[This is the eighth of a series of articles giving a brief
description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch
of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]
Winchester Cathedral
in Hampshire is a spectacular building, and although mere size is no
recommendation, it has the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic
cathedral in Europe. The historic City of Winchester itself was the Saxon, then Norman, capital of England
from the 9th to the 11th century. It is also the site of
one of England’s most famous
schools, Winchester
College, founded in 1382.
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| Winchester Cathedral |
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| The Nave at Winchester |
After 7th century beginnings, including monastic
sites associated with the cult of St Swithun, a Norman cathedral was started in
1079 of which the transepts, rather squat tower and crypt survive. The nave and
main building in the Perpendicular Gothic style was begun by Bishop William of
Wykeham in the late 14th century. There were later additions and
subtractions (the chapter house and cloisters were demolished after the
Dissolution), the inevitable Victorian restoration featuring George Gilbert
Scott, and a diver William Walker working in darkness for 6 years to 1912 in the
water-logged crypt prevented the total collapse of the place. It was shored up
with huge amounts of concrete and bricks; Walker
was awarded the MVO but deserved a higher honour.
The glory of Winchester
is its elaborate vaulted nave and indeed the stonework throughout is splendid,
as is the Norman crypt. Its treasures include the 12th century
Winchester Bible, richly illuminated. Jane Austen, who lived nearby, is buried
in the north aisle. Its setting, in the
centre of the City with generous surrounding lawns, adds to its many
attractions.
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Winchester
College, founded by
William of Wykeham in 1382, is one of the most illustrious English “public”
(i.e. private and independent) schools. It occupies historic buildings in the
city and enjoys the very highest intellectual reputation – giving rise to the
wry quip “You can usually tell a Wykemist, but you cannot tell him much”.
Winchester College
Pupils from Winchester
(“Wykemists”) have enriched many areas of national life in Britain. One
such was Hugh Gaitskell (1906-63),
the Leader of the Labour Party from 1955 to his death and a political hero to
me in my youth. Gaitskell was the son of an official in the Indian Civil
Service and his maternal grandfather was Britain’s
consul-general in Shanghai.
A top-line education at The Dragon School, Oxford
followed by Winchester College saw him move to New
College, Oxford (also founded by William of Wykeham in
1379 and confusingly one of the oldest colleges in the University!) Gaitskell
graduated with first class honours in politics, philosophy and economics in 1927.
His Establishment credentials were impeccable.
However, Gaitskell had been radicalised by the General Strike
of 1926. He lectured in economics to the WEA and to Nottingham
miners. In the early 1930s he became head of the department of political
economy at University College London and tutored at Birkbeck College.
He travelled in Europe and was attached to Vienna University
in 1934, witnessing the conflicts between Right and Left there. He stood
unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1935 and married his feisty Jewish wife Dora
in 1937.
During the Second War he worked at the Ministry of Economic
Warfare under Hugh Dalton and he entered Parliament as an MP in the Labour
landslide of 1945.
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| Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell |
Gaitskell joined the cabinet in 1947 as Minister of Fuel and
Power and when that apostle of austerity Sir Stafford Cripps retired through ill-health,
Gaitskell succeeded him as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1950. He only
presented one Budget and the time was inauspicious. Revenues were needed for Korean
War rearmament and Gaitskell raised profits tax and adjusted others but most
controversially introduced charges for glasses and teeth, hitherto free on the
National Health. The Labour Left regarded this as a betrayal of the principles
of the Health Service and Aneurin Bevan and Harold Wilson resigned from the
cabinet. Labour lost office at the election later in 1951.
The Post-war economic consensus between the parties was
dubbed “Butskellism” after Gaitskell and his Tory opposite number Rab Butler.
Butskellism accepted a mixed economy, with important industries nationalised,
working alongside a hopefully buoyant private sector. In the event powerful
trades unions and ineffective industrial management undermined Butskellism – it
needed Margaret Thatcher a generation later to find a new path.
When Clement Attlee retired in 1955, Gaitskell easily enough
defeated Bevan and Morrison for the leadership of the Labour Party. Bevan once
called him “a desiccated calculating machine” and he did have a stern public
image. Yet Gaitskell was fun-loving: he had an enthusiasm for ballroom-dancing,
earning the sniffy disapproval of de Gaulle; he was fond of the ladies and
embarked on a reckless affair with Ann Fleming, man-eating Tory wife of Ian
Fleming, creator of James Bond. Living in Hampstead, he gathered around him a
coterie of admiring intellectuals full of ideas including Roy Jenkins, Anthony
Crosland and Denis Healey.
Gaitskell showed his thoughtful perspicacity when he pressed
Anthony Eden not to go to war over Suez
in 1956. He deplored Nasser, but did not consider him an overt threat; he
wanted Eden to work through the United Nations –
Blair might have done better had he taken the same line with Bush over Saddam
and Iraq.
He had a long struggle with the Left about Clause 4 in Labour’s Constitution
pledging wholesale nationalisation in the long term; he lost this battle and
only Tony Blair’s New Labour lanced that boil about 35 years later. After
losing the election to Macmillan in 1959, he was faced with a Labour Conference
decision to work towards Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament. He promised to reverse
this policy and in a famous speech vowed to “fight, fight and fight again to save the Party we love”.
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| Gaitskell's passion |
Gaitskell duly won the following year in 1961. Elements in
the Labour Party still espoused unilateralism and were involved in writing
loony-leftist Michael Foot’s 1983 election manifesto – “the longest suicide
note in history” observed one wit. Labour was duly trounced.
Gaitskell upset many of his followers, including me, by
opposing Britain’s
entry to the EEC. Speaking in October 1962 he said;
It does mean, if this
is the idea, the end of Britain
as an independent European state...it means the end of a thousand years of
history.
Gaitskell could see, as we did not, the integrationist and
federalist ambitions of the European elite who had created the Treaty of Rome.
He wanted hard reflection in Britain
on the choices we faced. That reflection never came and we are facing the
consequences now.
I only saw Gaitskell speak in the flesh once, to a student
audience in Oxford
in 1962. He reviewed the issues of the day with fluency and wit: it was clear
that his statements were the fruit of earnest thought and intellectual rigour;
he did not bob and weave like Wilson
or pump up his windbag like Kinnock. He was indeed “the best prime minister we
never had”. When he suddenly died in January 1963 his admirers were devastated.
Writing this, I realise with a shock that Gaitskell died
almost 50 years ago, and he is, I suppose, to many an almost forgotten figure.
Yet his compassionate engagement, his logical mind, his striving after sensible
solutions to national problems and above all his patriotism are by others not
forgotten and our political life needs these qualities as never before.
SMD
30.10.12
Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012
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