Carlton Club meeting

The Conservatives and Liberals, traditional rivals, had first come together in a coalition government during the First World War in 1915 under H. H. Asquith. A crisis of confidence in December 1916 led to Asquith's replacement by David Lloyd George, and the Liberal Party split between supporters of the two with Asquith's faction going into increasingly open opposition. The coalition continued after the end of the war with the 1918 election delivering a large majority for 'Coalition Coupon' candidates, although most coalition supporters were Conservatives. Lloyd George was never personally popular with Conservatives, and the government's introduction of Liberal policies led several Conservative MPs to go into opposition over the next four years. In October 1922, the overall state of the parties in Parliament was:[1]

Amid increasing public attacks on the Coalition and on Lloyd George personally, the Cabinet on 10 October decided to call a general election as a Coalition.[2] Austen Chamberlain and David Lloyd George both arranged to speak at public meetings in defence of the Coalition.[3] Opinion from the Conservative Party membership was reported to say that holding a general election as a Coalition would split the party, but there was speculation that if Lloyd George were replaced by a Conservative as Prime Minister, the situation might be different.[4] Chamberlain, in his speech in Birmingham on 13 October, asserted that the Coalition was united and that Lloyd George had behaved with perfect loyalty to the Conservatives in it. He also stated that he did not intend to call a meeting for Conservatives to decide their attitude to the coalition.[5]

On 15 October Chamberlain called a meeting of all Conservative Members of the House of Commons, to ask for a vote of confidence in his leadership and in the continuation of the coalition. Chamberlain intended that a common electoral programme be agreed for the general election and the precise details be settled after the expected victory despite the fact that Lloyd George had specifically opposed that in his speech.[6]

Before the meeting there was particular speculation about the position of Bonar Law. He had been Leader of the Conservative Party for ten years, resigning both the leadership and his Government post in 1921 due to ill health, and he retained a large following within the party. On 7 October, a letter from Law was published by The Times, outlining his views on future British policy in the Near East, which differed from that of the Coalition.[7] While his attendance at the meeting was not certain as his health was still poor, the driving factor for Law was thought to be Conservative Party unity.[8] Law made up his mind the day before to go to the meeting, and to oppose the Coalition there.[2]

Preparing for the meeting, several groups of Conservative MPs met to discuss the situation. Leo Amery, who disliked the idea of a Coalition which existed only for the "negative policy of anti-Socialism", called a meeting of 17 Conservative ministers on 16 October, at which he found many wanted Lloyd George deposed. Chamberlain heard of the meeting and accused Amery of plotting against him; Amery said that he was trying to arrange a compromise. On 18 October, Amery told chief whip Leslie Wilson that the coalition's future should be decided by a party meeting after the election; Wilson obtained Chamberlain's agreement. Also on that day, about 80 Conservative MPs met under Sir Samuel Hoare; they supported independence in the election with possible post-election co-operation with Coalition Liberals. This group organised a delegation to Law to persuade him to oppose the coalition and drafted a motion for the Carlton Club meeting.[9]

Simultaneously with the crisis, there was a by-election campaign underway in the borough of Newport caused by the death of the sitting Coalition Liberal MP. The general expectation among the press was that the Labour Party would win. The poll was held on 18 October and counted immediately after with the result being declared at 2 AM. Conservative candidate Reginald Clarry won the seat, with the Liberal candidate finishing a poor third. Because of the timing, only two London newspapers were able to cover the result in much detail, but The Times gave it particular prominence including a leading article, which described it as a "complete condemnation of the Coalition Government" and vindicating the anti-Coalition Conservatives.[10]

There was a large turnout of Members of Parliament to the meeting, which began at 11 AM on 19 October in the Carlton Club.[11] Many of those arriving at the meeting were still shocked by recently learning of the Newport result. It was noted that Chamberlain was rather coldly received, in contrast to Law and Baldwin.[12] Although the meeting was private, a report was issued to the press by Conservative Central Office immediately after.

According to this report, Chamberlain as chair began by complaining that the "storm of attack and criticism" over the Chanak Crisis had weakened Britain's influence and undermined its authority. Chamberlain referred to the imminent general election and the need to unify the party, saying that the Coalition could not continue as it was and a critical decision was needed. Explaining that the real fight was not between Conservative and Liberal but between those who stand for individual freedom and those who are for the socialisation of the state, he asserted that it was not a moment to break with old allies and that it would be impossible to get a majority against the Labour Party without cooperation with the Liberals. He then rejected the idea of "half-hearted cooperation" in which the Conservatives would split with the Liberals after the election if they were able to form a government on their own. Chamberlain concluded that it would be arbitrary and mad to split from the Liberals "in face of the danger which confronts us".

Chamberlain was followed by Stanley Baldwin, who put forward the views of the anti-coalition ministers. He openly threatened to stand as an Independent Conservative in the election if the coalition continued and criticised the decision to call an election without consulting the party. Baldwin referred to the description of Lloyd George as "a dynamic force" and noted that the result of that force was the destruction of his own Liberal Party; he feared that the same destruction would be visited on the Conservative Party in time. As evidence he referred to the fact that both he and Chamberlain were prepared to "go into the wilderness" should the meeting go against them, a division he attributed to Lloyd George personally. This was famously summed up in his phrase: "a dynamic force can be a terrible thing".

Veteran MP Captain Ernest Pretyman spoke next, opposing the Coalition and asserting that the issues of the day could "best be met by Conservative principles rather than by a Coalition of which many members are very doubtful". Believing that the Conservative Party should come out on its own, he moved a resolution:

That this meeting of Conservative members of the House of Commons declares its opinion that the Conservative Party, whilst willing to cooperate with Coalition Liberals, fights the election as an independent party, with its own leader and its own programme.

The motion was seconded by George Lane-Fox, who said that it was impossible for a coalition to have principles. He believed it would be wrong to pretend to the electors that the Conservative Party was independent when it was intended that the Coalition would continue as before. Frank Mildmay regarded some of the criticism of Lloyd George as unfair and unpatriotic but referred to a previous speech by Chamberlain that declared that the Government should not go into an election as a coalition. He referred to his history as a Liberal Unionist and paid tribute to the measures introduced by Conservatives and Liberal Unionists in Coalition governments but appealed for "real true fidelity to the principles" of the Unionist Party. Sir Henry Craik also spoke in support of fighting the election independently, believing the party had not fully exercised its influence in Government.

At least 286 MPs were present. At least 11 MPs were absent abroad on the day, none of whom were supporters of the Coalition.[11]

The vote was taken by cards marked with the name of the MP. A number of slightly different figures have been published for the result.

The most commonly-quoted result is 187 against the coalition and 87 in favour. This was the number published in Volume 56 of Gleanings & Memoranda, the official Conservative Central Office record at that time, and was repeated in classic works such as Beaverbrook's Decline and Fall of Lloyd George, AJP Taylor's English History 1914-1945 and The Unknown Prime Minister, Robert Blake's 1955 biography of Law.[15]

The actual voting cards are preserved among the papers of J. C. C. Davidson, and a list of how each MP voted was published by Robert Rhodes James in his 1969 edition of Davidson's memoirs. He gives a figure of 185 voting against the coalition and 88 in favour, a figure accepted by Robert Blake.[16] Michael Kinnear later noted that despite giving a figure of 185 voting in favour, Rhodes James only actually listed 184 doing so.[17]

Kinnear (1973) wrote that according to a list kept at the time by Austen Chamberlain, 273 MPs voted, 187-86 with “at least a dozen abstentions”. Some ballot cards “may have been mixed up or marked inaccurately”. The resolution was a moderate one, calling for the Conservatives to fight the next election as a separate party, but not ruling out the negotiation of a new coalition, and some MPs - P. J. Ford told Austen Chamberlain at the time that it may have been as many as 50, but as he only named two Kinnear believes this to be an exaggeration - voted for it in the belief that they were supporting Chamberlain. Although Kinnear listed the contemporary views of all MPs, where known, in a long appendix, and named nine for whom Chamberlain and Davidson gave a different result, he stated that it was not possible to reconcile all discrepancies.[18]

R. J. Q. Adams also examined the voting cards for his 1999 biography of Law, and writes that the true figure is 187 against the coalition and 88 in favour.[19] To add to the confusion, the result is incorrectly listed as 186–87 on the wrapping paper in which they are held.[15] Adams lists Sir Robert Clough, MP for Keighley 1918–22, as the only abstention.[20][15]

Historian Michael Kinnear noted that according to Austen Chamberlain's list MPs voted according to a clear pattern, with those in traditionally Liberal areas supporting the Coalition, while those in safe Conservative seats opposed it. The Coalition's strongest supporters were in Scotland, East Lancashire, the Southwest of England, and the East of England.[21]

Immediately after the meeting, the dissenting Conservative ministers, including Baldwin and Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, gave in their resignations to Lloyd George, being followed by former Coalition supporters including Chamberlain and Balfour. Lloyd George drove to Buckingham Palace in the middle of the afternoon to offer the Government's resignation. King George V summoned Law and invited him to form a new Government, but Law demurred on the grounds that he was not leader of his party and could not accept until he was. His accession to the leadership was, however, regarded as a formality,[22] and his first call after leaving the Palace was to invite Curzon to remain as Foreign Secretary when the Government was formed.[23]

A meeting of the Unionist Party was summoned for Monday 23 October at the Hotel Cecil and unanimously confirmed Law as the new Leader; he "kissed hands" and formally succeeded Lloyd George as Prime Minister in the afternoon, and immediately obtaining a dissolution of Parliament and calling a general election for 15 November.

The Conservatives secured an overall majority at the election. The Conservative Members who were first elected to Parliament in that election formed the Conservative Private Members' Committee to discuss and influence political events; the membership expanded in subsequent years as more new Conservative MPs were elected, and in 1926 all backbench members were invited to become members. The committee became popularly known as the 1922 Committee.[24] However the name does not, as is sometimes wrongly supposed, stem from the Carlton Club meeting and the committee was in fact formed following the election, in April 1923.[25]

• Adams, R. J. Q. (1999). Bonar Law. John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-5422-5.
• Blake, Robert (1985). The Conservative Party From Peel To Thatcher. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-0068-6003-6.
• Kinnear, Michael (1973). The Fall of Lloyd George: The Political Crisis of 1922. Macmillan. ISBN 1-349-00522-3.

• "Waiting for the verdict", a contemporary cartoon by David Low, published on the day of the meeting but before the result was known.