Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long

Long was born at Bath, the eldest son of Richard Penruddocke Long and his wife Charlotte Anna, daughter of William Wentworth FitzWilliam Dick (originally Hume). The 1st Baron Gisborough was Walter's younger brother. On his father's side he was descended from an old family of Wiltshire gentry, and on his mother's side from Anglo-Irish gentry in County Wicklow. When young, Walter lived at Dolforgan Hall, Montgomeryshire, a property owned by his grandfather. While living there, his father inherited the Rood Ashton estate.

Long went to Hilperton school, Amesbury, where he was harshly disciplined by Edwin Meyrick. At Harrow Walter was popular, proving a sporty captain of cricket. During Walter's studies at Christ Church, Oxford his father had a mental breakdown and died, two years later, in February 1875. Walter took over management of the family properties upon his father's death, whilst his mother moved into a house in Oxford. It was a stressful time, during which he was frequently summoned by his mother, and his younger brother also accumulated debts.

Long continued to box, ride, and hunt, as well as play college cricket. Afternoons spent with the Bicester, Heythrops, and South Oxfordshire hunts were matched by the university Drag Hunt. His proficiency was reflected in the early offer to become Master of the Vale of White Horse Hunt, which he turned down. His agent H. Medlicott despaired at the danger to the family fortune, urging him to cut his relations loose, but he raised a new £30,000 mortgage on lands, which Medlicott complained he would have to sell.[1]

Long served as an officer in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, and was promoted Major in 1890,[2] becoming Lieutenant-Colonel in command from 1898 to 1906.[3]

Long was determined on a career in politics, campaigning at Marlborough in a traditional Liberal seat in 1879. After Sir George Jenkinson agreed to resign in North Wiltshire, he was adopted by 'half a dozen country gentlemen'.[4][5] At the 1880 general election, Long was elected to parliament as a Conservative for North Wiltshire, a seat he held until 1885. A supporter of Lord Beaconsfield, the British Empire, Church of England and state, he was against extending education, but favoured bible teachings in schools. He won the two-member North Wiltshire seat by more than 2000 votes. At the time Beaconsfield died on 19 April 1881, he was making a record of his days in the Commons: "I rose somewhere about 8.30 and as a new member was duly called". The Liberal government was in trouble over Egypt and the Bradlaugh incident; and the Conservatives were internally divided. He hunted for the Beaufort Hounds.

I selected as my time, midnight until, if necessary, eight in the morning. I used to leave London at 5.30 in the morning, providing the House was up, take the train down to Chippenham, have my hunt, and get back to London by train leaving Chippenham about 7.30 … I was at the House at midnight and I would stay there till it rose.[6]

He made his first speech on 26 July 1880 during the third reading of the Compensation for Disturbances (Ireland) bill.

"Wiltshire" [the county of his Devizes constituency]. Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1886.

Long won his seat with a reduced majority of 95 votes at the November 1885 general election. There was considerable anger at the Conservatives 'Fair Trade policy' for workers. He believed English people had little understanding of Ireland or the minority in Ireland that Home Rule would not protect, and that Gladstone's Home Rule policy would lead to the dismemberment of the empire. The home rule policy was defeated, Long was returned with an increased majority of 1726 votes in July 1886. Aged thirty-two, Long was asked to become a junior minister to C. T. Ritchie at the Local Government Board, in Salisbury's government. They had noticed his unswerving support from the backbenches. He was approachable and had a no-nonsense manner, an excellent memory: logical and crisp. He was both mature and responsible for a young MP. The very strong connections he had with the agricultural community assisted local government in his area. He entered government for the first time in 1886 in Lord Salisbury's second administration as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, serving under Charles Ritchie, and became one of the architects of the Local Government Act 1888, which established elected county councils. Long dealt with Poor Law reform in the county areas, slum reforms, reform of the London County Council, and better housing for the working-classes. He was deputed to make speeches backing the government position on the LCC bill, although he was not responsible for its draft or passage. Ritchie was to deal with the towns in Local Government Act 1888, but was ill for the period, and Long had "a sound grasp its details and essentials."[7]

On 6 Feb 1887, he made an important speech in the "Plan of Campaign" from which unionism there seemed to encourage landlordism. However behind the law for tenant compensation, Long knew lay a deeper demand for independence. He continued to be worried by the Liberals' policy of Home Rule, supporting the Irish Unionists who opposed it.[8]

He could not square the retention of Irish MPs at Westminster under the scheme for the second home rule bill. Irish MPs could control English, Scottish, and Welsh affairs, so he argued. The issue was central to the general election of 1892. Long had returned from Canada on a tour speaking on the federal system there. He reiterated the claim that Ulster Unionists would never accept the bill. But Liberals argued that the Conservatives would raise bread prices, and lower wages if returned, "the labourers are ignorant lot and swallowed it whole", he decried.[9] Long was defeated by 138 votes, losing his seat. In July 1892, Liverpool West Derby became vacant and Long defeated the Liberal candidate by 1357 votes at the by-election of 1893. Knowing his grasp of parliamentary procedure, Arthur James Balfour hired him to be a strategist in opposition. The Liberals appointed Long to the Royal Commission on Agriculture, meeting at Trowbridge on 18 January 1893.

Long continued in connections with Ireland throughout his career. He did not wish to sever legislative ties of Union with Ireland; but only to offer "an extension of the privileges of local government to the Irish people".[10] Home Rule was thrown out by the Lords on 8 September 1893, by 419 votes to 41. In June 1895, the Liberals were resoundingly defeated in the Lords, and the following month Salisbury was returned for another ministry.

After the Conservative defeat in 1892, Ritchie's retirement made Long the chief opposition spokesman on local government, and when the Tories returned to power in 1895, he entered the cabinet as President of the Board of Agriculture. In this role he was notable for his efforts to prevent the spread of rabies. The creation of the Board of Agriculture had brought a boost to Long's career in 1889. But opposition rose up strongly, when the Dog Muzzlers act, prompted the Laymen's League in Liverpool to contest the Church discipline bill. Long became increasingly unpopular in his constituency accused of being "irascible and scheming", and was advised to change seats. But this did not prevent in 1895 admittance to the Privy Council. The bourgeois Navy League in Liverpool could not wait to get rid of him but his powerful friends, like the "somnolent" Duke of Devonshire gave large donations to the Anti-Socialist Union - and this would be disastrous to the Union, for it would immediately alienate every snob and mediocrity ..." Yet Long was thick-skinned and seems impervious to the insults, for he remained remarkably successful at the polls.[11]

At the 'Khaki election' of November 1900, Long won Bristol South. With the ministerial shuffle in 1900, he became President of the Local Government Board. Never an insider, Long worked closely with constituents on local issues showing "sensitivity to the wider needs of society".[12] His capacity for hard work revealed that he was also stubborn, short-tempered, with a choleric temperament; a stickler for the letter of the law.[13] He was frequently plagued by ill-health: neuralgia, arthritis, susceptible to colds and flu; a waspish character, he was not charismatic, nor was he analytic or probing, like his mentor Balfour.

In 1903, Long took a leading role as a spokesman for the protectionist wing of the party, advocating tariff reform and imperial preference alongside Joseph Chamberlain and his son Austen Chamberlain, which brought him into conflict with Charles Ritchie, Michael Hicks-Beach and others on the free-trade wing.[14]

Long was a moderate within the protectionist ranks and became a go-between for the protectionists and free-traders, increasing his prominence and popularity within the party. Perhaps his most significant achievement on the board was the unification of the London water-supply boards into the Metropolitan Water Board.

When Balfour resigned as party leader in November 1911, Long, who had never been happy with his leadership style, was pre-eminent in the Conservative Party and one of the leading candidates to succeed him, the candidate of the 'country party'.[26] As early as 1900, Long had denounced Chamberlain, as the "Conservative Party...will not be led by a bloody radical".[27] However, he was opposed by Austen Chamberlain, who was backed by the Liberal Unionists still under his father's leadership. Long feared 'the degradation' to the party that a divisive contest might split the protectionist majority of the Unionist coalition, so both candidates agreed to withdraw in favour of Bonar Law, the tertium quid, and a relatively unknown figure, on 12 November.[28]

The unification of the Liberal Unionist and Conservative parties at the Carlton Club in 1912, was for Long acknowledgement of the end of its domination by the country interest.[29] Long was always skeptical of coalition, and declared that it would not happen.[30] So with the formation of the wartime coalition government in May 1915, Long's awaited return to office at the Local Government Board was greeted by his surprise. Asquith resisted attempts by Unionists to install Long as Chief Secretary.[31] Long dealt with the plight of thousands of Belgian refugees. He was actively involved in undermining attempts by Lloyd George to negotiate a deal between Irish Nationalists and Unionists in July 1916[32] over introducing the suspended Home Rule Act 1914, publicly clashing with his arch-rival Sir Edward Carson. He was accused of plotting to bring down Carson by jeopardising an agreement with the nationalist leader John Redmond, that any partition would only be temporary. When Long wanted to alter the clause to permanent, Redmond abandoned further negotiations.[33] Carson, in a bitter riposte, said of Long "The worst of Walter Long is that he never knows what he wants, but is always intriguing to get it".[34] Austen Chamberlain, in 1911, was similarly critical of Long, saying he was "at the centre of every coterie of grumblers."[35]

Long and the Unionists wanted General Maxwell to have authority over the police, but Asquith finally gave the Chief Secretaryship to a civilian, Henry Duke.[36] With the fall of Asquith and the accession of the Lloyd George government in December 1916, Long had established himself as the cabinet's foremost authority on Irish policy. Chief Secretary Duke would have preferred to be Inspector-General; but Lloyd George, a natural home ruler, did not seem too happy with Long's brand of federated Unionism. Two allies of the Prime Minister, namely Carson and Lord Edward Cecil, supplied the most intransigent opposition to a united Ireland.

It was Long's policy on 16 April 1918 to promote the Conscription bill that would provoke the crisis for Irishness.[37] Duke opposed a policy of conscription without an offer of home rule, whereas Long wanted the former without the latter.[38][39] The crisis gave rise to the German Plot, and Long's pressure to act on intelligence against Sinn Féiners caused him to issue a large number of arrest warrants.[40]

Long was promoted to the Colonial Office, serving until January 1919, when he became First Lord of the Admiralty, a position in which he served until his retirement to the Lords in 1921. From October 1919 on, he was, once again, largely concerned with Irish affairs, serving as the chair of the cabinet's Long Committee on Ireland. In this capacity, he was largely responsible for initiating the Partition of Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which followed certain proposals of Lloyd George's failed 1917–18 Irish Convention, and created separate home rule governments for Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, the former subsequently evolving as the Irish Free State.

In March 1921, Bonar Law resigned as party leader due to ill-health. Sir Austen Chamberlain finally succeeded him in the former office after a ten-year wait. But Long too, getting tired and old, was 'kicked upstairs' with a peerage. He was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Wiltshire in February 1920,[41] and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Long, of Wraxall in the County of Wiltshire, in May 1921.[42]

Lord Long married Lady Dorothy (Doreen) Blanche, daughter of the 9th Earl of Cork and Orrery, in 1878. They had two sons, including Brigadier General Walter Long, who was killed in action in 1917, and three daughters. He died at his home, Rood Ashton House in Wiltshire, in September 1924, aged 70, and was succeeded by his 13-year-old grandson Walter. Lady Long died in June 1938.

• Nicol, Cheryl (2016). Inheriting the Earth: The Long Family's 500 Year Reign in Wiltshire. Hobnob Press. ISBN 1906978379.

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Walter Hume Long

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Long
• Photograph in the National Portrait Gallery
• Buckle, George Earle (1922). "Long, Walter Hume Long, 1st Viscount" . Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.).