| Honorific-Prefix: | The Most Honourable |
| The Marquess of Crewe | |
| Order: | Secretary of State for War |
| Term Start: | 25 August 1931 |
| Term End: | 5 November 1931 |
| Primeminister: | Ramsay MacDonald |
| Predecessor: | Thomas Shaw |
| Successor: | Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham |
| Office1: | His Majesty's Ambassador to France |
| Monarch1: | George V |
| Primeminister1: | Bonar Law Stanley Baldwin |
| Term Start1: | 1922 |
| Term End1: | 1928 |
| Predecessor1: | Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst |
| Successor1: | Sir William Tyrrell |
| Order3: | Lord President of the Council |
| Term Start3: | 25 May 1915 |
| Term End3: | 10 December 1916 |
| Monarch3: | George V |
| Primeminister3: | H. H. Asquith |
| Predecessor3: | William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp |
| Successor3: | George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston |
| Term Start4: | 10 December 1905 |
| Term End4: | 12 April 1908 |
| Monarch4: | Edward VII |
| Primeminister4: | Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman |
| Predecessor4: | Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry |
| Successor4: | Edward Marjoribanks, 2nd Baron Tweedmouth |
| Order2: | Leader of the House of Lords |
| Term Start2: | 14 April 1908 |
| Term End2: | 10 December 1916 |
| Monarch2: | Edward VII George V |
| Primeminister2: | H. H. Asquith |
| Predecessor2: | George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon |
| Successor2: | George Curzon, 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston |
| Order5: | Lord Privy Seal |
| Term Start5: | 13 February1912 |
| Term End5: | 25 May 1915 |
| Monarch5: | George V |
| Primeminister5: | H. H. Asquith |
| Predecessor5: | Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Earl Carrington |
| Successor5: | George Curzon, 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston |
| Term Start6: | 9 October1908 |
| Term End6: | 23 October 1911 |
| Monarch6: | Edward VII George V |
| Primeminister6: | H. H. Asquith |
| Predecessor6: | George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon |
| Successor6: | Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Earl Carrington |
| Order7: | President of the Board of Education |
| Term Start7: | 18 August 1916 |
| Term End7: | 10 December 1916 |
| Monarch7: | George V |
| Primeminister7: | H. H. Asquith |
| Predecessor7: | Arthur Henderson |
| Successor7: | Herbert Fisher |
| Office8: | Secretary of State for India |
| Monarch8: | George V |
| Primeminister8: | H. H. Asquith |
| Term Start8: | 25 May 1911 |
| Term End8: | 25 May 1915 |
| Predecessor8: | John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn |
| Successor8: | Austen Chamberlain |
| Monarch9: | George V |
| Primeminister9: | H. H. Asquith |
| Term Start9: | 3 November1910 |
| Term End9: | 7 March 1911 |
| Predecessor9: | John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn |
| Successor9: | John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn |
| Office10: | Secretary of State for the Colonies |
| Monarch10: | Edward VII George V |
| Primeminister10: | H. H. Asquith |
| Term Start10: | 12 April1908 |
| Term End10: | 3 November 1910 |
| Predecessor10: | Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin |
| Successor10: | Lewis Harcourt |
| Order11: | Lord Lieutenant of Ireland |
| Term Start11: | 18 August 1892 |
| Term End11: | 29 June 1895 |
| Monarch11: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister11: | William Ewart Gladstone Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery |
| Predecessor11: | Lawrence Dundas, 3rd Earl of Zetland |
| Successor11: | George Cadogan, 5th Earl Cadogan |
| Office12: | Lord-in-Waiting Government Whip |
| Monarch12: | Queen Victoria |
| Primeminister12: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Term Start12: | 16 February 1886 |
| Term End12: | 20 July 1886 |
| Predecessor12: | William Elphinstone, 15th Lord Elphinstone |
| Successor12: | William Elphinstone, 15th Lord Elphinstone |
| Office14: | Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal |
| Term Start14: | 12 August 1885 |
| Term End14: | 20 June 1945 Hereditary peerage |
| Predecessor14: | Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton |
| Successor14: | Peerage extinct |
| Birth Name: | Robert Offley Ashburton Milnes |
| Birth Date: | 12 January 1858 |
| Nationality: | British |
| Party: | Liberal |
| Alma Mater: | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Spouse: | (1) Sibyl Graham (d. 1887) (2) Lady Margaret Primrose |
| Children: | 6, including Cynthia and Mary |
| Father: | Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton |
Robert Offley Ashburton Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe, (12 January 185820 June 1945), known as The Honourable Robert Milnes from 1863 to 1885, The Lord Houghton from 1885 to 1895 and as The Earl of Crewe from 1895 to 1911, was a British Liberal politician, statesman and writer.
Robert Offley Ashburton Milnes was born at 16 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair, London, the only son of Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, by his wife the Hon. Annabella Crewe, daughter of John Crewe, 2nd Baron Crewe, and was educated firstly at Winton House, near Winchester, and then Harrow. He went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1880.
A Liberal in politics, Milnes became Assistant Private Secretary to Lord Granville in April 1883 when Granville was Foreign Secretary. In an 1884 by-election he was the losing Liberal candidate at Barnsley. As Baron Houghton, he was made Liberal whip in 1885. In January 1886 he was made a Lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria during the Third Gladstone ministry, and remained a Home Ruler.
Prepared for ministerial success, a severe blow was struck to a burgeoning political career: his wife Sybil Marcia, daughter of Sir Frederick Ulric Graham, 3rd Baronet of Netherby, whom he had married on 3 June 1880, died suddenly in September 1887, still only thirty years old. He was determined to get over this personal tragedy by studying agriculture at the Royal Agricultural College. However, he was prevented by illness from pursuing his studies. Leaving England, he travelled to Egypt where the Stray Verses were written in a somewhat mournful lament at his great loss. Further melancholy hit hard when his eight-year-old son and heir Richard died in 1890.
Returning to Houghton in 1892, he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the Liberal government, 1892–1895, in which his old friend Lord Rosebery eventually became prime minister.
On the death of his uncle, Hungerford Crewe, 3rd Baron Crewe, he inherited vast estates of nearly 50,000 acres in four counties, and assumed the same year the additional surname of Crewe by royal licence on 8 June 1894.[1] On 17 July 1895 he was created Earl of Crewe, in the County palatine of Chester.
On 20 April 1899, he married an eighteen-year-old society beauty, Lady Margaret Etrenne Hannah Primrose, daughter of the former Prime Minister Lord Rosebery.
The Second Boer War broke out only months later in October. Crewe remained a leader of the conciliators who to the last tried to find a negotiated settlement with President Paul Kruger. He began to grow apart from his father-in-law's Liberal imperialism, advocating a gradualist "step-by-step" policy of containment of the situation. But the war soon escalated with Crewe finding himself isolated. He was not much of an orator, but had skills in administration, proving an efficient organizer. He became increasingly influential with Henry Campbell-Bannerman and the Radicals. He made a personal friend out of H. H. Asquith, who was his political mainstay in the round of intrigues that intensified during the lead-up to the First World War. A close confidante he was appointed as an aide on almost every committee. From 1905 to 1908 he was Lord President of the Council in the Liberal government. The House of Lords, dominated by Tory peers, were hostile to Asquith's proposed reforms. They wrecked the Education Bill of 1906, while Crewe stood out as the main defender of the Cabinet's policy. In response to pleas from Campbell-Bannerman, he assumed the role of cross-party convenor. Crewe was moderate in all things. He deplored David Lloyd George's Limehouse Speech in the east end of London in support of the People's Budget. By the same token, he found it unacceptable for die-hard Tories and Unionists to continue to block legislation.
Although Lord Elgin reassured him of Winston Churchill's friendliness among Liberals, Crewe was in for a rude shock: he had succeeded the orientalist Elgin as Secretary of State for the Colonies, and in May 1908 he had an angry exchange of letters with Churchill who had intervened in a colonial debate in the Commons.[2] Crewe could be haughty and coldly disapproving: alike to Grey he took a dim view of Lloyd George's People's Budget.[2] It was Crewe's job to steer it through the Lords.[2] In his capacity as Leader of the House of Lords he played a key role in bringing the Parliament Act 1911 (depriving the Lords of its veto) to the floor of the house and eventually onto the statute book. Asquith valued him highly as a colleague, for his common sense and sound judgment rather than any exceptional brilliance. But when Churchill circulated a memorandum proposing the abolition of the Lords in 1910, Crewe remained essentially whiggish and cautious, blocking any attempt to change the bicameral relationship.[3] He sat on the Constitutional Conference Commission set up on 16 June 1910 during the crisis following Edward VII's death.[3] The inconclusive outcome of the January 1910 election, which increased Unionist representation in the Commons, caused a wide-ranging debate on the constitutional implications of the Lords' powers. The new king, George V, to obviate a stalemate agreed to create 500 new peers, should the Liberals win the December 1910 election. Crewe was present at the discussions as one of the Inner Sanctum in the cabinet. He had previously taken a more right-wing position with Asquith arguing for reform of the membership of the Upper House, rather than of its customary powers. Crewe was selected to face leading Tory Lord Cromer, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, in negotiation of the provisions of the Veto bill, which would give a whip hand to an elected Commons.
It was his colonial responsibilities from September 1910 as part of his terms as Secretary of State for India (1910–11 and 1911–15), for which he gained the hoped-for promotion in the peerage. The Delhi Durbar was an invention of his genius for organization, designed to the last detail for the first British monarch in history to pay a visit to India. In that post, he was responsible for the removal of the capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi, and the reunion of the two Bengals under a Governor-in-Council, as well as commissioning the architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens for his outstanding visionary grand design of New Delhi. He was further honoured in 1911 when he was created Earl of Madeley and Marquess of Crewe.[1]
In at least one of Asquith's cabinet lists 1913–14, Crewe was at the top;[4] but other ministers, like Churchill, were more thrusting at pushing themselves forward for promotion. Crewe was widely respected for his administrative competence, efficiency and personal intelligence. Crewe served as Lord President of the Council again from May 1915, coming second in Asquith's rankings[5] and working closely with Lloyd George on currency and exchange rate stabilisation in the budget. His home at Crewe House, Curzon Street in Mayfair became a centre for war propaganda.
In 1916 he was appointed briefly as President of the Board of Education, and may have been useful in the post-war educational sector, but the Asquith coalition split in December. He remained as ever, an Asquithian, declining office under Lloyd George, and after his resignation, he continued to lead the independent Liberal opposition in the House of Lords. He took the largely honorific title of Chairman of London County Council. He maintained a leading role in the education sector, serving as Chairman of the Governing Body of Imperial College London (1907–22), and Chancellor of Sheffield University. He was later Ambassador to France appointed by Bonar Law from October (1922–28). As Ambassador to France, he launched a fund for the creation of a British Institute in Paris, which has since developed into the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP). He had a very brief ten-week stint as Secretary of State for War in Ramsay MacDonald's National Coalition from August 1931, but did not hold office after the general election. The Samuelite Liberals withdrew over free trade from the National Coalition in 1932. From 1936 and throughout the Second World War Crewe was leader of the Independent Liberals in the House of Lords. He served as Lord High Constable of England for the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
He did not much like public speaking, but that was probably because he contrasted sharply with Lloyd George's firebrand delivery and populist demagogy.[6] [7] Crewe himself tended to hesitate too long time with "pregnant pauses", as his speech became stilted. He was above all fastidious in the royal tradition of Charles I.[8] Edwin Montagu claimed, somewhat sardonically, that one of his female constituents died of boredom listening to the Marquess. His father-in-law, Lord Rosebery, had been Liberal Leader six years before he himself became Leader in the House of Lords of that party. Rosebery thought Crewe a reliable politician but a poor speaker. When it was announced to him that his daughter, the Marchioness of Crewe, was in labour, Rosebery is said to have quipped "I hope that her delivery is not as slow as Crewe's".[9] Always at ease in London High Society, Crewe hosted the dinner party at which Winston Churchill met Clementine Hozier.
Crewe voiced his support during his time in Parliament for numerous reforms, including old-age pensions,[10] an eight-hour day for miners,[11] and meal provisions for schoolchildren.[12] In November 1905, Crewe had written to (then) Party leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman of the need for innovative reform on the part of the Liberals, noting that
More than ever before, the Liberal Party is on its trial as an engine for securing social reforms, – taxation, land, housing, etc. It has to resist the I.L.P. claim to be the only friend of the workers. Can it do this and attempt Home Rule as well?[13]
During the Liberal party crises of 1886, 1909–11, and 1916, he stayed loyal to the party. He was also said to have acknowledged the damage the First World War did to liberalism. When he died James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury described Crewe as "the best of the whig statesmen". One historian believed his whiggery was more temperamental than ideological.[14] Reserved and stiff upper-lipped by nature he sought compromise by mediation attempting to negotiate a middle way. His meetings were often spontaneous and informal, but dominated by an aristocratic clique: Lloyd George recalled how in 1912 Crewe had tried at Deeside to resolve Ulster's longstanding problems with Bonar Law over a round of golf.
Crewe inherited his father's literary tastes, and published for public consumption Stray Verses in 1890, besides other miscellaneous literary work, including Gleanings from Béranger (privately printed in 1889), much of which he translated. A war poem, A Harrow Grave in Flanders—which touches on the theme of "what might have been"—was published in several anthologies during and following World War I.[15] Lord Crewe was the last of the Liberal grandees at the end of Empire. He was essentially by character a Victorian, and this showed in his austere reverential writings that took few risks with the material.
Soon after the death of his father-in-law the 5th Earl of Rosebery in 1929, the family asked Crewe to write his biography. The two-volume Lord Rosebery[16] was published by John Murray in 1931. Crewe's dedication reads "To my wife – this attempt to tell the story of one we both loved".
Crewe died on 20 June 1945 at the age of 87. His body was buried in the graveyard of Saint Bertoline's Church in the Cheshire village of Barthomley. As he had no surviving male heir, both his sons (one from each marriage) having died in childhood, his titles became extinct upon his death.
Crewe married twice. In 1880, he married Sibyl Marcia Graham (1857–1887), daughter of Sir Frederick Graham, 3rd Baronet, of Netherby in the County of Cumberland. They had three daughters and one son, who died as a child:
In 1899, more than a decade after his first wife's death, the 41-year-old Crewe married again. At eighteen years of age, the bride was around the same age as Crewe's eldest daughter. She was Lady Margaret Etrenne Hannah Primrose, daughter of the 5th Earl of Rosebery. As Lady Crewe, she became one of the first seven women appointed as magistrates in 1919 following the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919.[18] They had two children, a son and a daughter, and again the son died in childhood. The children were: