Leopold Stennett Amery
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery CH , PC (born November 22, 1873 in Gorakhpur , India , † September 16, 1955 in London ) was a British politician ( Conservative Party ) and journalist . In the Bonar Law government (1922-1923) and in the 1st Baldwin government (1923-1924) he was Minister of the Navy , in the 2nd Baldwin government (1924-1929) he was Secretary of State for the Colonies and in the 1st Churchill government (1940–1945) Secretary of State for India and Burma .
Life
Amery was born in India to an English father and a Hungarian-Jewish mother. His mother was the sister of the famous orientalist Gottlieb William Leitner . Since the father left the family early, Amery and his brother were raised by the mother alone.
Despite the limited financial resources of his family, Amery was able to attend the elite school in Harrow . Winston Churchill was one of his classmates there. He then studied at Balliol College of Oxford University Classical Studies and eventually became a Fellow of All Souls College selected.
During the Boer War was Amery correspondent for the Times . In 1901 he attacked the army reforms in South Africa in a series of articles , in particular attacking General Redvers Buller and thus contributing to his dismissal.
After the war he was co-author and editor of the seven-volume " Times History of the South African War ". In the first decade of the 20th century, Amery was close to the Fabian social reformers around Sidney and Beatrice Webb .
In 1911, Amery moved into the House of Commons for the Birmingham South constituency as a member of the Liberal Unionists , which soon merged with the Conservative Party . During the First World War he acted as an intelligence officer in the Balkans , after which he worked in the Lloyd George government formed in 1916 as undersecretary of state for the colonies. Together with Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour , Amery formulated the so-called Balfour Declaration of 1917. He was also jointly responsible for the formation of the Jewish Legion , which fought as part of the British Army in the Middle East.
From 1922 to 1924 Amery served as First Lord of the Admiralty in the Bonar Law and Baldwin I governments . From 1924 to 1929 he served as Colonial Secretary in the Baldwin's second government.
Amery was no longer represented in the coalition governments of the 1930s, but he retained his seat in the British House of Commons. There he stood out in particular as one of the most energetic supporters of extensive rearmament for the British armed forces. In the Churchill government during World War II , he served as minister for India and Burma, although he did not belong to the inner cabinet.
Relationships with prominent contemporaries
Amery's relationship with Winston Churchill was ambivalent : Although the two men’s life paths were very close to one another over a period of 70 years, the relationship between the two was rather distant. Both visited Harrow together, took part in the Boer War as war correspondents at the same time, sat together in the House of Commons for over 40 years and in government together at different times for over 30 years.
American President Theodore Roosevelt and his Secretary of State Cordell Hull were extremely suspicious of Amery, as they were promoting the Empire Free Trade, i.e. H. fought the mutual favoritism of the member states of the Empire, one of Amery's main political concerns, in their trade relations, and in particular sought to get Canada on their side.
His son John Amery was hanged on December 19, 1945 as a traitor (he had founded the British Freikorps in German service ) in London's Wandsworth prison by Albert Pierrepoint . The son Julian succeeded his father as a conservative politician.
Web links
- Literature by and about Leopold Stennett Amery in the catalog of the German National Library
- Lieut-Colonel Leo Amery in the Hansard (English)
- Written estate at The National Archives (English)
- Newspaper article about Leopold Stennett Amery in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Arthur Lee |
First Lord of the Admiralty 1922–1924 |
Frederic Thesiger |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Amery, Leopold Stennett |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Amery, Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett; YTO (pseudonym) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British politician, member of the House of Commons |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 22, 1873 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gorakhpur , India |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 16, 1955 |
| Place of death | London |