Godfrey Elton, 1st Baron Elton

Godfrey Elton, 1st Baron Elton (29 March 1892 – 18 April 1973), was a British historian.


The Lord Elton
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
16 January 1934  18 April 1973
Hereditary Peerage
Preceded byPeerage created
Succeeded byThe 2nd Lord Elton
Personal details
Born29 March 1892
Died18 April 1973
Political partyLabour

Early life

Elton was the eldest son of Edward Fiennes Elton and his wife Violet Hylda Fletcher. He was educated at Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford. At Oxford he at first studied classics, gaining a First in Classical Moderations in 1913,[1] but later turned to history. However, he never took his history finals as, following the outbreak of World War I, he was commissioned into the 4th Hampshire Regiment in September 1914. He fought in Mesopotamia in the First World War and was wounded during the siege of Kut-el-Amara. After Kut fell in April 1916 he was taken prisoner by the Turks. After the war Elton was elected a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford in 1919, and was lecturer in modern history from 1919 to 1939, dean of the college between 1921 and 1923 and tutor from 1927 to 1934. In 1923 he published The Revolutionary Idea in France, 1789–1878.

Political career

Elton was also involved in politics. He joined the Labour Party shortly after the end of World War I and stood unsuccessfully for Thornbury in the 1924 and 1929 general elections. He was a strong supporter of Ramsay MacDonald, whose son Malcolm MacDonald had been his pupil at Oxford, and followed him into National Labour. On 16 January 1934, on MacDonald's initiative, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Elton, of Headington in the County of Oxford.[2] Elton's somewhat controversial elevation to the peerage caused fellow historian Lewis Namier to remark: "In the eighteenth-century peers made their tutors under-secretaries; in the twentieth under-secretaries make their tutors peers" (Malcolm MacDonald was at the time serving as Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs). Lord Elton was a frequent speaker in the House of Lords and a member of several government committees.

Rhodes Trust

In 1939 Elton gave up his teaching fellowship at Queen's College and the same year he became secretary of the Rhodes Trust, a post he held until 1959.

Author

Elton was the author of several books, notably a biography of Ramsay MacDonald, entitled The Life of James Ramsay MacDonald 1866–1919. In 1938 he published his autobiography, Among Others.

Elton's writings were cited by George Orwell in his famous essay Notes on Nationalism as a prime example of what Orwell characterised as 'Neo-Toryism'.[3]

Personal life

Lord Elton married Dedi, daughter of Gustav Hartmann of Oslo, Norway, in 1921. They had three children, one son and two daughters:[4]

Lord Elton died at the Dower House in Sutton Bonington, Nottinghamshire on 18 April 1973 aged 81. His son Rodney succeeded him in the peerage and became a Conservative government minister. Lady Elton died in 1977.

Coat of arms

Coat of arms of Godfrey Elton, 1st Baron Elton
Notes
Coat of arms of the Elton family
Coronet
A coronet of a Baron
Crest
Between two pierced Mullets and out of a Wreath of Laurel fructed Or, a Dexter Arm embowed in Mail proper, tied about the elbow a Cord Or, the Gauntlet grasping a Scimitar proper, hilted and pommeled Or.
Escutcheon
Paly Or and Gules, a Bend Sable, and on a Chief of the last three pierced Mullets Or.
Supporters
Dexter: a Knight in Mail and White Surcoat supporting with the exterior hand a Sword point downwards proper, hilted and pommeled Or; Sinister: a Viking habited proper, mantled Azure, supporting with the exterior hand a Battleaxe head downwards and outwards proper.
Motto
Fide Quam Fortuna (By faith rather than fortune)

Notes

  1. Oxford University Calendar 1916, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1916, pg.247
  2. "No. 34016". The London Gazette. 19 January 1934. p. 458.
  3. "George Orwell: Notes on Nationalism".
  4. The Peerage, entry for 1st Lord Elton

References

  • Blake, Lord; Nicholls, C. S. (editors) The Dictionary of National Biography, 1971–1980 Oxford University Press, 1986
  • Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors) Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition) New York: St Martin's Press, 1990,
  • Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
New creation
Baron Elton
1934–1973
Succeeded by
Rodney Elton
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