Chapter 1 The Navy League and the Air League of the British Empire

The Navy League and the command of the sea

Neither league was a post-war creation; they were instead part of the broad proliferation of patriotic, imperialist and militaristic organisations that emerged in the decades prior to the First World War. Described as an ‘associational epoch’ and the ‘league age’ by contemporaries and historians since, patriotic and militaristic organisations formed a prominent part of the political landscape of Edwardian Britain.⁴ The Navy League was among the most influential of such organisations, representing the ‘most prominent exponents of navalism in Britain’ both before and after the First World War.⁵

Emerging in 1894 in the aftermath of a naval scare initially propagated by the Pall Mall Gazette, before being advanced by other national newspapers, the Navy League’s primary raison d’être was the political promotion of British naval power.⁶ As stated in The Navy League Journal, the league wished to:

strengthen that England which has made us what we are: to retain the inheritance of greatness which our fathers bequeathed to us: to confirm that proud national position without which many of us feel that life in this smoky island would be intolerable; and to do this by making the Navy strong.⁷

To achieve this, the league established branches in ‘almost every area of the country’ as well as overseas. It issued articles in its own journal and letters in the press, produced leaflets, held public meetings and used the annual commemoration of Trafalgar Day to impress upon the British public the message that naval supremacy was essential to prevent invasion, to maintain the empire and to secure the nation’s commerce and food.⁸ In seeking to influence political circles, the league issued ‘test questions’ to political candidates during the 1895 general election to ‘elicit from them a promise to urge upon the Government the necessity for naval estimates adequate to our needs’. It maintained this practice in subsequent elections.⁹ Moreover, the league exerted ‘considerable influence over government naval policy through its members and mobilization of public opinion’ during events including the 1909 naval estimates crisis and the January 1910 general election.¹⁰

Yet, despite its scale and success, there were conflicting views on the character and direction of Navy League propaganda. As N.C. Fleming highlights, two contending approaches to activism existed within the league. The first position, maintained by an influential minority, saw the organisation as ‘an unofficial overseer of naval policy’ that was willing to use ‘politics to exert pressure against the decision-making processes of naval professionals and ministers’. Conversely, most members were far more cautious of antagonising the Admiralty and government, instead focusing on public education.¹¹ This tension led to a schism within the league and the subsequent creation of the Imperial Maritime League (IML) in 1908. The IML held public meetings, published pamphlets, books, letters and other ephemera, launched a series of public campaigns to strengthen Britain’s naval defences and formed its own junior branch.¹² The IML was unable to gain the same prominence as the Navy League, however, while its branch and membership levels paled in comparison to those of its parent organisation. Despite this, the IML prompted a series of internal reforms and shifts in the Navy League’s propagandistic work, including an increasing willingness to criticise officialdom.¹³

The Navy League represented the ‘most significant manifestation of the New Navalism’ of the late Victorian and Edwardian era, however it also sought to ‘keep alive the spirit of the sea’ during the First World War and, indeed, beyond.¹⁴ Throughout the conflict, the league trained boys in the ‘preparation for a sea career’, organised essay prizes and educational activities in schools, continued to commemorate Trafalgar Day, published a range of literature, carried out numerous charitable and philanthropic endeavours, and held propagandistic lectures and public meetings.¹⁵

While the league celebrated the ‘lowering of the German Ensign for all time upon the seas’ and called for ‘the retention of Britain’s naval supremacy’ shortly after the armistice, it admitted in its annual report for 1919 that the year had ‘been one of some difficulty for the League in framing its immediate future policy’.¹⁶ The ‘disappearance of the German Fleet, the protracted sessions of the Peace Conference, the birth of the League of Nations, and the attitude adopted by the United States, together with the absence of any declared naval policy by the British Government’ were cited as factors in the league’s decision ‘not to commit itself to taking part in any matters controversial or political’.¹⁷ As explored in Chapter 2, although short-lived, such sentiments – which by the early 1920s included the countenance of arms limitation and collective security – were far removed from the league’s long-standing promotion of naval supremacy, leading to protest among rank-and-file members, rebellion against the league’s leadership and a schism which threatened the league’s very existence.¹⁸

The origins of the Air League of the British Empire

By the close of the twentieth century’s first decade, both the aeroplane and airship were ‘developing rapidly into reliable modes of transport, and the time when they would be used both in commerce and in war was clearly not far away’. While the ‘apparent potential of aviation still far outstripped its present capabilities’, many foresaw the role of the aeroplane in future conflict.¹⁹ As early as 1906, after witnessing Alberto Santos-Dumont’s successful flight of 722 feet in France, the newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe proclaimed that ‘England is no longer an island’ and warned that there ‘will be no more sleeping safely behind the wooden walls of Old England with the Channel our safety moat’.²⁰ Other ‘airminded prophets’ recognised the transformative power of flight. Perhaps most notably, H.G. Wells’s 1908 novel, The War in the Air, envisaged the destruction of cities by airships, global conflict and the ruin of civilisation.²¹ Amidst growing anxiety surrounding the military potential of the aeroplane, combined with the ‘advanced stage of aerial progress in other countries’, the Air League of the British Empire was formed in early 1909.²²

The Air League provided a counterpoint to the promotion of naval power – which lay at the heart of bodies such as the Navy League, IML and the lesser-known Society of Islanders – and calls for compulsory military training by organisations such as the National Service League. In seeking to advance the cause of air power, the Air League arranged lectures, tours and public meetings, distributed leaflets and pamphlets, wrote newspaper articles, staged plays, used film and organised various forms of aerial demonstrations. To augment these activities, the Women’s Aerial League (WAL) was formed in May 1909, while a youth branch – the Young Aerial League – was created in early 1910.²³

In setting out the reasons for its formation, the league stated that:

while other nations are striving to obtain the lead in this race for the conquest of the air, Great Britain lags behind … While Britain is looking on idly at the great events which concern her more deeply than any other people on earth, a great industry of to-day and the future is being monopolised elsewhere, and Aerial Fleets are being initiated which threaten her commerce, supplies, and command of the sea.

So serious was this supposed state of inertia, that the league warned it would lead to the ‘extinction of all that England is, has been and stands for, and will bring this country to the level of the dead nations of the past’. ‘It is’, the league declared, ‘to fight against this spirit, and to awaken the people of Great Britain and the Empire to the very grave danger of permitting other nations to get ahead of us in the conquest of the air, that this League has been inaugurated’.²⁴

At its public inauguration at the Mansion House, London, in April 1909, the league’s message was hardly more sanguine. Addressing those gathered, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, a founding member of the League, declared:

this meeting of the citizens of London … regards with considerable anxiety the rapid development of the science and practice of aerial navigation by other nations, and deplores the backwardness and apathy shown by this country regarding this new means of communication, which is of vital importance from a commercial as well as from a national defence point of view.

At the meeting, Marples stressed that the league was not ‘an association of scaremongers’ with ‘an alarmist programme’, while Flight warned that the ‘gospel of sensationalism should be shunned by the League’.²⁵ However, the meeting undoubtedly emphasised the importance of aviation to the nation’s security in rather stark terms. Indeed, Montagu expressed his conviction that ‘[v]ery few people realised that within five years the insularity of our country might be destroyed’.²⁶ For The Daily Telegraph, it was clear that the ‘conquest of the air has been achieved … the question now is not the conquest of the sky, but which nation shall secure its sovereignty … it behoves this country to wake up at once.’²⁷

There were few attempts by the Air League to attain a broad, cross-class membership. Instead, the league focused on securing the support of an array of eminent social, political and military figures and it was largely successful in this endeavour. Individuals including Arthur Balfour, Austen Chamberlain, Sir Edward Grey, Field Marshal Earl Roberts, Lord Curzon of Kedleston and Winston Churchill all supported the league at various points.²⁸ The league also secured the Liberal peer Lord Esher as its president in September 1909, although his tenure was far from harmonious. Several months after his appointment, Esher resigned his presidency.²⁹

The First World War curtailed the league’s activities, with a variety of schemes being suspended. Despite this, it remained active in charitable and philanthropic activities, continued to provide lectures and public meetings, and produced several propaganda films.³⁰ The absence of a high-profile president following Esher’s resignation remained a pressing concern. In late 1917, the league’s search came to an end with the appointment of Lord Montagu.³¹ Montagu oversaw the league’s restructuring and was well known throughout the political and aviation community. His tenure ended in March 1920, when J.E.B. Seely (later Lord Mottistone), former secretary of state for war and under-secretary of state for air, agreed to serve as president.³² After a year, however, Seely intimated that he could no longer fulfil his duties.³³ After some delay, the Duke of Sutherland assumed the role in March 1922, serving in this capacity until 1945.³⁴

The Navy and Air Leagues after 1918

Finances, funding and the far right

At first glance, the financial history of the two leagues appears rather unremarkable. Each league depended upon membership subscriptions, donations and a series of fundraising initiatives. Both leagues had a tiered membership structure which, in many respects, indicated the class and social status of subscribers. For instance, individuals could join the Air League as associate members, members, fellows or vice presidents (later as patrons) either annually or for life depending on the size of their contribution.⁶⁸ Although such sources provided moderately steady revenue streams, neither league was immune from national economic decline. As the Navy League’s annual report for 1931 underlined, while the impact of the Great Depression had ‘not been so serious as might have been feared’, a number of league members ‘found themselves compelled to retrench and to reduce or withhold altogether their subscriptions until times improve’.⁶⁹ The same year, Sutherland reflected that the Air League was ‘among the first to feel the effects of financial stringency’.⁷⁰ The following year, Frederick Guest, then chairman of the league, feared that ‘unless immediate steps were taken to strengthen the financial position of the League, bankruptcy was inevitable’.⁷¹ By 1935, the league was financially stable enough to stress that its purpose was ‘not to accumulate money and therefore efforts should be made to spend as much as possible in the cause of British aviation’.⁷²

Membership subscriptions, donations and fundraising schemes were common revenue sources for non-party pressure groups of the period. Less common, however, was the series of clandestine and controversial financial links maintained by the Navy and Air Leagues with a variety of individuals and organisations connected with the far right, fascism and pro-German sentiments. Furthermore, as fully examined in Chapter 3, each league received support from private armament manufacturers. This prompted particularly staunch opposition – from newspapers, peace activists and officials on the 1935–6 Royal Commission on the Private Manufacture of and Trading in Arms. While such links shed important light on the institutional and organisational histories of the Navy and Air Leagues, they also reveal much about the wider economics of organised militarism.

While both the Navy and Air Leagues claimed to be independent of party and vested interests, one can certainly question each organisation’s assertion to be ‘above party’. For instance, the Air League’s Executive Committee and list of vice-presidents throughout the 1930s was strongly Conservative in complexion, with few prominent Liberal or Labour representatives. In appointing the Labour MP Lieut.-Commander J.M. Kenworthy as a vice president in 1928, Groves suggested it was necessary to ‘stress [the Air League’s] non-Party character’.⁷³

In his investigation of the pre-war Navy League, Johnson notes that historians ‘interested in British navalism have typically portrayed it as a phenomenon of the political right’.⁷⁴ In fact, as Johnson demonstrates, navalism was not merely the preserve of the political right, but instead appealed to figures across the political spectrum. In particular, Liberal participation with the navalist agenda was much greater than previously acknowledged.⁷⁵ However, while the league’s claim to be above party was not disingenuous, and Liberal engagement with the organisation should not be neglected, there were certainly strong links with the Navy League and the political right after 1918.

Both the Navy and Air Leagues had a number of personal and financial links with far right, fascist and pro-German organisations such as the British Union of Fascists (BUF), the January Club, the Anglo-German Fellowship and The Link. The Navy League also relied on donations from several individuals on the political right. Lady Houston, owner of the right-wing Saturday Review and a critic of Ramsay MacDonald’s National Government, donated £5,000 to the SCC in the early 1930s and a further £10,000 to the league in 1936 to carry out a national propaganda campaign.⁷⁶ In justifying such donations, Houston stated that if she had ‘the vast number of millions treacherously wasted’ by MacDonald ‘on Peace Conferences, the British Navy would now be great and glorious as it used to be, and Britannia again would “Rule the Waves”’.⁷⁷ Alongside Houston, Lord Nuffield, philanthropist and motor manufacturer, was a financier of both the Navy League’s SCC and Oswald Mosley’s New Party, its journal Action and the party’s youth movement.⁷⁸ Navy League officials additionally considered approaching organisations such as the British Fascists (formed in 1923) for assistance in raising funds on Trafalgar Day.⁷⁹ Alongside such financial links, Navy League members were part of a range of right-wing organisations in the period.

Viscount Lymington, Navy League chairman from 1934 to 1936, was an important member of the English Mistery, a ‘reactionary ultra-royalist, anti-democratic body’, and later formed the English Array, a back-to-the-land movement and ‘more specifically pro-Nazi than the Mistery’.⁸⁰ He met Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring in 1931, was part of the January Club and later became a member of the far-right group, the British People’s Party.⁸¹ Lord Sydenham of Combe, deputy president of the league from 1926 to 1932, was similarly a member of a number of right-wing organisations, such as the Liberty League, the Britons and the Centre International d’Études sur le Fascisme. He was also a leading writer for the pro-German newspaper, the Patriot.⁸²

In addition to such links, Sir Edmund Freemantle, an Executive Committee member in the 1920s and former vice chairman, was part of the British Fascists.⁸³ Michael Beaumont, Conservative MP and Executive Committee member, was part of the January Club and the English Mistery, while Victor Raikes, fellow Conservative MP and Navy League member, was a founding member of the English Review Group and the pro-Franco group, Friends of Nationalist Spain.⁸⁴ Fellow Navy League member Admiral Wilmot Nicholson was a member of the Right Club, the Anglo-German Fellowship and was a signatory of the ‘Link letter’ sent to The Times on 12 October 1938 which called for closer ‘friendship and cooperation between Great Britain and Germany’ to establish ‘enduring peace’.⁸⁵ Captain Bernard Acworth, who spoke on Navy League platforms with Nicholson, was also a signatory of the letter and founded the anti-Semitic Liberty Restoration League.⁸⁶ The political associations of Nicholson and Acworth were particularly concerning for the league. This was especially so following a lecture given to a local Navy League branch in Kensington by both men in 1935, after which The Jewish Chronicle accused them of using the platform for anti-Semitic propaganda.⁸⁷ It reported that ‘malicious aspersions against Jews were uttered’ by Nicholson, Acworth and by members of the BUF who attended the meeting in uniform.⁸⁸ The league distanced itself from such statements – and Acworth eventually won a libel action against the newspaper – yet the political affinities of its members clearly brought into question the league’s claims to be above party.⁸⁹

Other league members who had links with the political right, or were involved in far-right groups following their time with the league, included Patrick Hannon, Colonel John Gretton and Arnold White.⁹⁰ Meanwhile, Leo Amery, Admiral Sir Sydney Freemantle (Edmund’s eldest son) and Lord Carson were all members of the English Review Luncheon Club, while Lymington also wrote for the far-right journal English Review. The Luncheon Club, which hosted speeches from Navy League figures including Amery, Carson and Lloyd, was launched by Douglas Jerrold, editor of English Review. Perhaps most remarkably, Jerrold and English Review Club members suggested that Lord Lloyd could directly challenge Stanley Baldwin’s government and become a prospective ‘temporary dictator’.⁹¹ In support of Lloyd’s potential leadership bid, Lady Houston offered £100,000, stating that it was ‘the most patriotic thing I could possibly do for my Country’.⁹² This was not purely the ‘fantasy of rightist intellectuals’, but, as Bernhard Dietz notes, was spoken of in similar terms by high-circulation tabloids such as the Daily Express, who suggested Lloyd would make ‘an excellent dictator … He is an almost fanatical patriot.’⁹³

Ultimately, the leadership bid failed, but this was not Lloyd’s only connection with the political right. Lloyd was a member of the January Club, spoke at meetings (albeit on the condition that his speeches were not published) and reportedly indicated a willingness to join the BUF.⁹⁴ According to Churchill, Lloyd was also on ‘friendly terms’ with Benito Mussolini.⁹⁵ On the Navy League’s Ladies’ Committee, meanwhile, Christobel Nicholson was a member of the Right Club and the Anglo-German Fellowship. Along with her husband, she was close friends with Captain Ramsay, founder of the Right Club, and Vice-Admiral Barry Domvile, founder of The Link.⁹⁶ Lady Sydenham of Combe, fellow Ladies’ Committee member, was part of the British Fascisti, Britain’s first fascist movement, and director of its youth group, the Fascist Children’s Club.⁹⁷

Of course, attendance at meetings or even membership of such organisations did not necessarily imply an ideological affinity for fascism, especially during the 1920s when British fascism was ‘not so much fascist in an Italian or German understanding of the term, but distinctly British and Conservative in its support for the established constitution and the Conservative party’.⁹⁸ Although a number of leading Navy League figures clearly did maintain some sympathy and admiration for fascist regimes in the 1930s – even if such sentiments were largely not expressed publicly – most were primarily concerned with threats to Britain’s status as a global power.⁹⁹ Moreover, most members staunchly promoted rearmament – confirming Edgerton’s observation that being pro-German did not necessarily mean being anti-rearmament.¹⁰⁰

Like the Navy League, the Air League had various links to the far right. J.A. Chamier, the league’s secretary general from 1933, and Colonel Norman Thwaites, editor of the Air and acting secretary general in the late 1920s and early 1930s, were associates of the January Club. The former was also reportedly a generous financial backer of the BUF, while the latter became the club’s chairman in 1934 (and later joined the Anglo-German Fellowship).¹⁰¹ Rear-Admiral Murray Sueter was a member of all the main pro-German and pro-air leagues in the 1930s; Sir William Joynson-Hicks, an Air League vice president, was of the political right; while Colonel the Master of Sempill, a senior Air League member and a Navy League associate, was also a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship and The Link.¹⁰² Moore-Brabazon, at various times a member of the Air League’s Executive Committee and a vice president, was a long-time friend of Oswald Mosley, nearly joined his New Party in the early 1930s and was still speaking in support of Mosley in 1939.¹⁰³ The Marquess of Clydesdale was both a member of the Air League’s Executive Committee and the Anglo-German Fellowship.¹⁰⁴ Sir Harry Brittain, a league and ADCC council member, was part of the Anglo-German Fellowship and president of the Friends of Italy. Francis Yeats-Brown, fellow member of the league’s Executive Committee and best known as the author of The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, was later part of the January Club, the Anglo-German Fellowship and an admirer of Mussolini.¹⁰⁵

Finally, Lord Mottistone, the Air League’s chairman from 1932 and former president, was an ‘intimate of [Joachim von] Ribbentrop’s’ and a ‘considerable apologist for Nazi Germany’.¹⁰⁶ While serving as the league’s chairman, Mottistone visited von Ribbentrop in 1933 and returned to Germany onboard his boat, Mayflower, in 1935.¹⁰⁷ He subsequently informed the House of Lords that his ‘many interviews with Herr Hitler’, whom Mottistone described as a ‘remarkable man’, had convinced him that the German leader was ‘absolutely truthful, sincere and unselfish’.¹⁰⁸

Although many of these figures were crucial in the formation of Air League policy, most of these affinities remained private and it is difficult to trace their direct bearing on the league’s aims and activities. As in the case of the Navy League, any pro-German sentiment or fascist sympathies certainly did not prevent Air League members from vigorously lobbying for aerial supremacy. Of course, the Air League’s focus on youth, physical culture and masculinity had clear parallels with the dictatorship countries as will be explored in Chapter 5. Similarly, Empire Air Day – a setting in which power, modernity and technological innovation was staged to both domestic and global audiences – had distinct similarities with fascist public ritual and military spectacle. Indeed, as Robert Wohl suggests, ‘although there is nothing inherently fascist about flying, in the atmosphere of the 1930s it is easy to see how people could make the connection’.¹⁰⁹

The Navy League, the Air League and officialdom

Alongside the extensive links between both leagues and the political right, there were various ties between each organisation and the state, while members of the royal family supported numerous Navy and Air League initiatives.¹¹⁰ David Lloyd George also subscribed to the Air League while prime minister, although he was not an active member.¹¹¹ Ex-servicemen and retired officers made up a significant section of both the Navy and Air League’s membership. By the early 1930s, every admiral of the fleet on the active and retired list consented (without exception) to become an honorary vice president of the Navy League.¹¹² Perhaps unsurprisingly, such connections drew criticism, with Noel-Baker asking ‘is it not certain that the Admiralty, the Department which buys our ships of war, and indeed the public, are likely to listen with attention to a body with such eminent support?’¹¹³ While the Navy League was not uncritical of the Admiralty, relations between the two bodies were stronger than prior to the First World War. Earl David Beatty, first sea lord of the Admiralty from 1919 to 1927, felt that it was ‘wholly desirable that there should be some such organization as the Navy League’, while Lord Ernle Chatfield, then fourth sea lord, stated that ‘if we had not a Navy League now we should have to create one’. As Christopher Bell argues, ‘Naval decision-makers valued the Navy League because it could and did appeal directly to the public, something the navy felt itself unable to do’.¹¹⁴

The Navy League was conscious of such connections. In considering the appointment of a new chairman in 1933, Lloyd felt that ‘it was important that the position should be occupied by a civilian and somebody who held a prominent position in political life rather than a distinguished Naval Officer’.¹¹⁵ Despite attempts to distance itself from the Admiralty, numerous figures all publicly supported the Navy League, particularly in its commemoration of Trafalgar Day and in the creation of the SCC.

As in the case of the Navy League and the Admiralty, the many links of personnel between the Air League and Air Ministry go some way to explaining the often-symbiotic relationship between the two. As noted, the Duke of Sutherland was under-secretary of state for air from 1922 to 1924 and a cousin of Lord Londonderry, secretary of state for air from 1931 to 1935. Chamier served in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in the First World War and remained as the corps was transformed into the RAF. He became technical director at the Air Ministry in 1927 and then air commodore in 1928, holding this position until his retirement in 1929. Like Chamier, Groves served in the RFC during the First World War. He became the director of flying operations at the Air Ministry in 1918 and was the Air Ministry’s representative at the Paris Peace Conference, eventually retiring in 1922.¹¹⁶ Lord Mottistone briefly served as under-secretary of state for air in 1919, while Moore-Brabazon served as Winston Churchill’s private secretary when the latter was secretary of state for war and air.¹¹⁷

Among the league’s vice-presidents, Frederick Guest was secretary of state for air from 1921 to 1922, while Lord Weir was president of the Air Council in 1918, industrial advisor to the Air Ministry, personal advisor to Lord Swinton during his time as secretary of state for air from 1935 to 1938 and was at the first Defence Requirements Committee Meeting.¹¹⁸ Lord Thomson, secretary of state for air in 1924 and from 1929 to 1930, was a vice president of the league, albeit in between his terms at the Air Ministry.¹¹⁹ The league invited Sir Samuel Hoare to become a member of its Executive Committee in 1930, following his second tenure as secretary of state for air (1924–9), although he was unable to join, citing numerous other commitments.¹²⁰

Additional Air League members who had connections to the Air Ministry included Sueter, an important wartime naval aviator, and Sempill who, like many of his fellow league members, served in the RFC. Admiral Mark Kerr, deputy chief of the Air Staff at the Air Ministry in 1918, was on the league’s Executive Committee for a time and attended several annual general meetings (AGMs). Sir John Salmond, the retired marshal of the RAF, also served on the league’s Executive Committee and was the ADCC’s chairman. Finally, there were links of personnel between the Air League and the RAF Benevolent Fund (established in 1919 to provide assistance to RAF personnel and their dependents). Lord Wakefield, chairman of the fund, was a vice president of the league, while Mottistone, Sutherland and several other Air League members were vice presidents.¹²¹ Wakefield also supported the league financially, donating to the Young Pilots’ Fund and the ADCC.¹²²

Complementing such links, the Air League carried out work directly with the Air Ministry – or that required Air Ministry support – and had various figures who previously held important roles within the ministry, RFC and RAF engage in work on its behalf. One of the most notable figures in this respect was Sir William Sefton Brancker, who retired from the RAF as master-general of personnel in 1919 and was appointed director of civil aviation in 1922. Brancker was involved in a range of league activities, attended meetings and worked on its behalf to find a new president. While such connections do not necessarily imply an affinity between Air Ministry and league, and although some figures only acted in an ex-officio capacity, this in part explains why the league was not always the most vociferous critic of the Air Ministry.

Associations with the Air Ministry were so strong that Air League members occasionally felt the need to publicly distance the league from officialdom. For instance, J.M. Kenworthy (later Lord Strabolgi) assured his audience at the league’s annual dinner in 1929 that he was not merely ‘Lord Thomson’s gramophone’.¹²³ Conversely, certain league officials advised closer cooperation. The Burnham Committee suggested that for the Air League ‘to fulfil its role in awakening popular interest in aviation, the recognition, and even the support on appropriate occasions, of the Air Ministry is essential’.¹²⁴ Moore-Brabazon similarly noted that it ‘had attacked the Air Ministry and the man in the street was not interested … It was necessary to see where the League could work side by side with the Air Ministry and help them get ahead.’¹²⁵ While the league was clearly more than a conduit for the dissemination of Air Ministry views, there were numerous and nuanced connections which, rather than being merely symbolic, directly shaped the Air League’s policies and activities.

Women in the Navy and Air Leagues

The promotion of naval and aerial supremacy was not an exclusively male domain. For instance, not only was Lady Houston a prominent and notable advocate of the Navy League’s work, but she was also a staunch proponent of an ‘airminded nationalism’ as will be discussed in Chapter 4.¹²⁶ Women’s league-related activism further challenges the ‘age-old binary opposition twinning femininity with the values of pacifism and masculinity with those of militarism’. While such oppositions are always ‘imaginatively constructed’, the ‘maternalist–pacifist discourse has proven highly resilient’.¹²⁷ The work of women within the two leagues also complicates Hendley’s distinction between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ patriotic leagues; masculine leagues being primarily partisan and militaristic in nature while the latter were concerned with issues such as education, philanthropy and social activities.¹²⁸ Not only did the two leagues display ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ characteristics as defined above, but militarism and patriotism were championed by women within both leagues producing a somewhat ‘paradoxical mix of gender traditionalism and gender modernity’.¹²⁹

One of the most significant areas of work performed by women in the Navy League was the Ladies’ Emergency Committee. Presided over by Admiral Lord Beresford, former MP, the committee was formed immediately following the outbreak of the First World War to provide ‘comforts’ such as ‘warm garments, games, tobacco and other articles for officers and men in the Fleet’.¹³⁰ In early 1915, the committee had already collected 7 tons of chocolate alone and, by 1916, the committee estimated that it had sent parcels of warm clothing and over 600,000 items to more than 700 ships.¹³¹ By 1918, the committee claimed that ‘[m]any millions of garments’ had passed through its hands. It also estimated that it had supplied over 82 tons of hospital equipment to Royal Naval hospitals and hospital ships, and had sent vast amounts of food and clothing to prisoners of war.¹³²

Women were present on the Navy League’s Executive Committee throughout the interwar years – although it remained male-dominated – and were active at league events including GCMs and Trafalgar Day banquets. Women served in secretarial roles, were active in local branches and spoke on league platforms. Lectures were given in schools and libraries, and to local Navy League branches, rotary clubs and a number of other forums on subjects including naval heritage and tradition, key naval engagements of the First World War, the navy and empire, and the importance of the navy for trade, commerce and communication. Women were often far more active than their male counterparts in lecturing and, as lectures formed an important part of the league’s work, such activities should not be understated.¹³³ Women also played a central part in the more ceremonial and symbolic aspects of the league’s work. It was predominantly women who placed a wreath at the foot of Nelson’s tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral on Trafalgar Day. The Ladies’ Committee, however, was largely limited to organising social events and charitable activities. Despite this, women made important contributions to the activities and organisation of the Navy League throughout the period.

Like their Navy League counterparts, women within the Air League were involved in a variety of activities. Alongside the Air League, the WAL was formed in May 1909. Lady Alice O’Hagan occupied the chair, while Aimee Watt Smyth was the league’s secretary. Among its founding members were Agnes Baden-Powell, Mary Fraser, Ellen Blount, Beatrice Fry and Anna Massy.¹³⁴ Although the WAL was distinct from the main Air League, there were links of objectives and personnel, close contact between each association and considerations for an amalgamation of the two leagues on several occasions.¹³⁵

At the WAL’s public inauguration in May 1909, its policy and objectives were established. It aimed to ‘secure and maintain for the Empire the same supremacy in the air as it now enjoys on the sea’.¹³⁶ Previous assessments have dismissed the WAL as making ‘no real effort to mobilise women in the air campaign’.¹³⁷ Yet, it carried out an extensive programme of education and political campaigning, making specific appeals for ‘all British women to join its ranks’ alongside attempting to shape broader public opinion.¹³⁸ Lectures, tours, meetings, newspaper articles, the distribution of league literature and various forms of aerial theatre were used to promote airmindedness within British society. Less characteristic of pressure-group practices were fundraising efforts to build an all-British airship. Lauded as ‘a tangible illustration of the energy and patriotism of the women of Great Britain’, the scheme promoted British engineering, science and technology.¹³⁹ While a competing airship scheme launched by The Morning Post praised the technological progress of France and Germany, the WAL instead called for the building of an ‘all-British airship by British mechanics of British materials’.¹⁴⁰ Despite the WAL’s success, and the support it accrued from a range of influential figures, it was unable to enjoy the same longevity as the Air League and wound up in July 1915.¹⁴¹

Nevertheless, women continued to play a role in the Air League after the First World War. The question of a ‘Women’s Air League Committee’ and a ‘Ladies Auxiliary Committee’ was brought up on several occasions in the 1920s, yet the form and scope of suggestions were far more limited than the pre-war WAL. In considering forming a Ladies Auxiliary Committee in 1923, the league suggested that it could ‘assist in the promotion and organisation of the social events and functions of the League’, could ‘create and organise a bureau of women speakers prepared to address women’s meetings on the subject of the need for British Air Supremacy’ and could ‘co-operate in the establishment of branches of the Air League throughout the country and Empire’.¹⁴² However, despite the limited nature of proposals, it seemed to go little further than discussions within the league’s Executive Committee.

When plans for a Women’s Air Circle were placed before the league in 1928, it conceived of such a group in similar terms. The league noted that it ‘might be useful in organising social functions, dinners, receptions etc., but that any new organisation with separate offices and subscriptions was not desirable’.¹⁴³ The Women’s Committee was created in 1928 and included many of the most prominent female aviators in the country on its council: most members either held a pilot’s licence or had expressed an interest in acquiring one, while many of its members were involved in pioneering, record-breaking flights.¹⁴⁴ Such figures regularly contributed articles to Air on general aviation matters, flying as a career for women, and aviation and youth.¹⁴⁵ Members of the Women’s Committee also attended events on behalf of the Air League, including international aeronautical exhibitions and the opening of aerodromes in Britain.¹⁴⁶ Furthermore, the Women’s Committee provided a limited number of women with the opportunity to gain a pilot’s licence by instituting the Flying Scholarship Scheme.¹⁴⁷ Although the Duke of Sutherland felt that it had ‘rendered an invaluable service to the League and to the cause of British aviation’, the Women’s Committee was never extensively involved in the league’s affairs.¹⁴⁸ The Air League did invite notable aviators such as the Duchess of Bedford and Lady Bailey to become vice presidents, while the aviator Elsie Mackay served on the league’s Advisory Committee of Airmen.¹⁴⁹ It also appointed two women – initially Lady Heath and Madame de Landa (chair and deputy chair of the Women’s Committee, respectively) – to its Executive Committee (Kathleen Burn, Countess of Drogheda; Eileen Forbes-Sempill (née Lavery) and Lady Elibank also later served on the Executive Committee).¹⁵⁰

One of the Women’s Committee’s first events was a luncheon for Amelia Earhart, championing her achievements as an aviator.¹⁵¹ However, the committee was not without wider ambition. Lady Bailey, who replaced Lady Heath as chair in January 1929, proposed the formation of Women’s Committees in every county throughout Britain, although this was not pursued due to financial constraints.¹⁵² By December 1932, the reorganisation of the Air League’s Executive Committee to include members from the RAC and RAeS forced the resignations of Drogheda and Elibank; this was the last time women served on the Executive Committee in the 1930s.¹⁵³ By May 1933, the league was talking of ‘reviving’ the Women’s Committee, indicating that it had ceased activities: all evidence suggests this is the case.¹⁵⁴

Charity

Alongside their propagandistic endeavours, both the Navy and Air Leagues were involved in a considerable range of charitable and philanthropic schemes. The Navy League made charitable work a focal point of its activities during the First World War. By the end of the conflict, the league either controlled or directed the Overseas Relief Fund, the Minesweepers’ Fund, the Merchant Service Fund, the Navy League Education Fund, the Nelson Day Fund, the Ladies’ Emergency Committee and the Royal Navy Prisoners of War Fund.¹⁵⁵ The Overseas Relief Fund was one of the most significant and long-standing charitable schemes under the league’s control. Established following the Battle of Jutland in 1916, it aimed to provide general relief and educational assistance to the orphans and other dependents of those who lost their life in the Navy and Merchant Service during the First World War.¹⁵⁶ By 1928, the fund had raised over half a million pounds for relief and educational purposes.¹⁵⁷

In addition to such schemes, the league was engaged in several other charitable endeavours throughout the First World War. The Sailors’ Day Fund was inaugurated by the formation of a joint committee of the Navy League and the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society, with an appeal being issued to the heads of all municipalities throughout Britain. The fund was largely for the benefit of the Mercantile Marine and for the training of boys for sea services. The league also organised the Jack Cornwell Memorial Fund in July 1916. Cornwell was only sixteen when he suffered mortal wounds at his post during the Battle of Jutland, for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross medal. The fund asked schoolchildren throughout Britain and the empire for donations to fund the establishment of a ward for sailors with a disability at the Star and Garter Home in Richmond. The response was high with millions of schoolchildren reportedly subscribing a penny to the fund, with the first instalment of £18,000 being presented to Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace in early 1917.¹⁵⁸

Like the Navy League, the Air League was concerned with those who would be affected by the conflict domestically, forming the Royal Flying Corps Families Relief Fund in 1914. This was designed to ‘help and comfort’ the wives and children of men of the RFC who would be killed or wounded in war.¹⁵⁹ The league worked closely with the War Office, which sent lists of RFC casualties to the league, as well as with the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association.¹⁶⁰ By February 1915, the fund had raised £422.19.4 and by 1916 it was registered under the War Charities Act.¹⁶¹

Charity remained important for the league following the First World War. In May 1919, the Executive Committee considered proposals for the creation of an Orphan Fund for the education and maintenance of children of members of the RFC who lost their lives during the First World War.¹⁶² Although the league viewed its involvement in charitable funds in June 1920 as ‘vital to the successful development of the Air League’ and, more broadly, as ‘essential to the progress of civil aviation’, by October the same year, its Executive Committee resolved to hand the remaining funds over to the Royal Flying Forces Memorial Fund.¹⁶³

Conclusion

Writing in January 1919, the Air League noted that it was ‘natural’ that after a ‘period of great effort comes relaxation. After a period of gigantic expenditure comes a cry for economy.’ However, it warned that it was a ‘mistake to suppose the necessity for propaganda has gone’ and that the ‘sustained supremacy of the British Empire in the air’ could only be achieved by a ‘strong driving force of public opinion’ which would oblige ‘any Government’ to ‘get on or get out’.¹⁶⁴ The Navy League issued similar appeals, calling on the ‘British people to prove themselves wiser than their leaders by insisting on the full maintenance of that naval power which conditions our very existence as a nation’.¹⁶⁵ While the purpose of such propaganda may have been to ‘influence public opinion, in order to determine the action of the Government’, both leagues also maintained support among numerous figures from the social, political and military elite, the service departments, fascist and pro-German organisations, and members of the royal family.¹⁶⁶ Public and political support ensured that each league was able to operate on a local, national and global scale in a wide range of activities. Indeed, neither league was solely occupied with the political promotion of naval and aerial supremacy, with social, educational and charitable work representing key areas of activity. Women were central to such work, however patriotism and militarism were also popular rallying calls for many women involved in the two leagues. Clearly, the First World War did not mark the end of organised militarism, although as the next chapter will demonstrate, it did influence the nature and character of each league.

Notes

1. NMM, MSY/6/2/4, Navy League Annual Report (NLAR) 1918, 5–6.

2. The Aerial League Bulletin, January 1919, 1–2.

3. Matthew C. Hendley, Organized Patriotism and the Crucible of War: Popular Imperialism in Britain, 1914–1932 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012), 225; 228.

4. Michael Humphries, ‘ “Perfectly Secret and Perfectly Democratic”: Lord Esher and the Society of Islanders, 1909–1914’, The English Historical Review, 127 (2012): 1158; Frans Coetzee, For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Popular Conservatism in Edwardian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 3.

5. Matthew Johnson, Militarism and the British Left, 1902–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 69.

6. Johnson, Militarism, 69; N.C. Fleming, ‘Empire, Community, and the Limits of “Sea-Mindedness”: The Navy League and Worcester, c. 1896–1914’, Midland History, 48 (2023): 332.

7. The Navy League Journal, July 1895, 1.

8. Duncan Redford, ‘Collective Security and Internal Dissent: The Navy League’s Attempts to Develop a New Policy towards British Naval Power Between 1919 and the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty’, History, 96 (2011): 50.

9. W. Mark Hamilton, The Nation and the Navy: Methods and Organization of British Navalist Propaganda, 1889–1914 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1986), 136–7.

10. Redford, ‘Collective Security’, 50.

11. N.C. Fleming, ‘The Imperial Maritime League: British Navalism, Conflict, and the Radical Right, c.1907–1920’, War in History, 23 (2016): 297.

12. Fleming, ‘Imperial Maritime League’, 308–12; NMM, Lionel Graham Horton-Smith Papers, HSM/1, Old Navy League and its Failures; HSM/8, Great Split of the O.N.L. (Old Navy League), 1906–7 and the Rise of the I.M.L. (Imperial Maritime League), 1906–7; HSM/16, Volume of pamphlets and newspaper cuttings: Imperial Maritime League – Junior Branch, 1909–12.

13. Fleming, ‘Imperial Maritime League’, 296–7; 321.

14. Hamilton, The Nation and the Navy, 174; 120.

15. NMM, MSY/6/2/4, NLAR 1914, 14. For an overview of the league’s activities throughout the conflict, see NMM, MSY/6/2/4, NLAR 1914 and MSY/6/2/5, NLARs, 1915–18.

16. NMM, MSY/6/2/5, NLAR 1918, 8; NLAR 1919, 5.

17. NMM, MSY/6/2/5, NLAR 1919, 5.

18. Redford, ‘Collective Security’, 49.

19. Brett Holman, ‘The Militarisation of Aerial Theatre: Air Displays and Airmindedness in Britain and Australia Between the World Wars’, Contemporary British History, 33 (2019): 486.

20. Michael Paris, Winged Warfare: The Literature and Theory of Aerial Warfare in Britain, 1859–1917 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 66.

21. Holman, ‘The Militarisation of Aerial Theatre’, 486.

22. Daily Mail, 16 January 1909, 3.

23. For an overview of the WAL, see RAF Museum, AC75/23/17, Women’s Aerial League, ‘History of the Movement’, n.d., 1–4.

24. NAL, ENV16C, Aerial League of the British Empire, Pamphlet, 1909, 2.

25. Flight, 10 April 1909, 204.

26. Flight, 10 April 1909, 209.

27. The Daily Telegraph, 6 April 1909, 10.

28. NAL, ENV16C, Report of the Preliminary Meeting of the Aerial League of the British Empire, 17 February 1909, 4; The Army and Navy Gazette, 10 April 1909, 345; Paris, Winged Warfare, 90; The Times, 25 May 1911, 8.

29. Privately, Esher was reluctant to align himself with the Air League from the outset. Maurice V. Brett, ed., Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher: Vol. 2, 1903–1910 (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson Ltd, 1934–8), 396; 425.

30. Paris, Winged Warfare, 97.

31. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 2 October 1917, 1.

32. AL, AL Minute Book, Special MEC, 24 March 1920, 1.

33. AL, AL Minute Book, Special MEC, 7 July 1921, 2.

34. AL, AL Minute Book, Special MEC, 7 March 1922, 1.

35. See Appendix I for a list of the most senior figures within the Navy League’s Executive Committee.

36. Duke of Sutherland, George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Looking Back: The Autobiography of the Duke of Sutherland (London: Odhams Press, 1957), 105.

37. The Navy, July 1923, 189.

38. The Navy, June 1924, 159.

39. John Charmley, Lord Lloyd and the Decline of the British Empire (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), 1.

40. Jason Tomes, Lloyd, George Ambrose, First Baron Lloyd (1879–1941), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-34567?rskey=eDMENv&result=10.

41. The Navy, August 1919, 108.

42. Helen McCarthy, The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and Internationalism, c.1918–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 157.

43. Fleming, ‘Empire, Community, and the Limits of “Sea-Mindedness”’, 330.

44. Cited in Bradley Cesario, New Crusade: The Royal Navy and British Navalism, 1884–1914 (Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021), 30; The Navy League Journal, July 1895, 1.

45. Shields Daily News, 24 January 1930, 3; Naval & Military Record and Royal Dockyards Gazette, 5 July 1922, 12.

46. NMM, MSY/6/6/1/3, ‘What the Re-Building of your Navy Means for British Labour’, 1936, 1.

47. NMM, MSY/6/6/1/3, ‘Facts and Figures’, 1935, 3.

48. McCarthy, The British People, 161.

49. See Appendix II for a list of the most senior figures within the Air League’s Executive Committee.

50. AL, AL Minute Book, Annual General Meeting (AGM), 10 July 1934, 3.

51. AL, AL Minute Book, AGM, 12 May 1931, 3.

52. Air League Bulletin, August 1927, 5.

53. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 10 March 1931, 1–2.

54. Humphries, ‘Perfectly Secret’, 1160.

55. NAL, ENV16A, The Aerial League of Australia; AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 9 March 1932, 3; The Aerial League Bulletin, January 1919, 2.

56. Air League Bulletin, July 1926, 35; AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 13 December 1937, 1.

57. See Chapter 2.

58. David Cannadine, Aspects of Aristocracy: Grandeur and Decline in Modern Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 63.

59. Cannadine, Aspects of Aristocracy, 68.

60. Jack Williams, ‘The Upper Class and Aeroplane Sport Between the Wars’, Sport in History, 28 (2008): 468.

61. The Aerial League Bulletin, January 1919, 1.

62. Uri Bialer, ‘Elite Opinion and Defence Policy: Air Power Advocacy and British Rearmament during the 1930s’, British Journal of International Studies, 6 (1980): 38–9.

63. Flight, 8 May 1909, 258.

64. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 26 November 1925, 2–3; RAF Museum, Royal Aero Club Minute Book (RAC Minute Book), 1901–56, MEC, 18 November 1925, 3.

65. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 27 May 1926, 3–4.

66. LHCMA, Groves, Papers of Brig. Gen. Percy Robert Clifford Groves (Groves Papers), Box 4, Minutes of the Committee of Enquiry on the Air League of the British Empire, 1926–7, Report and Recommendations of the Committee of Enquiry, January 1927, 1.

67. LHCMA, Groves Papers, Report and Recommendations of the Committee of Enquiry, January 1927, 2.

68. The Aerial League Bulletin, February 1919, 4.

69. NMM, MSY/6/2/6, NLAR 1931, 6–7.

70. AL, AL Minute Book, AGM, 12 May 1931, 1.

71. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 1 November 1932, 2.

72. AL, AL Minute Book, AGM, 10 July 1935, 3.

73. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 25 October 1928, 2.

74. Johnson, Militarism, 70.

75. Johnson, Militarism, 88–9.

76. NMM, MSY/6/3/3/27, NL Minute Book 1930–36, MEC, 26 March 1936, 3.

77. Royal Archives (RA), Windsor, EVIIIPWH/PS/MAIN/1254, The Navy League, Letter from Lucy Houston to His Royal Highness Edward VIII, Prince of Wales, 3 December 1932, 1. Emphasis in original.

78. Matthew Worley, Oswald Mosley and the New Party (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 70; Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Papers of Lord Nuffield, Box 47, LN Donation Book.

79. NMM, MSY/6/3/3/27, NL Minute Book, MEC, 10 September 1931, 3–4.

80. Thomas Linehan, British Fascism, 1918–1939: Parties, Ideology and Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 141; Richard Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, The Right Club and British Anti-Semitism 1939–1940 (London: Constable, 1998), 53.

81. The Earl of Portsmouth, A Knot of Roots: An Autobiography (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1965), 149–51; Martin Pugh, ‘We Danced All Night’: A Social History of Britain Between the Wars (London: Bodley Head, 2008), 362.

82. Linehan, British Fascism, 46.

83. Linehan, British Fascism, 156.

84. Bernhard Dietz, Neo-Tories: The Revolt of British Conservatives Against Democracy and Political Modernity (1929–1939) (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 178–82; 155.

85. Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted, 251; The Times, 12 October 1938, 16.

86. Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted, 59.

87. NMM, MSY/6/3/3/27, NL Minute Book, MEC, 4 December 1935, 5.

88. The Jewish Chronicle, 25 October 1935, 20.

89. The Jewish Chronicle, 1 November 1935, 12; The Yorkshire Evening Post, 15 April 1937, 11.

90. Martin Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005), 61; Fleming, ‘Imperial Maritime League’, 299.

91. Dietz, Neo-Tories, 143–53.

92. Dietz, Neo-Tories, 145.

93. Dietz, Neo-Tories, 145; Daily Express, 19 June 1933, 8.

94. Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany 1933–1939 (London: Constable, 1980), 52; CAC, Noel-Baker Papers, GBR/0014/NBKR 7/35/1, ‘Arms and Industry’, News Chronicle Clipping, 1 May 1934; British Library of Political and Economic Science (BLPES), London, JF(42)/3; Labour Party, Who Backs Mosley?: Fascist Promise and Fascist Performance (London: The Labour Party, 1934), 11; Stephen Dorril, Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism (London: Viking, 2006), 335.

95. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Volume One: The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell & Co. Ltd, 1950 ed.), 150.

96. Julie V. Gottlieb, Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain’s Fascist Movement (London: Bloomsbury, 2003), 328. Domvile also spoke on Navy League platforms. NMM, MSY/6/3/4/6, Finance and General Purpose Sub-Committee Minute Book (FGP Minute Book), 1931–42, Meeting of the Finance and Administration Sub-Committee (MFASC), 15 February 1939, 4.

97. Gottlieb, Feminine Fascism, 31.

98. N.C. Fleming, Britannia’s Zealots, Volume I: Tradition, Empire and the Forging of the Conservative Right (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 141.

99. As in the case of Conservative diehards. Fleming, Britannia’s Zealots, 142.

100. David Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane: Militarism, Modernity and Machines (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2013 ed.), 78.

101. Griffiths, Fellow Travellers, 137–8; Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’, 307; Dorril, Blackshirt, 261; TNA, KV 5/3, Anglo-German Fellowship, Annual Report, 1935–6, 14.

102. Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane, 75.

103. Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’, 120; Hansard, House of Commons (HC), 5th series, vol. 343, c. 1832 (15 February 1939).

104. Simon Haxey, Tory M.P. (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1939), 198.

105. TNA, KV 5/3, Anglo-German Fellowship, Annual Report, 1935–6, 14; Patrick G. Zander, ‘Right Modern: Technology, Nation, and Britain’s Extreme Right in the Interwar Period (1919–1940)’ (unpub. PhD thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009), 70; 235; Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted, 69–73.

106. Griffiths, Fellow Travellers, 137.

107. Roger Fulford (revised by Mark Pottle), Seely, John Edward Bernard, First Baron Mottistone (1868–1947), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-36007.

108. Hansard, House of Lords (HL), 5th series, vol. 96, c. 1044 (22 May 1935).

109. Robert Wohl, The Spectacle of Flight: Aviation and the Western Imagination: 1920–1950 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 308.

110. See, for example, RA, EVIIIPWH/PS/MAIN/2161, Air League of the British Empire, The Speed Ball, Pamphlet, 1931; PPTO/PP/GV/MAIN2/8329, Royal Naval Prisoners of War, Navy League, Letter from Ladies Emergency Committee of the Navy League to F.E.G. Ponsonby, 24 April 1918, 1; EVIIIPWH/PS/MAIN/1254, The Navy League, Letter from Lionel Halsey to Rear-Admiral Hopwood, 6 April 1921, 1; Letter from Lionel Halsey to Commander Denny, 12 February 1926, 1.

111. Air League Bulletin, January 1922, 188.

112. NMM, MSY/6/2/6, NLAR 1933, 2–3.

113. Philip Noel-Baker, The Private Manufacture of Armaments: Volume I (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1936), 304.

114. Christopher M. Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy Between the Wars (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 167.

115. NMM, MSY/6/3/3/27, NL Minute Book, MEC, 3 November 1933, 2.

116. On Groves’s career, see Brett Holman, ‘The Shadow of the Airliner: Commercial Bombers and the Rhetorical Destruction of Britain, 1917–35’, Twentieth Century British History, 4 (2013): 495–517.

117. Cannadine, Aspects of Aristocracy, 70.

118. Malcolm Smith, British Air Strategy Between the Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 35. The Air Council’s function was similar to that of the Board of Admiralty and Army Council.

119. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 10 August 1927, 1.

120. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 18 June 1930, 1.

121. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 3 March 1938, 1; Edward Bishop, The Debt We Owe: The Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund 1919–1969 (London: Longmans, 1969), 106–7.

122. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 26 March 1935, 2; AL, Air Defence Cadet Corps Minute Book (ADCC Minute Book), 1938–47, 5 January 1939, 2.

123. Air, July 1929, 307.

124. LHCMA, Groves Papers, Box 4, Air League of the British Empire, Committee of Inquiry, 3 December 1927, 3.

125. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 7 October 1929, 2.

126. Jeremy R. Kinney, ‘Airminded Nationalism: Great Britain and the Schneider Trophy Competition’, in Aviation in the Literature and Culture of Interwar Britain Aviation, ed. Michael McCluskey and Luke Seaber (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 264–5; 268.

127. McCarthy, The British People, 182.

128. Hendley, Organized Patriotism, 66; 139.

129. As in the case of the LNU, McCarthy, The British People, 183.

130. NMM, MSY/6/2/4, NLAR 1914, 19–20.

131. The Navy League Quarterly, January 1915, 1; NMM, MSY/6/2/5, NLAR 1916, 28.

132. NMM, MSY/6/2/5, NLAR 1918, 19.

133. For example, in 1925 Emily Taylor, a former schoolteacher for the London County Council, gave 84 lectures, while the most active male lecturer for the league only provided 66. In 1931, Miss M.G. Thomson spoke at 100 meetings compared to her nearest male colleague who again only gave 66 lectures. NMM, MSY/6/2/6, NLAR 1925, 3; NLAR 1931, 4.

134. TNA, BT 58/31/COS/1387, The Women’s Aerial League of the British Empire, 1909, Letter from the Women’s Aerial League to the Secretary of the Board of Trade, 28 May 1909, 3.

135. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 26 February 1914, 1. Many in the WAL’s leadership, although not all, were wives of prominent Air League figures.

136. TNA, BT 58/31/COS/1387, The Women’s Aerial League, 1909, Leaflet, 1.

137. Paris, Winged Warfare, 91.

138. The Aerial Observer, 1 October 1910, 2.

139. The Times, 7 July 1909, 13.

140. RAF Museum, AC75/23/17, Women’s Aerial League Pamphlet, 1909, 2.

141. TNA, BT 31/18915/103800, Women’s Aerial League, The Women’s Aerial League of the British Empire: Special Resolution, 8 July 1915, 1.

142. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 6 June 1923, 3.

143. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 4 May 1928, 2.

144. For a profile of each member, see Air, June 1929, 268–71.

145. For example, see Air, April 1928, 18–19; May 1928, 44–5; September 1928, 33–4.

146. Air, November 1928, 44–5; November 1929, 538.

147. AL, AL Minute Book, AGM, 14 June 1929, 2.

148. The Duke of Sutherland, ‘The Air League’, in The Air Annual of the British Empire, ed. Cyril G. Burge (London: Gale & Polden, 1929), 41.

149. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 22 October 1924, 5.

150. AL, AL Minute Book, AGM, 19 July 1928, 4.

151. Flight, 28 June 1928, 517.

152. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 21 January 1929, 1; 20 March 1929, 1.

153. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 15 December 1932, 1.

154. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 4 May 1933, 2.

155. Hampshire Telegraph, 5 July 1918, 7.

156. NMM, MSY/6/2/5, NLAR 1916, 27–8.

157. The London Archives ((TLA) formerly London Metropolitan Archives), LCC/PC/CHA/04/039, Navy League Overseas Relief Fund, The Navy League Overseas Relief Fund, 1916–1929: A Report, 3.

158. Mary Conley, ‘ “Faithful unto Death”: Commemorating Jack Cornwell’s Service in the Battle of Jutland’, in Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War, ed. James E. Kitchen, Alisa Miller and Laura Rowe (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 68–9; The Times, 10 February 1917, 3.

159. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 14 August 1914, 1.

160. An organisation founded by Major James Gildea in the mid-1880s to assist the widows and children of serving officers. The Times, 22 December 1886, 5.

161. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 18 February 1915, 1; TNA, AIR 2/60/24202/18, Offer of Air Force Families Relief Fund, Letter from General H.T. Arbuthnot to the Air Ministry, 11 June 1918, 1.

162. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 9 May 1919, 4; 13 June 1919, 3–4; 9 December 1919, 2.

163. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 1 June 1920, 2; 15 October 1920, 2.

164. The Aerial League Bulletin, January 1919, 1.

165. Noel-Baker, Private Manufacture of Armaments, 290.

166. Noel-Baker, Private Manufacture of Armaments, 293.