Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet
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Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet (4 September 1843 – 26 January 1911) was an English Liberal and reformist politician, son of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 1st Baronet, and husband of the feminist art historian Emilia, Lady Dilke.[1] Paradoxically both an imperialist and a leading and determined radical within the party, he helped to pass the 1884–85 parliamentary Reform Acts as well as supporting laws giving the municipal franchise to women, legalizing labour unions, improving working conditions and limiting working hours, and being one of the earliest campaigners for universal schooling. Touted as a future prime minister, his political career was effectively terminated in 1885, after a notorious and well-publicised divorce case.
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[edit] Early life
He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society.
He became a Liberal Member of Parliament for Chelsea in 1868, serving that seat until 1885. He was under-secretary to the Foreign Office from 1880-1882 during Gladstone's second government.
Dilke was elevated to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1882. In December 1882 he entered the cabinet as President of the Local Government Board, serving until 1885; in this job he negotiated the passage of the Third Reform Act, which the Conservatives allowed through the House of Lords in return for redistribution favourable to themselves (the granting of the vote to agricultural labourers threatened Conservative dominance of rural seats, but in return many double-member seats were abolished and seats redistributed to suburbia, where Conservative support was growing).
[edit] The Crawford scandal
Dilke had, both before and after his first marriage, been the lover of Ellen, wife of Thomas Eustace Smith and his late brother's mother-in-law. That fact notwithstanding, in July 1885 he was the subject of accusations that he had seduced the Eustace Smiths' daughter Virginia in the first year of her marriage to Donald Crawford MP. This was supposed to have occurred in 1882 when Virginia was 19, and she claimed that the affair had continued on an irregular basis for the next two and a half years. The accusations had a devastating effect on Dilke's political career, leading to his eventual loss of his parliamentary seat (Chelsea) in the 1886 UK general election.[2]
Crawford's inevitable divorce was heard on 12 February 1886 before The Hon. Mr Justice Butt in the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. Virginia Crawford was not in court and the sole evidence was her husband's account of Virginia's confession and some fairly insubstantial circumstantial accounts of servants. Dilke, largely on the advice of his confidante Joseph Chamberlain and aware of his vulnerability over the affair with Virginia's mother, did not give evidence. Butt said "I cannot see any case whatsoever against Sir Charles Dilke" and found – paradoxically – that though Virginia had been guilty of adultery with Dilke, there was no admissible evidence to show that Dilke had been guilty of adultery with Virginia. He therefore dismissed Dilke from the suit with costs, and pronounced a decree nisi dissolving the Crawfords' marriage.[2]
Investigative journalist William Thomas Stead then launched a public campaign against Dilke. Such a paradoxical finding by the court left doubts hanging over Dilke's respectability and in April 1886, he sought to clear his name and re-open the case through the device of the Queen's Proctor being made a party to the case and opposing the decree absolute.[3] Unfortunately, Dilke and his legal team had badly miscalculated. Though they had planned to subject Virginia to a searching cross-examination, Dilke, having been dismissed from the case, had no locus standi. The consequence was that it was Dilke who was subjected to severe scrutiny in the witness box by Henry Matthews. Matthews' attack was devastating and Dilke proved an unconvincing witness. His habit of physically cutting pieces out of his diary with scissors was held up to particular ridicule, as it created the impression that he had cut out evidence of potentially embarrassing appointments. The jury[4] found that the decree absolute should be granted and that Victoria had presented the true version of the facts. Dilke was ruined and for a time seemed likely to be tried for perjury.[2]
Dilke spent much of the remainder of his life and much of his fortune in trying to exonerate himself and it does appear likely that Virginia lied. It further seems probable that someone other than Dilke was her lover and a number of conspiracy theories have been put forward over the years implicating various men, including Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery and Chamberlain himself.[2]
Various lurid rumours circulated about Dilke's alleged love-life, such as that he had invited a maidservant to join himself and his lover in bed, and that he had introduced one or more of these to "every kind of French vice".[citation needed]
Dilke later became MP for Forest of Dean in 1892, serving until his death in 1911. He had hoped to be appointed Secretary of State for War in the Liberal Government formed in 1905, but this was not to be.
[edit] Cultural references
In the 1994 film Sirens, detailing sexual licence in Australia in the 1930s, the local pub is called the "Sir Charles Dilke".
[edit] Notes
[edit] Bibliography
- Gwynn, S. & Tuckwell, G. (1917). The life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke. London: John Murray.
- Jenkins, R (1996). Dilke: A Victorian tragedy. London: Papermac. ISBN 0-333-62020-8.
- — (2004) "Dilke, Sir Charles Wentworth, second baronet (1843–1911)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, accessed 24 November 2005 (subscription or UK/ Ireland public library membership required)
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by New constituency |
Member of Parliament for Chelsea with Sir Henry Hoare 1868–1874 William Gordon 1874–1880 Joseph Firth Bottomley Firth 1880–1885 (representation reduced to one member 1885) 1868–1886 |
Succeeded by Charles Algernon Whitmore |
| Preceded by Godfrey Blundell Samuelson |
Member of Parliament for Forest of Dean 1892–1911 |
Succeeded by Henry Webb |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Robert Bourke |
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1880–1882 |
Succeeded by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice |
| Preceded by John George Dodson |
President of the Local Government Board 1882–1885 |
Succeeded by Arthur Balfour |
| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by Charles Wentworth Dilke |
Baronet (of Sloane Street) 1869–1911 |
Succeeded by Charles Wentworth Dilke |
