MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY VII (CHARLES VANE-TEMPEST-STEWART) - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 10/15/1928 - HFSID 322113

MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY VII (CHARLES VANE-TEMPEST-STEWART)
About to become a member of Stanley Baldwin's Cabinet, he writes to a fellow Parliamentarian about a letter he wrote to Winston Churchill, and about rumored changes in the Cabinet--accompanied by unsigned letter to Churchill.
Typed Letter signed: "Yours truly/Londonderry", 1 page, 8x10. Londonderry House, Park Lane [London], 1928 October 15. To "My dear Lynn" [Sir Robert Lynn, M. P., Belfast], in full: "I have received your letter of the 13th October. I wrote to Gilmour at the same time as I wrote to Churchill and I had a favorable answer from him a copy of which I enclose. (I find I have not a copy of Gilmour's letter with me but it was in the same strain as Churchill's, which I enclose.) I see reports in the Daily Express today of Birkenhead leaving the Cabinet and I have heard that he is doing so with the object of joining the Wireless Merger Company. I do not know if this is correct or not. Thank you very much for all you say. I am getting fairly tied up with Labour and if what you suggest should eventuate, it would mean my giving up all that but I am bound to confess that I would like a settled job." Accompanied by unsigned, copy of the letter to Churchill as mentioned in letter (1 page, 8x10). Anglo-Irish peer Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart (1898-1949) became the Seventh Marquess of Londonderry in 1915. A Member of Parliament from 1904, he served with the Royal Horse Guards on the Western Front in World War I, cited for gallantry and taking temporary command of the regiment at the Battle of Arras (1917) when the commanding general was killed. He was in the thick of the fighting, and the horrors of that war profoundly influenced his politics. As Secretary of State for War (1931-1935), he would be one of the leading appeasers, so eager for friendship with Nazi Germany that his critics dubbed him "the Londonderry Herr". (He made six personal visits to Hitler in Berlin, but did cancel a seventh after the German occupation of Prague in 1938.) His family owned coal mines, and Lord Londonderry emerged as one of the conciliatory mine owners during the General Strike of 1926, earning thereby an invitation to the Cabinets of Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and the Coalition Government of Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. Four months after writing this letter (on October 18), Lord Londonderry would join the Baldwin Cabinet as Commissioner of Works. His reference to being "fairly tied up with Labour" anticipates his participation in the subsequent Ramsay MacDonald government. At the time of this letter, Winston Churchill held the key post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Baldwin government, but he would break with Baldwin in the 1930s over the very issue with which Londonderry was closely identified, appeasement of Nazi Germany. Political allies at the time of this letter, Churchill and Londonderry would not remain so. Creased from mailing folds. Lightly toned. Paperclip impression in top margin. Otherwise, fine condition.