Robert Hamilton Bernays
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Robert Hamilton Bernays (6 May 1902 – 23 January 1945) was a
Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...
and later Liberal National politician in the
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who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1931 to 1945.


Early life

Bernays was the third son and fourth and youngest child of Lillian Jane (Stephenson) Bernays and Stewart Frederick Lewis Bernays, a
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
clergyman who became Rector first of
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, and later (1924) of
Finchley Finchley () is a large district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Barnet. north of Charing Cross, nearby districts include: Golders Green, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, Whetstone, London, Whetstone, Mill Hill and Hendon. It is ...
, both in
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. He was the great-grandson of
German Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...
Professor Adolphus Bernays. He was educated at
Rossall School Rossall School is a private Day school, day and boarding school, boarding school in the United Kingdom for 0–18 year olds, between Cleveleys and Fleetwood, Lancashire. Rossall was founded in 1844 by St. Vincent Beechey, St Vincent Beechey as a ...
and
Worcester College, Oxford Worcester College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms was ad ...
, where he was president of the
Oxford Union The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford, England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest unive ...
in 1925. After university he became a journalist on '' The Daily News'' (which became the ''
News Chronicle The ''News Chronicle'' was a British daily newspaper. Formed by the merger of '' The Daily News'' and the '' Daily Chronicle'' in 1930, it ceased publication on 17 October 1960,''Liberal Democrat News'' 15 October 2010, accessed 15 October 2010 b ...
'' in 1930 after a series of newspaper mergers), and practised the profession until entering government, despite occasional clashes with his employers because of the independent line he took in the internal clashes among Liberal factions in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Finding himself dropped by the ''News Chronicle'' after it supplanted the ''Daily News'' in the summer of 1930, he travelled with the then leader of the Liberal Party in the
House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
,
Earl Beauchamp Earl Beauchamp () was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The peerage was created in 1815 for William Lygon, 1st Baron Beauchamp, along with the subsidiary title Viscount Elmley, in the County of Worcester. He had already been crea ...
, to
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, and thence, alone, to
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. The result was his book about
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...
, ''Naked Fakir'' (1931; published as ''Naked Faquir'' in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
in 1932).


Early political career

He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Liberal at
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in the 1929 general election (losing, after the campaign was interrupted and polling delayed for six weeks by the Labour candidate's death, to the incumbent Conservative, the future Chief Whip
David Margesson Henry David Reginald Margesson, 1st Viscount Margesson, PC (26 July 1890 – 24 December 1965) was a British Conservative politician, most popularly remembered for his tenure as Government Chief Whip in the 1930s. His reputation was of a stern ...
); but, following the positive reception afforded ''Naked Fakir'', he was adopted as Liberal candidate for Bristol North – a seat once held by the distinguished Liberal Cabinet Minister
Augustine Birrell Augustine Birrell KC (19 January 1850 – 20 November 1933) was a British Liberal Party politician, who was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 to 1916. In this post, he was praised for enabling tenant farmers to own their property, and for ...
– at the 1931 general election. He was elected with a majority of 13,214 over the incumbent, Labour MP
Walter Ayles Walter Henry Ayles (24 March 1879 – 6 July 1953) was a British Labour Party politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 11 years between 1923 and 1953. Early life Ayles was born in Lambeth into a poor religious family. At age ...
, who had twice won the seat, in
1923 In Greece, this year contained only 352 days as 13 days was skipped to achieve the calendrical switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar. It happened there that Wednesday, 15 February ''(Julian Calendar)'' was followed by Thursday, 1 March ' ...
and
1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...
, when the non-Labour vote was split between two other candidates. That there was no Conservative candidate, in an election that saw the Conservatives win 55% of the national vote, does much to explain the size of Bernays's majority; and this fact, coupled with Ayles's record of winning when he had two opponents rather than one – he lost to a single Liberal rival in both
1922 Events January * January 7 – Dáil Éireann (Irish Republic), Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes. * January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éirean ...
and
1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...
, while beating a Liberal and a Conservative in 1923 and a Liberal and an independent in 1929 – likewise explains why, throughout the period 1931–1935, one of Bernays's chief preoccupations was to ensure that the Conservatives should hold him in sufficiently high esteem to refrain from opposing him at the next election. (Writing to his married sister Lucy Brereton in July 1935, he commented that "my problem is not to capture the Liberal vote but to hold the Conservatives".) Bernays made a slow start in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
– his maiden speech was affected by the stammer which continued in debate (he preferred making prepared speeches rather than impromptu interventions because of it), and he was ''hors de combat'' for some time in 1932 after having his appendix removed. That autumn, however, he visited Germany for the first time to observe political developments there; he subsequently developed an expert knowledge of the country and was a consistent and determined critic of the Nazis after their accession to power in early 1933. His account of his journalistic and political travels between 1930 and 1933, ''Special Correspondent'', was published in 1934. During his visit to
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
he nearly secured an interview with
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
before admitting to the Foreign Press Bureau chief
Ernst Hanfstaengl Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl (; 2 February 1887 – 6 November 1975) was a German American businessman and close friend of Adolf Hitler. He eventually fell out of favour with Hitler and defected from Nazi Germany to the United States. He la ...
that he was an MP for the Liberal Party led by the
British Jewish British Jews (often referred to collectively as British Jewry or Anglo-Jewry) are British citizens who are Jewish. The number of people who identified as Jews in the United Kingdom rose by just under 4% between 2001 and 2021. History The firs ...
politician
Sir Herbert Samuel Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel (6 November 1870 – 5 February 1963) was a British Liberal politician who was the party leader from 1931 to 1935. He was the first nominally-practising Jew to serve as a Cabinet minister and to become ...
. When the official Liberal Party (the 'Samuelites', so named after party leader Herbert Samuel) left the National Government, led by
Ramsay MacDonald James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The first two of his governments belonged to the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, where he led ...
, over the
Imperial Preference Imperial Preference was a system of mutual tariff reduction enacted throughout the British Empire and British Commonwealth following the Ottawa Conference of 1932. As Commonwealth Preference, the proposal was later revived in regard to the member ...
-versus-
Free Trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold Economic liberalism, economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist politica ...
issue in November 1933, Bernays (along with three other followers of Samuel:
Joseph Leckie Joseph Alexander Leckie (24 May 1866 – 9 August 1938) was a British Liberal, later Liberal National politician and leather manufacturer. Education and business life Leckie was born in Govan in Glasgow, the son of John and Isabella Leckie. He ...
,
William McKeag William McKeag MSM (29 June 1897 – 4 October 1972) was a British politician, soldier and solicitor. His political affiliations changed over the years from Liberal to National Liberal, back to Liberal and finally to Conservative, but he neve ...
, and Joseph Maclay) remained on the government benches, with the Liberal National Party MPs (or 'Simonites,' led by
Sir John Simon John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, (28 February 1873 – 11 January 1954) was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second World War. He is one of three people to ...
), although Bernays himself, unlike Leckie and McKeag, did not yet openly become a 'Simonite.' As early as July 1934, however, in a letter to Lucy Brereton, he was distinguishing himself from " e poor old Samuel Liberals" and their "frightful position"; yet in December of the same year, writing to Lucy once more, he referred to the official Liberals as "we" and called Samuel his "leader"; while in March 1935 he told his sister that he was "very seriously thinking" of "asking for the government whip". In short, he agonised about his party affiliation for some time. He was re-elected at the 1935 general election as a "Liberal independent of all groups in the party" – again without Conservative opposition, though with a drastically reduced majority (over Ayles) of 4,828 – and finally joined the Liberal Nationals in September 1936 (though he seems to have been in negotiations with them even before the 1935 election). His decision to end his period of vacillation may have been motivated by a sense that he had burned his bridges with the official Liberals (no longer 'Samuelite', since Samuel had lost his seat in 1935 and the party was now led by
Sir Archibald Sinclair Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso, (22 October 1890 – 15 June 1970), known as Sir Archibald Sinclair between 1912 and 1952, and often as Archie Sinclair, was a British politician and leader of the Liberal Party. Backgr ...
), and that it would be hard for him to advance in his political career as an independent Liberal; while as a Liberal National he would be eligible for office in the National Government without having to go the whole hog and become a Conservative (an option which, many entries in his diaries suggest, would have been not only politically but also personally repugnant to him). It may also have been connected with the tragic death of his mother Lillian, who, after a long period of depressive illness and voluntary residence in nursing homes, was found dead in the
River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...
just before Christmas 1935. Bernays' sense that he needed to recover his psychological equilibrium and rebuild his career after his mother's death and the publicity it provoked is evident in his diary entries from early 1936. (A coroner's inquest recorded an open verdict on Mrs Bernays, but suicide must have been suspected, at a time when the stigma attached to it could still be seriously damaging to any relative of the victim who was a public figure in Britain.) Bernays's father remarried in 1937; Bernays acted as his best man.


In government

When
Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from ...
replaced
Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (3 August 186714 December 1947), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime ministe ...
as prime minister in May 1937, Bernays was appointed as
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health was a junior ministerial office in the United Kingdom Government. The Ministry of Health was created in 1919 as a reconstruction of the Local Government Board. Local government functions were ev ...
in the National Government, serving under
Sir Kingsley Wood Sir Howard Kingsley Wood (19 August 1881 – 21 September 1943) was a British Conservative politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance. He became a membe ...
. Wood was succeeded, upon being appointed
Secretary of State for Air The Secretary of State for Air was a secretary of state position in the British government that existed from 1919 to 1964. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. The Secretary of State for Air was supported by ...
in May 1938, by Bernays's old friend and occasional political patron Walter Elliot. Personal loyalty to Elliot (the two had remained friendly even after Elliot, in 1934, had married
Katharine Tennant Katharine Elliot, Baroness Elliot of Harwood, DBE (née Tennant; 15 January 1903 – 3 January 1994) was a British public servant and politician. Early life Born Katharine Tennant in 1903, she was the daughter of the Scottish industrialis ...
, whom Bernays himself had courted in the early 1930s) may have helped to keep Bernays in his job after the
Munich crisis The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudete ...
that autumn, when
Harold Nicolson Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, writer, broadcaster and gardener. His wife was Vita Sackville-West. Early life and education Nicolson was born in Tehran, Persia, the youngest son of dipl ...
and many of Bernays's other friends and associates thought he should have followed through on his earlier threats to resign because of the government's policy of
appeasement Appeasement, in an International relations, international context, is a diplomacy, diplomatic negotiation policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power (international relations), power with intention t ...
of Hitler and the Nazis. He moved in July 1939 to become
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport was a junior position at the British Ministry of Transport. The office was renamed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport in 1941, but resumed its former name at the end of the S ...
(under
Euan Wallace David Euan Wallace, MC PC (20 April 1892 – 9 February 1941) was a British Conservative politician who was an ally of Neville Chamberlain and briefly served as Minister of Transport during World War II. Early life Wallace was born on 20 Apr ...
), and held that post until he left government when
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
took over as prime minister in May 1940. (Although he was on friendly terms with Churchill during the 1930s and sometimes supported his attacks on the National Government over such matters as India, their association seems not to have been close enough to keep him in office when it became necessary for
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
to find places in his war cabinet for members of the Labour Party.) He was also, especially after their ten-week trip to
East Africa Protectorate East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was a British protectorate in the African Great Lakes, occupying roughly the same area as present-day Kenya, from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Cont ...
in early 1937 as members of a governmental commission on colonial education, a very close friend of the writer and National Labour MP Harold Nicolson, in whose celebrated diaries he is frequently mentioned. This, along with remarks in Bernays's own diaries and letters (such as "I suppose that what I really want in a woman is that kind of mental affinity which I get from someone like H roldN
colson Colson is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Audrey Butt Colson (born 1926), British social anthropologist * Bonzie Colson (born 1996), American basketball player for Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Bas ...
and "he is very fond of me as I am of him", has led to suggestions that they were actually involved in a discreet homosexual relationship. Previously
Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, (19 March 1879 – 19 July 1953), was a British landowner. He was also noted for his support of the Nazi ideology and his affair with French designer Coco Chanel. Early life Hugh was t ...
had reported, to
King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. George was born during the reign of his pa ...
among others, that Bernays had been a lover of the 7th Earl Beauchamp – Westminster's brother-in-law – on their Australian travels in 1930. (Bernays remained on friendly terms with Beauchamp after the latter's disgrace and departure for exile in Paris, visiting him there at least once, in April 1936.) Whatever the truth of these rumours (and his published diaries are full of appreciative comments about the beauty of young women, some of whom he seems to have pursued with a view to marriage, which may suggest that he was at most
bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...
– as perhaps was Beauchamp, who fathered seven children), Bernays eventually, in 1942, married Nancy Britton, the daughter of George Bryant Britton (
Coalition Liberal The Coalition Coupon was a letter sent to parliamentary candidates at the 1918 United Kingdom general election, endorsing them as official representatives of the Coalition Government. The 1918 election took place soon after British victory in the ...
M.P. for
Bristol East Bristol East is a constituency recreated in 1983 covering the eastern part of the City of Bristol, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Kerry McCarthy of the Labour Party. Constituency profile Bristol East cove ...
from 1918 to 1922). He had met Nancy shortly before the collapse of his relationship with actress
Leonora Corbett Leonora Corbett (28 June 1908 – 29 July 1960) was an English actress, noted for her charm and elegance in stage roles, and for a number of films made in the 1930s. Life and career Corbett was born in London, the daughter of Richard Ashwin Cor ...
. They had two sons.


War service

In the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Bernays joined the
British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
as a sapper in 1942 and was commissioned as a subaltern into the Movement Control Section of the
Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...
in January 1943; according to
Who's Who A Who's Who (or Who Is Who) is a reference work consisting of biographical entries of notable people in a particular field. The oldest and best-known is the annual publication ''Who's Who (UK), Who's Who'', a reference work on contemporary promin ...
he was promoted to Captain in 1944, although his casualty record with the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...
, by whom he is commemorated on the
Cassino Memorial Cassino () is a ''comune'' in the province of Frosinone at the southern end of the region of Lazio. It's the last city of the Latin Valley. It is located at the foot of Monte Cairo near the confluence of the Gari and Liri rivers and on the via ...
in Italy, lists his rank as Lieutenant. After he died in a plane crash in the
Adriatic Sea The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Se ...
in January 1945, while flying from
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
to
Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
as part of a parliamentary delegation to visit British troops, no
by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...
was called, and the Bristol North seat remained vacant until the 1945 general election, when it was won by the Labour candidate
William Coldrick William Coldrick (20 January 1894 – 15 September 1975) was a Labour Co-operative politician in the United Kingdom. He was elected as Member of Parliament for Bristol North at the 1945 general election. When that constituency was abolished ...
.


Bibliography

* ''Naked Fakir'' (
Victor Gollancz Ltd Victor Gollancz Ltd () was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group. Gollancz was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz, an ...
, 1931) * ''Special Correspondent'' (1934)


References


Further reading

* * Nick Smart, entry on Bernays in Brack et al. (eds.) ''Dictionary of Liberal Biography'', Politico's, 1998 * Nick Smart (ed.) ''The Diaries and Letters of Robert Bernays, 1932–39: An Insider's Account of the House of Commons'', Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1996 *


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bernays, Robert Hamilton 1902 births 1945 deaths 20th-century English LGBTQ people Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford British Army personnel killed in World War II English anti-fascists British LGBTQ military personnel English LGBTQ politicians LGBTQ members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Ministers in the Chamberlain peacetime government, 1937–1939 Ministers in the Chamberlain wartime government, 1939–1940 National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) politicians People educated at Rossall School Politicians killed in World War II Presidents of the Oxford Union Royal Engineers officers UK MPs 1931–1935 UK MPs 1935–1945 Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1945 Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in international waters