The Cliveden Set: Portrait of an Exclusive Fraternity

In the popular mind the Cliveden Set (the phrase was first coined in 1937) is associated with a group of opinion shapers - politicians, newspaper magnates and commentators, academics and literary figures - who met informally at the Astor country-house at Cliveden and who were associated in the 1930s with Appeasement and even pro-Nazi or at least pro-German sympathies. But only the last third of the book deals with the group's attitude to Nazi Germany; much less well known is the story of the very close relationship between the members of its inner circle, all friends, which dates back to the years immediately after the Boer War. Rose's book concentrates on the few individuals who made up this inner circle: Philip Kerr (later Lord Lothian); Geoffrey Dawson (later Editor of The Times), Robert Brand (later a great merchant banker), Lionel Curtis (later founder of what is now called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, or Chatham House). They were originally a group of young men from Oxford (mostly from New College) who had been selected by Lord Milner to help him to reconstruct South Africa after the Boer war. On their return from South Africa, they were among the founders of The Round Table in 1911. Its prime concern was the strengthening of the British Empire, wanting to extend the model of the Federal Union of South Africa to the Empire as a whole. The Dominions would have none of that, and after the First World War were able to achieve their sovereign independence: the Empire was replaced by the Commonwealth. The group now made the continued unity of the Commonwealth their prime concern, supplementing it by a vision of close Anglo-American understanding. One of their friends at New College had been Waldorf Astor, the immensely wealthy owner of Cliveden. He was married to the ebullient American Nancy Shaw. She was an indefatigable hostess, and her house parties at Cliveden brought together many famous and influential people from all walks of life and all countries. The four `friends' from the Round Table were regular guests at Cliveden. Nancy was a woman of strong prejudices: detesting Catholics (she was herself a passionate Christian Scientist) and was chronically suspicious of Jews. In 1919 she was to become the first woman ever to sit in the House of Commons of which she was a colourful and combative member, concerning herself mainly with a range of social reforms. In social and economic policy, Waldorf, too, was on the liberal side of the Conservatives and was very friendly with Lloyd George. When Lloyd George became Prime Minister in 1916 and Milner entered the inner war cabinet, his supporters found themselves much nearer the centre of government. Before the war, they had warned against the threat from Germany. But they eventually saw that the Paris Peace Conference was too harsh on Germany which was bound to seek revenge one day, and they blamed that situation on France. So began their sympathy for Germany, co