Papers of Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, MP, covering the years 1948-1958

Description

These additional papers of Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, MP (1914-1973), also kindly presented by his widow, Lady Legge-Bourke, were received in 1985 within a file labelled 'The Master of the Offices'. That was the title of a pamphlet which Sir Harry wrote in 1950; it concerned the alleged malign consequences of a Treasury minute of 1919 which had given to the permanent secretary of the Treasury unwonted influence over senior civil servants in the Foreign Office. The consequences were supposed to include inadequacies in British diplomacy in the 1930s and general unpreparedness for war in 1939. This theme also featured in a book, Diplomatic twilight, written by Sir Walford Selby, former British ambassador in Vienna, published in 1953. The material in this collection of additional papers mainly comprises correspondence between Selby and Legge-Bourke arising from the two publications, especially Selby's; unless otherwise stated all the letters refer to either or both of the two books or to matters
arising.


Two special abbreviations have been used:

HLB Sir Harry Legge-Bourke

WS Sir Walford Selby.

Biography or history

Major Sir Edward Alexander Henry (Harry) Legge-Bourke was educated at Eton and Sandhurst. After serving in the Second World War, he was returned as Conservative MP for Ely in 1945. He was chairman of the 1922 Committee from 1970 to 1972

Provenance

Gift of Lady Legge-Bourke, September 1985

System of arrangement

The MS 771 catalogue is based on an historic inventory, created in 1987. The arrangement of material does not necessarily represent the original order of the archive and it is considered partly processed by an archivist. When making requests to consult, please be aware that there may be discrepancies between description and physical arrangement. The retrievable unit for this collection is file level.

Access and usage

Access

Access to this material is unrestricted.

Related material

See also MSS 742 and 1549

Related subjects / tags

WARNING: many of our records have not been classified by subject. So if you search our catalogue by subject using the links below then you are unlikely to find all relevant records. But you will find some...