Arthur
Ponsonby,
the son of Sir Henry Ponsonby,
Private Secretary to Queen Victoria,
was born in 1871. After being educated at Eton
and Balliol College, Oxford,
Ponsonby joined the Diplomatic Service and worked in Constantinople
and Copenhagen.
A member of the Liberal Party
Ponsonby
unsuccessfully contested Taunton in the 1906
General Election. Two years later he became the MP for Stirling
Burghs. A strong
critic of the foreign policy of Herbert Asquith
and Sir Edward Grey, Ponsonby was opposed
to Britain's involvement in the First World War.
Ponsonby joined with Charles Trevelyan,
E.D. Morel, George
Cadbury, Ramsay MacDonald, Arthur
Ponsonby, Arnold Rowntree to form
the Union of Democratic
Control (UDC). Over the next couple of years the UDC became
the leading anti-war organisation in Britain.
Like other anti-war MPs, Arthur Ponsonby was
defeated in the 1918 General Election. Ponsonby
joined the Labour Party and in the 1922
General Election became the MP for the Brightside division of
Sheffield.
After the 1929 General Election, Ramsay
MacDonald appointed Ponsonby as Parliamentary Secretary to the
Ministry of Transport. The following year Ponsonby was granted a peerage
and became Leader of the House of Lords (1930-1935).
Ponsonby resigned from the Labour
Party in 1940 as he opposed to its decision to join the National
Government. Arthur Ponsonby died on 23rd March 1946.
(1)
During the First World War leading members of
the Union of Democratic Control, Ponsonby,
Charles Trevelyan and E. D. Morel considered
the possibility of joining the Independent Labour
Party. Ponsonby wrote about it to Herbert Bryan on 19th May, 1916.
My
views may not differ materially from those held by members of the
I.L.P., I do not desire to give myself any fresh political label.
Though the formation of the Union of Democratic Control it has been
possible for me to work in close co-operation with several of your
leaders and this joint effort on the part of the Labour members and
radicals is having I think a very beneficial effect. I do not desire
to alienate myself from any of my former political associates but
rather to endeavour to urge them along the same path which I myself
am treading.
(2)
In his book Falsehood in Wartime, Arthur
Ponsonby explained the role of wartime propaganda.
People
must never be allowed to become despondent; so victories must be exaggerated
and defeats, if not concealed, at any rate minimized, and the stimulus
of indignation, horror and hatred must be assiduously and continuously
pumped into the public minds of 'propaganda'.
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