted Keynes's policy recommendations. All capitalist governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes's death in 1946; as leader of the British delegation, Keynes participated in the design of the international economic institutions established after the end of World War II, but was overruled by the American delegation on several aspects. Keynes's influence started to wane in the 1970s as a result of the stagflation that plagued the Anglo-American economies during that decade, because of criticism of Keynesian policies by Milton Friedman and other monetarists, who disputed the ability of government to favourably regulate the business cycle with fiscal policy. However, the advent of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought. Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the crisis by President Barack Obama of the United States, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom, other heads of governments.
When Time magazine included Keynes among its Most Important People of the Century in 1999, it stated that "his radical idea that governments should spend money they don't have may have saved capitalism." The Economist has described Keynes as "Britain's most famous 20th-century economist." In addition to being an economist, Keynes was a civil servant, a director of the Bank of England, a part of the Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. John Maynard Keynes was born in Cambridge, England, to an upper-middle-class family, his father, John Neville Keynes, was an economist and a lecturer in moral sciences at the University of Cambridge and his mother Florence Ada Keynes a local social reformer. Keynes was the first born, was followed by two more children – Margaret Neville Keynes in 1885 and Geoffrey Keynes in 1887. Geoffrey became Margaret married the Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Archibald Hill. According to the economic historian and biographer Robert Skidelsky, Keynes's parents were loving and attentive.
They remained in the same house throughout their lives, where the children were always welcome to return. Keynes would receive considerable support from his father, including expert coaching to help him pass his scholarship exams and financial help both as a young man and when his assets were nearly wiped out at the onset of Great Depression in 1929. Keynes's mother made her children's interests her own, according to Skidelsky, "because she could grow up with her children, they never outgrew home". In January 1889 at the age of five and a half, Keynes started at the kindergarten of the Perse School for Girls for five mornings a week, he showed a talent for arithmetic, but his health was poor leading to several long absences. He was tutored at home by a governess, Beatrice Mackintosh, his mother. In January 1892, at eight and a half, he started as a day pupil at St Faith's preparatory school. By 1894, Keynes was top of his excelling at mathematics. In 1896, St Faith's headmaster, Ralph Goodchild, wrote that Keynes was "head and shoulders above all the other boys in the school" and was confident that Keynes could get a scholarship to Eton.
In 1897, Keynes won a scholarship to Eton College, where he displayed talent in a wide range of subjects mathematics and history. At Eton, Keynes experienced the first "love of his life" in Dan Macmillan, older brother of the future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Despite his middle-class background, Keynes mixed with upper-class pupils. In 1902 Keynes left Eton for King's College, after receiving a scholarship for this to read mathematics. Alfred Marshall begged Keynes to become an economist, although Keynes's own inclinations drew him towards philosophy – the ethical system of G. E. Moore. Keynes joined the Pitt Club and was an active member of the semi-secretive Cambridge Apostles society, a debating club reserved for the brightest students. Like many members, Keynes retained a bond to the club after graduating and continued to attend occasional meetings throughout his life. Before leaving Cambridge, Keynes became the President of the Cambridge Union Society and Cambridge University Liberal Club.
He was said to be an atheist. In May 1904, he received a first class BA in mathematics. Aside from a few months spent on holidays with family and friends, Keynes continued to involve himself with the university over the next two ye
Wesley's Chapel
Wesley's Chapel is a Methodist church in London, built under the direction of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement. The site is now a place of worship and visitor attraction, incorporating the Museum of Methodism in its crypt and John Wesley's House next to the chapel. Along with the associated Leysian Mission, Wesley's Chapel is a circuit of the London District of the Methodist Church; the chapel has an average Sunday service attendance of about 440. The chapel opened in 1778 to replace John Wesley's earlier London chapel, the Foundery, where he first preached on 11 November 1739. In 1776 Wesley applied to the City of London for a site to build his new chapel and was granted an area of land on City Road. After raising funds the foundation stone for the chapel was laid on 21 April 1777; the architect was George Dance the Younger, surveyor to the City of London. The building has Grade I listed status and is a fine example of Georgian architecture although it has been altered and improved since it was built.
In 1864 the gallery was modernised, its front raked seating installed. The original pillars supporting it were ships' masts donated by King George III but in 1891 they were replaced by French jasper pillars donated from Methodist churches overseas. Stained glass is a addition. An organ was installed in 1882 and the present organ in 1891, it was electrified in 1905 and in 1938 its pipes were moved to their present position at the rear of the gallery. The communion rail was a gift from former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, married in the chapel in 1951; the first woman to preach in Wesley's Chapel was Agnes Elizabeth Slack, in 1926. The chapel is set within a cobbled courtyard off City Road, with the chapel at the furthest end and Wesley's house on the right. John Wesley's House, a mid-Georgian townhouse, was built in 1779 at the same time as the chapel, it was Wesley's residence for the last eleven years of his life. He is commemorated by a blue plaque on the City Road frontage; this Grade. It was built by Wesley and designed by George Dance the younger, at that time the surveyor of the City of London.
Wesley died in his bedroom. The house was used to accommodate travelling preachers and their families; the household servants lived on the premises. The house continued to be used for travelling preachers after Wesley's death until it was turned into a museum in the 1900s. In the dining room his Chamber Horse is set up. At the front of Wesley's House is a small physic garden which contains herbs mentioned in Wesley's book, The Primitive Physic, it details ways in which common people could cure themselves using natural medicines as they couldn't afford a doctor. Wesley set up the first free dispensary in London giving out medical advice and remedies at his Foundery chapel; the house is dressed with period furniture which shows what it would have been like when Wesley lived and died there, although the house would have been painted in French grey rather than fancy wallpaper. Wesley died on 2 March 1791, his tomb is in the garden at the rear of the chapel alongside the graves of six of his preachers, those of his sister Martha Hall and his doctor and biographer, Dr John Whitehead.
A bronze statue of Wesley with the inscription "the world is my parish" stands at the entrance to the courtyard. The site houses one of the few surviving examples of a gentleman's convenience built by the sanitary engineer Thomas Crapper in 1891; the Museum of Methodism, housed in the chapel's crypt, contains artefacts and relics relating to Methodism, including several of Wesley's speeches and essays on theology. The museum was created in 1978 and was refurbished in 2014, with the last case being installed in early 2016 thanks to a generous donation; the Leys School was opened in Cambridge in 1875, two years after non-Anglicans were admitted to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It was intended to be "the Methodist Eton". Dr William Fiddian Moulton, a biblical scholar and church leader, was its first headmaster; the mission was started, in nearby Whitecross Street, in 1886, by former pupils of the school who were concerned about the social and housing conditions in the East End of London.
In 1902 the mission moved into purpose-built premises in Old Street near Wesley’s Chapel. It provided a medical mission, a "poor man’s lawyer", a relief committee, feeding programmes, meetings for men and women, a range of services and musical activities. After World War II and the arrival of the welfare state the mission disposed of the buildings. Strong links with the school remain and a scholarship allows a number of children from the city of London to attend the school as boarders. Wesley’s Chapel and the mission merged on Easter Day 1989; the chapel is home to a multicultural congregation with a membership of 439. It is a working church with daily prayer, Sunday Holy Communion services and several weekday services, it is known for its "high church" sacramental liturgy. The superintendent minister is Jennifer Smith. There is a memorial stained glass window dedicated to the memory of Methodist church architect William Willmer Pocock. Wesley's Chapel is in a Local Ecumenical Partnership with St Giles' Cripplegate, its Anglican neighbour and shares close relationships with St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, St Anne's Lutheran Church and the Friends meeting house at Bunhill Fields.
It has meeting rooms for other activities. List of Methodist churches New Room, Bristol Charles
Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet
Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet, was a British politician and writer. Young was the youngest son of Sir George Young, 3rd Baronet, a noted classicist and charity commissioner. Sir George's paternal grandmother was Emily Baring of the eponymous merchant banking dynasty. Hilton's mother Alice Eacy Kennedy, was of Dublin Irish Protestant background and had lived in India as Lady Lawrence, wife of Sir Alexander Lawrence, Bt, nephew to the Viceroy, Lord Lawrence. Widowed when Sir Alexander died in a bridge collapse, Alice returned to England, marrying Sir George in 1871. Hilton was the youngest of one daughter born to the couple; the oldest brother George, would become a diplomat and Ottoman scholar. The next brother, became a noted educator and mountaineer, their childhood was spent at the family's Thames-side ` Formosa' estate, at Berkshire. On visits to their London house near Sloane Square, Hilton would play in Kensington Gardens with the children of Sir George’s friend, Sir Leslie Stephen.
In this way, he commenced a close friendship with his contemporary, Thoby Stephen, became acquainted with Thoby’s siblings, Vanessa and Adrian. At his preparatory school, Northaw Place, in 1892 Young took pity on nine-year-old Clement Attlee on the latter's first day at school, offering the newcomer jam from his own pot, his secondary schooling commenced at Marlborough but incessant bullying saw him transferred to Eton where he joined the army stream which emphasised science rather than the classics. After two terms studying chemistry at University College London, he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1897, emerging in 1900 with a'first' in natural sciences and having achieved the office of president of the Union Society. Post-Cambridge he read for the Bar and was called by the Inner Temple in 1904. However, after receiving few briefs and suffering a nervous breakdown, he transferred to financial journalism. In 1908 he was appointed assistant editor of The Economist, resigning in 1910 to become city editor of The Morning Post.
His 1912 work Foreign Companies and Other Corporations combined his legal and financial knowledge to examine the status of companies created in one national jurisdiction which operate in other jurisdictions. At Cambridge, through Thoby Stephen, he became acquainted with key members of what would become known as the ‘Bloomsbury group’, he attended the group’s early gatherings at Gordon Square and Fitzroy Square, became attracted to Virginia Stephen, to whom he proposed on a punt on the Cam in May 1909, only to be rejected. Another Cambridge friendship, made through his brother Geoffrey, was with G. M. Trevelyan and in Spring 1906 he accompanied the historian during a retracement of the route of Garibaldi’s retreat which became the basis for Trevelyan’s Garibaldi trilogy; the second work in the trilogy — Garibaldi and the Thousand — was dedicated to the Young brothers and contained 15 photographs taken by Hilton. Enlisting in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 22 August 1914 and commissioned in September, he served in a wide variety of theatres and actions in the First World War, including the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, Harwich light cruisers, Admiral Troubridge’s mission to the Danube, naval siege guns at Flanders, the Zeebrugge Raid in which, commanding a rear gun on HMS Vindictive, he was wounded, necessitating the amputation of his right arm, in the Russian campaign, commanding an armoured train on the line south of Archangel.
These experiences were all recounted in his colourful 1920 war memoir, By Land. His war service brought the awards of the Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Service Cross and Bar, French Croix de guerre, the Serbian Silver Medal. Another literary consequence of his war service was A Muse at Sea, a compilation of his poems earlier published in the Ducal Weekly, the Morning Post, the Cornhill Magazine and the Nation, he rendered other types of service to his friends Lytton Strachey and Clive Bell during the War. In 1908 he had bought the'Lacket', at Lockeridge above Marlborough. During 1914–15 he rented the cottage to Strachey who drafted the first two chapters of his Eminent Victorians there. Facing a tribunal hearing to determine his claim for conscientious-objector status following the introduction of conscription, Bell appealed to Young in June 1916 for a testimonial, duly provided. In May 1915, while serving on HMS Iron Duke at Scapa Flow, the first edition of his System of National Finance appeared.
Through further editions in 1924 and 1936, it remained the standard work on Westminster’s budgetary processes until well into the 1950s. While on active service, in February 1915 he was elected unopposed as a Liberal MP at a by-election for the seat of Norwich. Post-war he started his rise up the political ladder in February 1919 when he was appointed parliamentary private secretary to H. A. L. Fisher, president of the Board of Education. In April 1921 he was promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In this capacity he was the link between the government and the'Geddes Axe', the committee of business experts established by Lloyd George in the aftermath of the First World War to undertake a fundamental review of government expenditure in the hope of identifying major savings. Out of office with the advent of Bonar Law’s Conservative administration in August 1922, he became Chief Whip for the Lloyd George Liberals and a Privy Counsellor. Losing his Norwich seat for 10 months during the political turmoil of 1923–4, he devoted the rest of the 1920s to furthering his personal and b
