Nationality British Party Independent Labour Party Education Peterhouse, Cambridge | Role British Politician Name Clifford 1st Succeeded by James Maxton | |
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Preceded by Richard Collingham Wallhead Born 9 May 1889
Newport, Wales ( 1889-05-09 ) Political party Independent Labour Party Alma mater Peterhouse College, Cambridge. Died March 3, 1939, Switzerland Spouse Marjory Allen, Lady Allen of Hurtwood | ||
Reginald Clifford Allen, 1st Baron Allen of Hurtwood (9 May 1889 – 3 March 1939), known as Clifford Allen, was a British politician, leading member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and prominent pacifist.
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Early life and education
The son of Walter Allen, Reginald Clifford Allen was born in Newport, then in Monmouthshire in Wales. The family later moved to Bristol, on account of Walter's business. Allen was educated at University College, Bristol and later at Peterhouse, Cambridge.
Career
Shortly after coming down from Cambridge with a third, he was made Secretary and then General Manager of the Daily Citizen between 1911 and 1915. He was Chairman of the No-Conscription Fellowship in the First World War, and was imprisoned as a conscientious objector three times. In 1917 he became so ill that he was released from prison where he set up house with Catherine Marshall who was also ill from overwork. Marshall hoped that their relationship would continue but Allen ended their partnership.
After the war he was Treasurer and Chairman of the Independent Labour Party between 1922 and 1926, Chairman of the New Leader between 1922 and 1926 and director of the Daily Herald between 1925 and 1930.
He was raised to the peerage as Baron Allen of Hurtwood, of Hurtwood in the County of Surrey, on 18 January 1932, to boost Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's National Labour representation in the House of Lords. In 1934 he co-founded the Next Five Years Group seeking a progressive centre-left re-alignment in British politics.
In January 1935 Allen wrote of German dictator Adolf Hitler after he had met him:
I believe Herr Hitler's position in the country is unassailable. His sincerity is tremendous...I am convinced he genuinely desires peace...Germany's aggressive words and warlike phrases do not represent her intentions.
Despite his championing of the cause of appeasement, he strongly condemned Nazi brutality and anti-semitism. For instance, in the House of Lords in July 1938 he declared:
Germany has said that British democracy is degenerate. Well, I for one was never more proud of British democracy than when Professor Freud, that great scientist, aged and infirm, became an exile from his country and was welcomed within our shores. There was taken to him as an invalid the register of the Royal Society in order that he might inscribe his name therein, an act which I believe has never been carried through in this country except for members of our Royal Family; and thus degenerate democracy linked an exiled and distinguished Jewish scientist with members of our own Royal Family. That seemed to me a cause of pride, and not a sign of degeneracy.
His efforts to intercede with the German government trying to save Hans Litten, a prominent opponent of the Nazi regime, from Dachau concentration camp were however unsuccessful.
Personal life
Clifford Allen married Marjory Gill on 17 December 1921. They had one child, a daughter born in 1922, Joan Collete, known as Polly. Never having fully recovered from the privations of his imprisonment during the First World War when he had contracted tuberculosis, Allen died in a sanatorium in Switzerland in 1939, aged 49, the peerage becoming extinct.