Noel Skelton

Noel Skelton
Skelton,c. 1924
Member of Parliament forCombined Scottish Universities
In office 1931–1935
Member of Parliament forPerth
In office 1924–1931
Preceded by	Robert MacGregor Mitchell
Succeeded by	Lord Scone
Personal details
Born	1 July 1880 Hermitage of Braid,Edinburgh
Died	22 November 1935 (aged 55) Edinburgh, Scotland
Political party	Unionist Party
Parent(s)	Sir John Skelton Anne Adair
Education	Glenalmond College
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh Christ Church, Oxford
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch/service	British Army
Rank	Major
Unit	Scottish Horse
Battles/wars	World War I Gallipoli Campaign Macedonian front Western Front

Archibald Noel Skelton(1 July 1880 – 22 November 1935) was a ScottishUnionistpolitician, journalist and intellectual.

Early life

The son ofSir John SkeltonKCBLLD,Skelton was born on 1 July 1880 atHermitage of Braidin Edinburgh and was educated atGlenalmond College,theUniversity of Edinburghand atChrist Church, Oxford,to which he won a history scholarship. He was placed in the Second Class in the School of Modern History in 1902 and in 1906 he was called to theScottish Barand therefore joined theFaculty of Advocates.Skelton was respected as a lawyer, but he dealt mainly with divorce cases and those involving disputed wills. In 1920, he was appointed Junior Counsel to thePost Officeand to the Board ofInland Revenuein 1921. In theFirst World War,Skelton served with theScottish Horseas aLieutenant,Captainand latterly aMajorinGallipoli,Salonikaand France, where he was seriously wounded in the last weeks of the war.

Political career

Skelton first stood forParliamentat thesecond general election of 1910,but he lost theEast Perthshire Divisionto hisLiberalopponent. Despite his defeat, Skelton remained active in politics, speaking frequently from Unionist platforms across Scotland. He was opposed toIrish Home Rule,but he was more progressive on issues likeland reform,industrial relationsand the use of thereferendum.At the end of the Great War, Skelton stood aside and allowed the Coalition candidate in East Perthshire to be elected unopposed. However, he was electedMember of Parliamentfor the newPerthDivision in 1922, although he lost the constituency a year later to a Liberal.

Constructive conservatism

Skelton was a talented journalist and wrote frequently forThe Spectator,including four articles in 1923 under the heading "Constructive Conservatism".These lively articles set out his political philosophy—chiefly the pursuit of a property-owning democracy, the division of land into small-holdings, co-partnership and share options to improve industrial relations and finally the use of referendums to resolve disputes between the House of Commons and House of Lords—as well as urge the Unionists to compete with Labour on more typically socialist issues like pensions and housing. The fourSpectatorarticles were republished in 1924 as a pamphlet, which had a lasting influence, particularly among younger Tory MPs.Ben Jackson, a historian at theUniversity of Oxford,suggests that Skelton's views may have been influenced byHilaire Belloc,particularly the views expounded inThe Servile State.

YMCA

Skelton was re-elected for Perth in 1924 and again in 1929. He quickly struck up friendships with English Conservative MPs such asAnthony Eden,Harold Macmillan,Robert Boothby,John BuchanandOliver Stanleyand became the intellectual leader of a parliamentary grouping dubbed the YMCA by cynical older MPs. The group lobbied to make sure that Prime MinisterStanley Baldwinresisted the influence of reactionary elements in the Conservative Party and instead implemented progressive legislation. Baldwin was sympathetic and it was soundings with the YMCA that prevented Baldwin backing a controversial Political Levy Bill that would have had disastrous consequences for industrial relations in the United Kingdom. Skelton also wrote several articles forThe Spectator,theQuarterly Reviewand theEnglish Review.

Scottish Office

Memorial to Archibald Noel Skelton, old churchyard, Loch Leven, Kinross

Skelton switched to theScottish Universitiesconstituency in 1931 and was returned unopposed. That same year he was appointed ParliamentaryUnder-Secretary of State for Scotlandwith responsibility for health, housing and education.

By 1935 Skelton wasterminally ill with cancerand after several weeks in a nursing home he died in Edinburgh, aged 55, on 22 November 1935. The declaration for the Scottish Universities constituency was made three days later and Skelton was re-elected posthumously.

Skelton was cremated and his ashes were buried inDean Cemeterywith those of his sister. A separate memorial lies in the old churchyard inKinrosson the edge of Loch Leven.

Influence

Skelton had once been seen as a potential Conservative leader and certainly as a senior Cabinet minister. Although he was quickly forgotten among the wider public, Harold Macmillan wrote in his memoirs that Skelton's influence "on politics and political thinking must have grown steadily year by year". His thinking on property ownership as the fundamental basis of modern conservatism proved particularly attractive and Anthony Eden revived Skelton's phrase "a property-owning democracy" as a political slogan at the Conservative Party conference in 1946. Macmillan then used it as the basis of the house-building boom in the 1950s.

Macmillan's successor as Prime Minister,Sir Alec Douglas-Home,owed his early political career to Skelton, having been his PPS from 1931 to 1935.

References

• Green, E.H.H.,Ideologies of Conservatism(Oxford 2002)
• Thorpe, D.R.,Alec Douglas-Home(London 1996)
• Thorpe, D.R.,Eden(London 2003)
• Torrance, David,Noel Skelton and the Property-Owning Democracy(Biteback 2010)
• Torrance, David,The Scottish Secretaries(Birlinn 2006)
• Tweedsmuir, Lady,John Buchan By His Wife and Friends(London 1947)
• Young, Kenneth,Sir Alec Douglas-Home(London 1970)

External links

• Hansard1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by Noel Skelton
• Let us at least give house-room to property tax idea–The Herald9 November 2006
• Prices on the up but homes ideal has its downside–Edinburgh Evening News16 November 2006