Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet

Sir Charles Dilke, Bt
Image from an Ogden's Cigarette Card
Born	4 September 1843 (1843-09-04)
Died	26 January 1911 (1911-01-27)
Nationality	British
Education	Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Known for	Liberal Party MP. President of the Local Government Board, 1882–1885
Spouse(s)	Emilia Strong (1840-1904)

Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet PC (4 September 1843 – 26 January 1911) was an English Liberal and Radical politician. Touted as a future prime minister, his aspirations to higher political office were effectively terminated in 1885, after a notorious and well-publicised divorce case.

Background and education

Dilke was the son of Sir Charles Dilke, 1st Baronet. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society.^[1] His second wife was the author, art historian, feminist and trade unionist Emilia, Lady Dilke.^[2]

Despite being a radical, Dilke was also an imperialist, arguing for British imperial domination in his bestselling 1868 book Greater Britain.^[3]

Political career, 1868–1886

Dilke became Liberal Member of Parliament for Chelsea in 1868, a seat he held until 1885.

In 1871, Dilke caused controversy when he criticized the British Monarchy and argued that the United Kingdom should adopt a republican form of government; public criticism made Dilke recant this position.^[3]

He was Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1880 to 1882 during Gladstone's second government and was admitted to the Privy Council in 1882. In December 1882 he entered the cabinet as President of the Local Government Board, serving until 1885. A leading and determined radical within the Liberal party, he negotiated the passage of the Third Reform Act, which the Conservatives allowed through the House of Lords in return for a redistribution calculated to be marginally 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). He also supported laws giving the municipal franchise to women, legalising labour unions, improving working conditions and limiting working hours, as well as being one of the earliest campaigners for universal schooling.

The Crawford scandal

Dilke's younger brother Ashton Wentworth Dilke married May Eustace Smith, the eldest daughter of Liberal politician and shipowner Thomas Eustace Smith and his wife Ellen in 1876. Sir Charles Dilke became Ellen's lover, a relationship which continued after his marriage in 1884. In July 1885, however, he was accused of seducing 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.

Crawford sued for divorce, and the case 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. There were also some accounts by servants, which were both circumstantial and insubstantial. Dilke, aware of his vulnerability over the affair with Virginia's mother, refused to give evidence, largely on the advice of his confidant Joseph Chamberlain. Butt found – paradoxically – that Virginia had been guilty of adultery with Dilke, but that there was no admissible evidence to show that Dilke had been guilty of adultery with Virginia. He concluded, "I cannot see any case whatsoever against Sir Charles Dilke," dismissed Dilke from the suit with costs, and pronounced a decree nisi dissolving the Crawfords' marriage.^[4]

The paradoxical finding left doubts hanging over Dilke's respectability, and investigative journalist William Thomas Stead launched a public campaign against him. Two months later, in April, Dilke sought to re-open the case and clear his name by making the Queen's Proctor a party to the case and opposing the decree absolute.^[5] Unfortunately, Dilke and his legal team had badly miscalculated (his legal advice has been described as "perhaps the worst professional advice ever given"). Though they had planned to subject Virginia to a searching cross-examination, Dilke, having been dismissed from the case, had no locus standi. As a consequence 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 found that Virginia had presented the true version of the facts, and that the decree absolute should be granted.

Dilke was ruined. Other women claimed he had approached them for a liaison. Various lurid rumours circulated about his love-life, including 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". For a time it seemed that he would be tried for perjury, although this did not eventuate.^[4] The accusations had a devastating effect on his political career, leading eventually to the loss of his parliamentary seat (Chelsea) in the 1886 UK general election.^[4] Matthews, on the other hand, gained public acclaim, winning the seat of Birmingham East as a Conservative at the same election. Queen Victoria, who approved of his performance in the trial, demanded that he be included in Lord Salisbury's cabinet, and he was made Home Secretary.

Dilke spent much of the remainder of his life and much of his fortune trying to exonerate himself, and this adds weight to the view that Virginia lied about the identity of her lover. Over the years it has been suggested that political colleagues of Dilke's, including Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery and Chamberlain himself.^[4] may have inspired Mrs Crawford to accuse him, seeing him as an obstacle to their own ambitions.

Political career after 1886

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.

Cultural references

Following his death, fund raising commenced to establish a local community hospital in his Forest of Dean constituency. The Dilke Memorial Hospital, Cinderford, opened its doors for the first time in 1923 and still exists as a permanent memorial to the popular M.P.

In the 1994 film Sirens, detailing sexual licence in Australia in the 1930s, the local pub is called the "Sir Charles Dilke".

Notes

Bibliography

• Dilke, Charles Wentworth. (1868). Greater Britain. Macmillan (reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00301-8)
• 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 public library membership required)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sir Charles Dilke.

• Works by Charles Wentworth Dilke at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet at Internet Archive
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir Charles Dilke
• The Rowers of Vanity Fair - Dilke, Charles Wentworth - “A Far Advanced Radical”
• Works written by Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd baronet.
• Archival material relating to Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet listed at the UK National Archives
• Portraits of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Bt at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Blue Plaque at 76 Sloane Street, Brompton, London

Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Chelsea 1868 – 1886 With: Sir Henry Hoare, Bt 1868–1874 William Gordon 1874–1880 Joseph Firth Bottomley Firth 1880–1885	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 Hon. 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

Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society 19th Century 1834–1836 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1836–1838 Sir Charles Lemon, Bt 1838–1840 The Earl FitzWilliam 1840–1842 Viscount Sandon 1842–1843 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1843–1845 Lord Ashley 1845–1847 The Lord Monteagle of Brandon 1847–1849 The Earl FitzWilliam 1849–1851 The Earl of Harrowby 1851–1853 The Lord Overstone 1853–1855 The Earl FitzWilliam 1855–1857 The Earl of Harrowby 1857–1859 Lord Stanley 1859–1861 Lord John Russell 1861–1863 Sir John Pakington, Bt 1863–1865 William Henry Sykes 1865–1867 The Lord Houghton 1867–1869 William Ewart Gladstone 1869–1871 William Newmarch 1871–1873 William Farr 1873–1875 William Guy 1875–1877 James Heywood 1877–1879 George Shaw-Lefevre 1879–1880 Thomas Brassey 1880–1882 James Caird 1882–1884 Robert Giffen 1884–1886 Rawson W. Rawson 1886–1888 George Goschen 1888–1890 Thomas Graham Balfour 1890–1892 Frederic J. Mouat 1892–1894 Charles Booth 1894–1896 The Lord Farrer 1896–1897 John Biddulph Martin 1897 Alfred Edmund Bateman 1897–1899 Leonard Courtney 1899–1900 Henry Fowler 1900–1902 The Lord Avebury 20th Century 1902–1904 Patrick George Craigie 1904–1905 Sir Francis Powell, Bt 1905–1906 The Earl of Onslow 1906–1907 Richard Martin 1907–1909 Sir Charles Dilke, Bt 1909–1910 Jervoise Athelstane Baines 1910–1912 Lord George Hamilton 1912–1914 Francis Ysidro Edgeworth 1914–1915 The Lord Welby 1915–1916 Lord George Hamilton 1916–1918 Bernard Mallet, Registrar General 1918–1920 Herbert Samuel 1920–1922 R. Henry Rew 1922–1924 The Lord Emmott 1924–1926 Udny Yule 1926–1928 The Viscount D'Abernon 1928–1930 A. William Flux 1930–1932 Sir Josiah Stamp 1932–1934 The Lord Meston 1934–1936 Major Greenwood 1936–1938 The Lord Kennet 1938–1940 Arthur Lyon Bowley 1940–1941 Henry William Macrosty 1941 Hector Leak 1941–1943 William Beveridge 1943–1945 Charles Ernest Snow 1945–1947 The Lord Woolton 1947–1949 David Heron 1949–1950 Sir Geoffrey Heyworth 1950–1952 Austin Bradford Hill 1952–1954 Ronald Fisher 1954–1955 The Lord Piercy 1955–1957 Egon Pearson 1957–1959 Harry Campion 1959–1960 Hugh Beaver 1960–1962 Maurice Kendall 1962–1964 Joseph Oscar Irwin 1964–1965 Sir Paul Chambers 1965–1966 L. H. C. Tippett 1966–1967 M. S. Bartlett 1967–1968 Frank Yates 1968–1969 Arthur Cockfield 1969–1970 R. G. D. Allen 1970–1971 Bernard Benjamin 1971–1972 George Alfred Barnard 1972–1973 Harold Wilson 1973–1974 D. J. Finney 1974–1975 Henry Daniels 1975–1977 Stella Cunliffe 1977–1978 Henry Wynn 1978–1980 Sir Claus Moser 1980–1982 David Cox 1982–1984 Peter Armitage 1984–1985 Walter Bodmer 1985–1986 John Nelder 1986–1987 James Durbin 1987–1989 John Kingman 1989–1991 Peter G. Moore 1991–1993 T. M. F. Smith 1993–1995 D. J. Bartholomew 1995–1997 Adrian Smith 1997–1999 R. N. Curnow 1999–2001 Denise Lievesley 21st Century 2001–2003 Peter Green 2003–2005 Andy Grieve 2005–2007 Tim Holt 2008–2009 David Hand 2010–2010 Bernard Silverman (resigned Feb 2010; replaced pro tem by David Hand) 2011–2012 Valerie Isham 2013–John Pullinger Category List

Authority control WorldCat VIAF: 32789810 LCCN: n86802456 ISNI: 0000 0001 0885 8026 GND: 118638793 SUDOC: 079118801 BNF: cb11265486r (data) NLA: 35036305 NDL: 00766767