Scope and Contents

Correspondence with Herbert Asquith [later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith] on McKenna's move from the Admiralty to become Home Secretary, particularly setting the date of the move and the hand-over between McKenna and Winston Churchill and McKenna's wish to postpone the move until the end of the year.

Scope and Contents Correspondence with Herbert Asquith [later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith] on subjects including: ammunition trials; the resignation of 2nd Lord Tweedmouth [as First Lord of the Admiralty]; Violet Asquith [later Violet, Lady Bonham-Carter, then Lady Asquith of Yarnbury] knocking herself out; Austrian dreadnoughts; investigating Admiral Lord Charles Beresford's allegations that Britain was not prepared for war; the harmful effects of a leak to the Times on the constitutional conference, 1910;...

Scope and Contents

Correspondence with Herbert Asquith [later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith] on Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, particularly on King Edward VII's wish that Beresford should be made Admiral of the Fleet and Beresford's allegations of intimidation and favouritism against the Admiralty.

Scope and Contents

Correspondence with Herbert Asquith [later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith] on naval estimates and battleship construction, particularly in the light of the German construction programme, with a letter from the Sea Lords to McKenna.

Scope and Contents Copies of Fisher's papers and correspondence [?] used for the Inquiry, (with some originals), including: pre-war letters from Fisher to Alfred Gardiner [Editor of the Daily News] and Winston Churchill [First Lord of the Admiralty]; the exchange of notes between Fisher and Herbert Asquith [Prime Minister, later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith], on Fisher's resignation as 1st Sea Lord, with a letter from Churchill to Fisher; preliminary papers on the Dardanelles (mainly Jan-Feb 1915), including...

Scope and Contents Letters from Asquith [later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith] to Pamela McKenna [earlier Pamela Jekyll] on subjects including: his love for her and arranging meetings with her; encounters with suffragettes; George Bernard Shaw's play 'Caesar and Cleopatra'; various books; his view of May Spender and Lady Frances Balfour; Violet Asquith [later Violet, Lady Bonham-Carter, Lady Violet Bonham Carter and Lady Asquith of Yarnbury] and her diffuse nature; Margot Asquith [later Margot, Lady Oxford and...

Scope and Contents Letters of congratulation, mainly to Agnes, Lady Jekyll, from correspondents including: Margot Asquith [later Margot, Lady Oxford and Asquith] (2); Augustine Birrell; Georgiana, Lady Burne-Jones; Mary Cavan Irving; Lady Violet Cecil [later Violet, Lady Milner]; King Edward VII; Dorothy Gladstone (2); Richard Haldane; Rufus Isaacs [later 1st Lord Reading]; [?] Sir Alfred Lyall; Charles Macpherson [Sub-organist, St Paul’s Cathedral] on playing at the wedding; 1st Lord Morley; Mary Moulton;...

Scope and Contents Rough notes and typescript of a conversation at the house of Herbert Asquith [Prime Minister, later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith] on subjects including: McKenna's objections to using British troops in France and his view that the French were being encouraged to provoke Germany, believing that Britain would support them; Asquith's hope to avoid war and opposition to the scheme for an expeditionary force, and McKenna's fear that he might be pushed into sending the force by colleagues including...

Scope and Contents Subjects include: an offer from George Cornwallis-West [Churchill's stepfather] to return to Lady Randolph Churchill [Jennie Cornwallis-West, earlier Jennie Jerome]; an argument between Churchill and 6th Lord Winterton [earlier Lord Turnour] in the House of Commons; a visit to the Gaiety Theatre; David Lloyd George [Chancellor of the Exchequer] elbowing Churchill out of his Unemployment Insurance scheme; difficulties caused by the Prime Minister [Herbert Asquith, later 1st Lord Oxford and...

Scope and Contents Subjects include: Churchill’s departure for Paris to take part in negotiations on Italy’s part in the war, May 1915; the Dardanelles campaign; a successful engagement by the Royal Naval Division, May 1915; Churchill’s instructions to Clementine regarding his finances and papers in the case of his death; being offered command of a brigade by Field Marshal Sir John French [Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Forces in France, later 1st Lord Ypres], November 1915; the prospects of going...

Scope and Contents Subjects include: Churchill’s frustration with the direction of the war; the importance of Clementine keeping up relations with David Lloyd George [Minister of Munitions]; Churchill’s new battalion, the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, with ‘Archie’ [Archibald Sinclair, later 1st Lord Thurso] as his second in command; Churchill’s disillusionment with Herbert Asquith [Prime Minister, later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith]; slow progress on ‘the caterpillars’ [tanks] recommended by Churchill in his...

Scope and Contents Subjects include: the situation in Iraq; Clementine’s mother [Lady Blanche Hozier] being well-known in Monte Carlo [Monaco]; missing his own mother [Lady Randolph Churchill, earlier Jennie Jerome]; Clementine’s health and her pregnancy [with Mary Churchill, later Mary Soames]; working on [“The World Crisis”]; painting at the villa of Consuelo Balsan [earlier Consuelo Vanderbilt and Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough], and at Eze [France]; a row with Max [1st Lord Beaverbrook, earlier Aitken];...