The Lord Hankey | |
---|---|
Cabinet Secretary | |
In office 1916 – August 1938 | |
Prime Minister | |
Preceded by | Inaugural holder |
Succeeded by | Sir Edward Bridges |
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster | |
In office 14 May 1940 – 20 July 1941 | |
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Preceded by | The Lord Tryon |
Succeeded by | Duff Cooper |
Personal details | |
Born | Biarritz, France | 1 April 1877
Died | 26 January 1963[1] Redhill, Surrey, England | (aged 85)
Maurice Pascal Alers Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC, FRS[1] (1 April 1877 – 26 January 1963) was a British civil servant who gained prominence as the first Cabinet Secretary and later made the rare transition from the civil service to ministerial office. He is best known as the highly-efficient top aide to Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the War Cabinet, which directed Britain during the First World War.
In the estimation of his biographer John F. Naylor, Hankey held to the "certainties of a late Victorian imperialist, whose policies sought to maintain British domination abroad and to avoid as far as possible British entanglement within Europe. His patriotism stands inviolable, but his sensitivity to processes of historical change proved limited". Naylor found, "Hankey did not altogether grasp the virulence of fascism ... except as a military threat to Britain; nor did he ever quite comprehend the changing face of domestic politics which Labour's emergence as a party of government entailed. ... In these shortcomings Hankey was typical of his generation and background; that his responsibility was greater lay in the fact that he was better informed than nearly any of his contemporaries".[2][3]