Samuel Hoare: A Brief Biography

Abstract

This thesis is a brief biography of the British Cabinet Minister of the 1930s, Sir Samuel Hoare. He is best known for the Hoare-Laval pact he drafted as Foreign Secretary in 1935, together with the French Foreign Minister, in a vain attempt to deter Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia. But he also held other senior cabinet posts, and was a close confidante of Neville Chamberlain’s during the failed attempts at the appeasement of Adolf Hitler. Hoare had to take his share of the blame for this failure in post-war historiography. One of my important arguments is that it is necessary to consider the full life of important historical figures in order to understand the factors influencing their decision making. Hence the thesis considers how important aspects of Hoare’s early life and career, helped him progress to the top levels of government, and influenced his approach to ministerial responsibility. As this biography is largely based on Hoare’s own memoirs, published and unpublished, it also considers the value of such auto-biographical writings as historical sources. Though all memoirs contain bias, often deliberate in the case of politicians to enhance their legacy, they are still important to historians in adding primary discourse to the historical record. The historical value of Hoare’s memoirs and other writings should be better recognised by historians, particularly as Hoare was himself an academically trained and thorough historian. Hoare’s memoir of the 1930s, Nine Troubled Years, was particularly important in counter-acting Winston Churchill’s attacks on appeasers in his self-aggrandizing and influential history of the 1930s, The Gathering Storm. Samuel Hoare was an extremely thorough, intelligent and compassionate minister, who held a wide range of senior positions and contributed greatly to the government of Britain. He should not be judged purely from his part in the failures to appease Hitler and Mussolini.