{{short description|British Conservative politician (1876–1947)}} {{More citations needed|date=December 2022}} {{Use British English|date=January 2021}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Viscount Caldecote | honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE|PC}} | image = Thomas Inskip MP.jpg | caption = Inskip in 1923 | office = Lord Chief Justice of England | term_start = 14 October 1940 | term_end = 23 January 1946 | monarch = George VI | predecessor = The Viscount Hewart | successor = The Lord Goddard | order1 = Lord Chancellor | term_start1 = 3 September 1939 | term_end1 = 12 May 1940 | monarch1 = George VI | prime_minister1 = Neville Chamberlain | predecessor1 = The Lord Maugham | successor1 = The Viscount Simon | order2 = Leader of the House of Lords | term_start2 = 14 May 1940 | term_end2 = 3 October 1940 | monarch2 = | prime_minister2 = Winston Churchill | predecessor2 = The Earl Stanhope | successor2 = The Viscount Halifax {{Collapsed infobox section begin|Ministerial offices 1922–1940}} | order3 = Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs | term_start3 = 14 May 1940 | term_end3 = 3 October 1940 | prime_minister3 = Winston Churchill | predecessor3 = Anthony Eden | successor3 = Viscount Cranborne | term_start4 = 29 January 1939 | term_end4 = 3 September 1939 | prime_minister4 = Neville Chamberlain | predecessor4 = Malcolm MacDonald | successor4 = Anthony Eden | order5 = Minister for Coordination of Defence | term_start5 = 13 March 1936 | term_end5 = 29 January 1939 | prime_minister5 = Stanley Baldwin <br /> Neville Chamberlain | predecessor5 = ''New Office'' | successor5 = The Lord Chatfield | office6 = Attorney General for England and Wales | term_start6 = 26 January 1932 | term_end6 = 18 March 1936 | prime_minister6 = Ramsay MacDonald <br /> Stanley Baldwin | predecessor6 = William Jowitt | successor6 = Donald Somervell | term_start7 = 28 March 1928 | term_end7 = 4 June 1929 | prime_minister7 = Stanley Baldwin | predecessor7 = Douglas Hogg | successor7 = William Jowitt | office8 = Solicitor General for England and Wales | term_start8 = 3 September 1931 | term_end8 = 26 January 1932 | prime_minister8 = Ramsay MacDonald | predecessor8 = Stafford Cripps | successor8 = Boyd Merriman | term_start9 = 11 November 1924 | term_end9 = 28 March 1928 | prime_minister9 = Stanley Baldwin | predecessor9 = Henry Slesser | successor9 = Boyd Merriman | term_start10 = 31 October 1922 | term_end10 = 22 January 1924 | prime_minister10 = Bonar Law <br /> Stanley Baldwin | predecessor10 = Leslie Scott | successor10 = Henry Slesser {{Collapsed infobox section end}} | office14 = Member of the House of Lords<br />Lord Temporal | term_start14 = 7 September 1939 | term_end14 = 11 October 1947<br />Hereditary Peerage | predecessor14 = ''Peerage created'' | successor14 = The 2nd Viscount Caldecote | office15 = Member of Parliament<br />for Fareham | term_start15 = 20 February 1931 | term_end15 = 6 September 1939 | predecessor15 = John Davidson | successor15 = Dymoke White | office16 = Member of Parliament<br />for Bristol Central | term_start16 = 14 December 1918 | term_end16 = 30 May 1929 | predecessor16 = ''constituency established'' | successor16 = Joseph Alpass | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1876|03|5}} | birth_place = Clifton, Bristol, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1947|10|11|1876|03|05}} | death_place = Godalming, Surrey, England | birth_name = Thomas Walker Hobart Inskip | party = Conservative | spouse = Lady Augusta Boyle | alma_mater = King's College, Cambridge }} '''Thomas Walker Hobart Inskip, 1st Viscount Caldecote''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|CBE|PC}} (5 March 1876 – 11 October 1947) was a British Conservative politician who served in many legal posts, culminating in serving as Lord Chancellor from 1939 until 1940. Despite legal posts dominating his career for all but four years, he is most prominently remembered for serving as Minister for Coordination of Defence from 1936 until 1939.
==Background and education== Inskip was the son of James Inskip, a solicitor, by his second wife Constance Sophia Louisa, daughter of John Hampden. The Right Reverend James Inskip was his elder half-brother and Sir John Hampden Inskip, Lord Mayor of Bristol, his younger brother.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} He attended Clifton College from 1886 to 1894<ref>"Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. ref no 3603: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948</ref> and King's College, Cambridge, from 1894 to 1897.<ref>{{acad|id=INSP894TW|name=Inskip, Thomas Walker Hobart}}</ref> He joined Clifton RFC in 1895–96.{{citation needed|date=September 2010}} In 1899 he was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}
==Political and legal career== Inskip became a King's Counsel in 1914.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28935 |date=13 October 1914 |page=8125 }}</ref> He served in the Intelligence Division from 1915 and from 1918 to 1919 worked at the Admiralty as head of the Naval Law branch.<ref name=":0">{{Cite ODNB|id = 34107|title = Inskip, Thomas Walker Hobart, first Viscount Caldecote (1876–1947)|first = Keith|last = Robbins}}</ref> From 1920 to 1922, he served as Chancellor of the Diocese of Truro.<ref name=":0" /> In 1918 he entered Parliament as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol Central.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20090810231313/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Bcommons6.htm leighrayment.com House of Commons: Bristol to Buteshire and Caithness]}}</ref> He was first appointed Solicitor General in 1922 and would hold this post for the next six years, with one short interruption for the Labour government of 1924.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} In 1922 he was knighted.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=32781 |date=29 December 1922 |page=9162 }}</ref>
A staunch Protestant, he opposed the 1926 Roman Catholic Relief Act.<ref name=NYT>{{cite news|title=PASS CATHOLIC BILL ENDING BRITISH BANS: M.P.'s Give It Third Reading After It Is Attacked as Papal or Anglo-Catholic Plot. SOLICITOR GENERAL RAPS IT Measure Removing Old Disabilities Will Not Apply to Ulster -- It Will Go to Lords Now.|newspaper=New York Times|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/103853682/C0300C89FCE44950PQ/1?accountid=196403&sourcetype=Newspapers|url-access=subscription|date=4 December 1926|access-date=6 December 2025|page=12}}</ref> His beliefs came to national attention when in 1927 he joined with the Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks in attacking the proposed new version of the Book of Common Prayer. The law required Parliament to approve such revisions, normally regarded as a formality, but when the Prayer Book came before the House of Commons Inskip argued strongly against its adoption, for he felt it strayed far from the Protestant principles of the Church of England. The debate on the Prayer Book is regarded as one of the most eloquent ever seen in the Commons, and resulted in the rejection of the Prayer Book. A revised version was submitted in 1928 but rejected again. However, the Church Assembly then declared an emergency, and used this as a pretext to use the new Prayer Book for many decades afterwards.{{citation needed|date=September 2010}}
In 1928 Inskip was promoted to Attorney General, which post he held until the following year's general election – in which he lost his Bristol seat.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} When Ramsay MacDonald formed his National Government in 1931, Inskip, who had been elected in a by-election for Fareham in February that year,<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20090810231350/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Fcommons.htm leighrayment.com House of Commons: Fairfield to Fylde South]}}</ref> returned to the role of Solicitor General but the following year a vacancy occurred and he once more resumed his work as Attorney General.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1932.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33798 |date=12 February 1932 |page=941}}</ref> In 1935 he prosecuted the 26th Baron de Clifford for manslaughter, which was the last ever criminal trial of a peer in the House of Lords.<ref>Paley, Ruth. "The Dying Embers of an Outdated Privilege: The 1935 Trial of Lord de Clifford in the House of Lords". ''Parliamentary History'' 32.1 (2013): 169–186, {{doi|10.1111/1750-0206.12010}}</ref>
Despite an exclusively legal track record, on 13 March 1936 Inskip became the first Minister for Coordination of Defence.<ref>{{cite book |last= Spencer |first= Alex M |title= British Imperial Air Power: The Royal Air Forces and the Defense of Australia and New Zealand Between the World Wars |year= 2020 |publisher=Purdue University Press |location= Indiana |isbn=978-1-55753-940-3 |page= 207 }}</ref> His appointment to this particular office was highly controversial. Winston Churchill (who said he "had the advantage of being little known and knowing nothing about military subjects") had long campaigned for such an office and when its creation was announced, most expected Churchill to be appointed. When Inskip was named, one famous reaction was that "This is the most cynical appointment since Caligula made his horse a consul".<ref name=caligula>This quote has been made on many occasions and the original source is unclear. The highly influential polemic ''Guilty Men'' (in the chapter titled "Caligula's Horse") attributes it to a "great statesman" (page 74), whom some have surmised was Churchill. However, Graham Stewart in ''Burying Caesar: Churchill, Chamberlain and the Battle for the Tory Party'' (London; Phoenix, 1999) ({{ISBN|0-7538-1060-3}}), page 487 attributes the origination of the quote to Churchill's non-politician friend Professor Frederick Lindemann.</ref> John Gunther, who described Inskip in 1940 as "the sixty-three-year-old man of mystery", reported the "cruel story" that Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin wanted to appoint someone "'even less brilliant than himself'".<ref name="gunther1940">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.149663/2015.149663.Inside-Europe#page/n369/mode/2up |title=Inside Europe |publisher=Harper & Brothers |author=Gunther, John |year=1940 |pages=348}}</ref> Collin Brooks castigated Inskip in his diary as "a second-rate Attorney General."<ref>Bouverie, Tim (2019). ''Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War'' (1 ed.). New York: Tim Duggan Books. p. 94. {{ISBN|978-0-451-49984-4}}. {{OCLC|1042099346}}.</ref> His appointment is now regarded as a sign of caution by Baldwin who did not wish to appoint someone like Churchill, because it would have been interpreted by foreign powers as a sign of the United Kingdom preparing for war. Baldwin anyway wished to avoid taking onboard such a controversial and radical minister as Churchill.
Inskip's tenure as Minister for Coordination of Defence remains controversial, with some arguing that he did much to push Britain's rearmament before the outbreak of the Second World War, but others arguing he was largely ineffectual, although his ministry "had no real powers and little staff".<ref>{{cite book |last= Spencer |first= Alex M |title= British Imperial Air Power: The Royal Air Forces and the Defense of Australia and New Zealand Between the World Wars |year= 2020 |publisher= Purdue University Press |location= Indiana |isbn=978-1-55753-940-3 |page= 207 }}.</ref> In early 1939 he was replaced by the former First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Chatfield, and moved to become Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} At the outbreak of war in 1939 he was raised to the peerage as '''Viscount Caldecote''', of Bristol in the County of Gloucester,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=34674 |date=8 September 1939 |page=6126 |supp=y}}</ref> and made Lord Chancellor, but in May 1940 he once more became Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} to make room for the marginalising of Sir John Simon in the new war ministry of Winston Churchill.<ref>Roy Jenkins, ''Baldwin'' (London: Collins, 1987), p. 178.</ref> After leaving ministerial office Inskip served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1940 until 1946.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} As of {{date}}, he remains the last Lord Chief Justice to have held a ministerial office before his appointment.
Inskip was referred to in the book ''Guilty Men'' by Michael Foot, Frank Owen and Peter Howard (writing under the pseudonym 'Cato'), published in 1940 as an attack on public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany.<ref>{{cite book |title=Guilty Men |last=Cato |publisher=V. Gollancz |year=1940 |location=London |oclc=301463537}}</ref>
==Family== Lord Caldecote married Lady Augusta Helen Elizabeth, daughter of David Boyle, 7th Earl of Glasgow and widow of Charles Lindsay Orr-Ewing, in 1914. He died in October 1947, aged 71, and was succeeded by his son, Robert (Robin) Andrew in the viscountcy. Lady Caldecote died in May 1967, aged 90.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}
==Arms== {{Infobox COA wide |image = Caldecote Achievement.png |escutcheon = Per chevron Azure and Argent in chief two crosses pate Or and in base an eagled displayed of the first. |crest = Upon the battlements of a tower a grouse's leg erased Proper. |supporters = On the dexter side a talbot and on the sinister side a pegasus Proper each charged on the shoulder with a garb Or. |motto = Be Careful <ref>{{cite book|title=Burke's Peerage|date=1949}}</ref>}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-thomas-inskip | the Viscount Caldecote }} * {{PM20|FID=pe/008538}} * [https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/9/resources/1649 The Diaries of 1st Lord Caldecote] held at Churchill Archives Centre
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{{Lord chancellors}} {{Conservative Party (UK)}} {{Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs}} {{Secretary of State for Defence}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Caldecote, Thomas Inskip, 1st Viscount}} Category:1876 births Category:1947 deaths Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Category:Attorneys general for England and Wales Category:British secretaries of state for Dominion affairs Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Inskip, Thomas Category:English Anglicans Category:English King's Counsel Category:English lawyers Category:Foreign Office personnel of World War II Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Law lords Category:Leaders of the House of Lords Category:Lord chancellors of Great Britain Category:Lord chief justices of England and Wales Category:Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:Ministers in the Chamberlain peacetime government, 1937–1939 Category:Ministers in the Chamberlain wartime government, 1939–1940 Category:Ministers in the Churchill wartime government, 1940–1945 Category:Viscounts created by George VI Category:People educated at Clifton College Category:Solicitors general for England and Wales Inskip, Thomas Inskip, Thomas Inskip, Thomas Inskip, Thomas Inskip, Thomas Inskip, Thomas Inskip, Thomas Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages 1